Concerning Theism
I’ve recently been asked by several friends about my conception of the divine, and how I maintain my faith in God as a theist, philosopher, and intellectual.
Many of my Mormon friends who experience a faith crisis or faith transition often turn to atheism. There’s a saying among the post-Mormon community, “No one makes atheists the way Mormonism makes atheists.” It makes me smile. For better or worse, Mormons tend to make such strong binary truth claims that when any aspect of the proposition becomes questionable the whole shelf collapses. It shouldn’t be surprising that binary claims often lead to binary conclusions.
For me, the world is more than binary. It’s peculiar and queer. Sometimes things are true, sometimes things are false. Sometimes things are true and false, and sometimes things are neither true or false. The lines between existence and non-existence are fuzzy. The distinction between fiction and reality may blur. The space that separates you and I is ambiguous. Categories bleed into one another. The point is, we live in a strange world, and things aren’t always what they seem. Any claims about theism and atheism should be accompanied with a healthy dose of epistemic humility. I trust there is far more that we don’t know than we do know.
I admit my conception of the Divine is not something discussed frequently in LDS spaces, but it is a conception that is undeniably Mormon, and by extension Christian. Mostly, my God is the projection of a Queer Mormon Transhumanist—a projection I trust will change over time.
Without further adieu, here are some thoughts concerning God.
Esthetics
Esthetics refers to how things appear. You and I might both be looking at a red cup, but I see the cup as magenta and you see it as maroon. The color of the cup depends on perception which is subject to a host of factors: biology, light, bias, culture, environment, conditioning. Similarly, esthetics depend on perception. How something appears to you will depend on your subjective existence.
I often refer to the esthetics of God as a way of putting emphasis on cultural, biased, subjective perceptions we project onto God. For example, Heavenly Father is one esthetic of God—the most common esthetic of God in the LDS tradition. Heavenly Father is not God. Heavenly Father is just how most LDS Mormons talk about God, which will also affect their thoughts and actions. Esthetic matter. For me, I couldn’t see past the past the patriarchal and androcentric esthetic of Heavenly Father that I turned to atheism and apathy.
On the other hand, Heavenly Mother is an esthetic of God that I have taken comfort in on more than one occasion. The esthetics of Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father tell us far more about ourselves and our religious worship than it does any God that does or does not exist. The rise of Heavenly Mother is not simply a matter of Heavenly Mother revealing Herself in any superstitious sense, but it is a product of the daughters of Mormonism reaching out for a feminine esthetic of God that they can identify with. The daughters of Mormonism cannot see themselves in Heavenly Father’s image, and if all children are made in the image of God the story’s consistency is in question. Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father are reflections of our congregations. In this sense, esthetics of God function as a Rorschach test.
Esthetics may have little to do with how things actually are. For example, Heavenly Father as an esthetic tells us a lot about the patriarchal and androcentric projections of divinity, godhood, which are reflected in our earthly practices and rituals. It makes sense women aren’t ordained to the priesthood. That power is the power to act in the name of God himself, so why would a woman be an equitable part of a masculine priesthood power? Masculine projections that dominate the discourse of our Gods are not telling us anything about any actual existing God, it’s telling us about ourselves and our own short comings.
Another example might include the rejection of homosexuals by those who have created a God that hates “the gays.” This tells us nothing about an actual God that may or may not exist—this tells us these people hate “the gays” enough to create a God made in their image to sooth the existential angst that comes with confronting one’s own insecurities. If your God hates homosexuals, it’s because you hate homosexuals, not God. I, for one, am not interested in creating Gods that use hate as a basis of salvation.
The problem is most Gods are created under a patriarchal, androcentric, white, cisgender, heterosexual lens, and many of these God have been found wanting. Likewise, in my experience, the numinal, immaterial, unreachable God has been found wanting. New esthetics and new Gods are in order.
Epistemology
I’m skeptical of those who claim sure knowledge of God. It’s a claim often made in epistemic arrogance, escapism, or cowardice. As a philosopher, I have a hard time taking sure knowledge claims about God seriously. As a queer feminist, I have a hard time taking patriarchal and androcentric truth claims about God seriously. As a religious transhumanist, to know God is to become God. In short, theosis. God must move from the numinal to the phenomenological if we are going to examine God with any epistemic seriousness.
The way I see it the only way to know if God exists is to assign God a set of particulars, test the hypothesis, and become said God. Mystery solved. Easy enough. Well, not really. The trick is assigning our visionary projections of the Gods the right particulars. If we are aspiring toward a figment of the imagination we should be very cautious about what particulars we assign to God—in a sense, be careful what you wish for because it might come true. Our imaginations have a way of manifesting tangible realities.
