In Informal Consideration of the Existence of God.

WELL I tell you, truly I tell you, I have been down and out of late; looked down and out, been down and out, and endured the day for the sake of the ritual only, as though there were no purpose in it at all, for me or for anyone else. Sometimes I think about God, but I have not the energy much nor the inclination. I have written in lofty strains of that lofty subject in order to match the manner with the matter, but sometimes it is more estimable and effective to speak in casual terms.

   Why think about God in the first place or the belief in God? Why should anyone wish to believe in an all powerful being? What use is it? Or why should anyone bother to wonder about such a being? Put it this way, suppose this being exists, my life is what it is regardless, and the same is true if this being does not exist. A termite's life on a dunghill is not changed in character whatsoever by the existence of the King of Britain.

   I suppose it is a question of grandeur and appreciation. Is a human being a grander thing to consider than a lump of chalk? I think so, for a human being suggests so much more; a human being can create, can communicate, can alter its appearance, can sing, and meditate, all of which subjective suggesting matters we call being a being, whereas we think of the chalk lump as objective only (perhaps mistakenly), for it is so limited and predictable. When one comes therefore to thinking upon existence itself, one is struck by the thought that the presence of God would be ennobling to it. It would be so very interesting to meet God and to witness God's knowledge and power.

   Now of course I think of God in a pantheistic light, primarily because I believe the nature of power and of knowledge is concerned with the accumulated works of existence, every structure connecting and interacting with every other. For example, the brain is the organ we identify as chiefly concerned in our thought processes, but the brain would have nothing to think about if there were not food for thought outside it, the (comparatively) dumb and brute chalk lump is a thought so far as it is a cause of a thought, when it is first an object of perception.

   I mean to say, or to ask what is a thought? Or what is it for a thing to be called itself? Certainly I realise that science takes things by measure and effects, the periodic table is admirable, fine shoulders, strong teeth, but plummet down into the classes and I know not what they say nor where I am. The earth is a speck; it is a blue marble; it is an enlarging prospect; now it is a set of storm clouds; now it is the continent of Africa; now it is desert, cities, and fields; and now I am caught in the middle of the Sudanese civil war. A pair of forceps cannot grasp more than one thing a time, nor can my mind adequately realise all the many aspects to any one thing: a nation, a metal, a proton; perhaps it is my deficiency; perhaps it is the thing's complexity. I could not restrain my thought objections in a lesson at school.

   Therefore, if the universe keeps increasing and increasing (especially the smaller and smaller it becomes, as well as the larger and larger) what is there not to say that this old and bold idea of God is not telling something of import after all, not suggestive in fact of something, whatsoever that may be. It is after all a theorising of nature based around human experience.

   What is this Hitchens rot about fantasy not needing evidence for its dismissal? Arrogance of a fantasy himself! God is a most evidenced assertion, extending from the dawn of society. The fact that cigarettes caused lung cancer did not alter his mindset a jot, but he played to a crowd who had not seen charisma meeting Orwell afore. We say we are human beings, and we occupy but a small plot of land called a body, and have all these experiences, thoughts, perception, conceits as in the case of Christopher Hitchens and his regurgitating acolyte, that buffoon Ricky Gervais, and many other matters concerned with subjectivity. Is it not a most evidential assertion to suggest, This I experience, as but a poor carbon palfrey, and what must Infinity experience, Ye God?

   This too is a very rational (forget evidential, for I have not seen a Hitchens or a Gervais propound a theory of the nature of evidence) tendency. From the pure position of base matter, of atoms, or even of elements, it is impossible to anticipate Life, human beings, and all which they entail. Yet such is the case, from this blind, inert, brute, and petty, matter springs forth life, thought, emotion, and personality. This is an unevidenced consequence, such a thing as a Hitchens or a Gervais would have us scoff at merely over tobacco and vodka, but it is THE TRUTH.

   To spring from energetic values in blind and meaningless particles to a human being is a leap beyond all evidence and beyond all logical anticipation, but it is a true leap which we all acknowledge. To spring from a human being however, a being of knowledge, power, life, and personality, to God, is not an absurd leap irreconcilable with logic or evidence. It is only to say, 'Here is one being, an imperfect being, and here is another Being, a Perfect Being.' That is as reasonable a leap as to say, 'Here is an imperfect sphere of a stone, which is lumpy, and here is a perfect sphere of a stone, and all its points are in symmetry.' Therefore I am galled by those who say this is not evidential, not rational, no no, on the contrary, a single life form, a single human being, from the perspective of material science is not evidential, not rational, certainly, and yet it is true, but such is not the case stratifying to God.

   In a moment I can disprove pluralism, assure all minds of Monism, and within but a very short time engulf the heart in the light of Theism. All agree, that is, the greatest minds in science have all agreed, Newton and Einstein, that Action at a Distance is impossible; and not impossible because it is called as much to those who think a thing is impossible merely because it is intolerable to logic (or rather, their logic) but because it is insupportable. As soon as this is granted, as well it ought to be, the theoretical position of monism is all but assured. There can be no more cant about separate bodies unique unto themselves, laws unto themselves, but on the contrary nothing can be legitimately considered in any way, or in any sense, without being regarded as a piece of a complete whole.

   Once this is understood (and it is no very difficult matter that it should be understood) then of a sudden the position of theism becomes as rational and satisfactory a position as any imaginable. When parts are only to be understood in relation to a Whole (not whole in themselves) then it becomes clear that the various subservient portions are only Contributory in their functions, and only Assistant in their purposes. Therefore the great and despairing error of those who search in vain for purpose in their little lives becomes as plain as a pikestaff; they find no purpose because they have no purpose independent of the hive.

   So taking this for sensible that it is the Whole that is the only meet and fit object of accurate meditation, the only Thing which should be named (God) and accorded a true or fulfilling purpose (its creations), of a sudden a great deal is clarified which once was misty, much is dispelled which once seemed unhappily certain, and burdens are alleviated which once seemed irremovable. Because totalities in nature (so called, though there is only one True Totality) are always generating unpredictable qualities out of predictable ingredients, such as personality out of mineral, in this tendency now called emergence, theism anticipates out of this higher and higher unification of the universe characteristics common to human beings or earthly life forms, as these represent such a manifold multiplication of existence's potential. And,  moreover, because it seems certain that the extent of this universal frame is incalculable to finite calculation, because it seems to hold in store countless surprises and contradictory frustrations, the theist will yield to its greater capacity, embrace Infinity and Being as intertwined in GOD, and  at last enter into sympathy with human history and all the effort taken therein to understand and worship the only real thing in this world, the only object deserving of a real approbation, the Lord of all Creation.