Fictionalism
I see religion is a mishmash of legend, myth, truth, desires, fiction, ritual, and community. Some people claim that engaging in religion as an inspired piece of fiction would diminish its power, but I disagree. As a transhumanist, I think it is imperative that we move away from superstitious interpretations of salvation and into a pragmatic engagement of salvation. If we want to existence in any sort of heaven it will be a heaven of our creation which requires faith, works, and grace just like other theistic traditions.
I am somewhat of a fictionalist, instrumentalist, and certainly a pragmatist. As a fictionalist, I think we should cautiously embrace the power of fiction. For example, lets say there is no God. Even so, it cannot be denied that the fiction of Gods created have inspired some of the most great, beautiful, and terrible acts in the history of our species. Even if God doesn’t exist, the idea of God alone manifests tangible realities. We act, create, read, baptize, build, recite, pray, kill, kiss, govern, breathe, love, live and die all in the name of God!
Living in a fiction of our own creation is one of the most human things we do, whether your fiction includes the Gods or not. Even Atheism as the rejection of the Gods being worshiped, still functions within a system of creating and destroying Gods. No one escapes the realties of fiction.
I will admit, ficitonalism is dangerous—the most powerful tools we have are dangerous. One way to increase the success of our fictionalist manifestations is to be honest about what we are doing through awareness. Ignorance will be the death of us all. It’s like having a loaded gun to a toddler. It is imperative that our imaginations direct us toward useful and benevolent fictions.
Instrumentalism
As an instrumentalist, I see our projections and esthetics of Gods as instruments. We ought to use these projections to reflect on what it is we want, we are, we desire. God as a tool of instrumentalism has the potential to manifest something truly sublime, even godly. We live in a beautiful world, and much of that has been manifested in fiction while using instruments of our making.
As a religious transhumanist, the idea of instrumentalism could also be seen as technological—not in a reductive sense, but a philosophical sense. I define technology as a tool or piece of knowledge applied for a practical purpose. This is far beyond iPhones, laptops, cameras, electricity, printing presses, or even spectacles. Fictionalism itself becomes a piece of technology created and used by humans to achieve a specific goal. In this view, religion becomes a social technology to inspire, motivate, and direct us toward great acts. Priesthood power becomes a social technology used by those doing God’s work.
I imagine we the capacity to create much more sophisticated pieces of technology to improve the human condition. One such instrument is God, or better put, our esthetics of God. Without a benevolent trajectory on the horizon I fear we would steer off course, even ignite our own extinction. With that in mind, this harkens back to previous issues concerning esthetics and fiction. We must imagine better Gods, futures, and visions that amplify the most compassionate and loving aspirations of the human experience.
Evolution
Our perceptions of the Gods we worship and constantly changing. What I speculate about God today will change in the future, and that’s how it should be. Our projections of God should evolve upon further light and knowledge, and no God should be exempt from thought criticism and scrutiny.
As a Mormon, I see evolution as something exciting and faith-affirming rather than antithetical to theism. In Mormonism, our aspirations are not simply to be like God, but to join God, live in God’s presence, and be Gods ourselves. For me, this is one of the most profoundly beautiful doctrines in Mormon theology. God isn’t this unknowable epiphany. God is a product of evolution, just like you. God was once a human, like us, and we can become Gods too. As the story goes, there are Gods that ever evolve in worlds without end in a state of eternal progression. In this sense, the Mormon esthetic of God is not only compatible with evolution, but dependent on evolution. Though this idea may not be discussed regularly in LDS spaces, this is an inherently Mormon conception of God.
The God I worship is a Mormon esthetic of God. Ask another Mormon and I’m sure you’ll get a different opinion, but from my Mormon perspective God is an evolved community, not simply a singleton, that has transcended into godhood through love, intelligence, and compassion. This God is personal, individual, and communal. This community of super-intelligent, super-compassionate evolved beings is material and phenomenological, meaning God is something we can become and know. God in this regard is individualist and plural in nature. God is reflected in many diverse parts, but all maintains a cohesive oneness—like the body of Christ. The community of Gods that composes the concept of God is ever-change, dynamic, evolving, and progressing. This is not an “omni” God. Terms like omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence cannot be applied in a strict sense to the Mormon God otherwise there would be no eternal progression.
Humanity
As the scriptures say, we are all created in God’s image, and I take the concept seriously. The image of God is far more diverse than previous androcentric representations, and it seems the further a life form evolves into a greater state of knowledge, consciousness, and awareness, the more godlike that life becomes. God is every hope, dream, and desire that we might transcend our meager existence, and into our supreme selves through an increase of love and the radical expansion of our intellectual capacities.
It is not our destiny to blur into a homogenous white, cisgender, heterosexual, faceless society. Quite the contrary, our diversity should be celebrated as part of our godly attributes. God is incomplete without us when we are coeternal. It seems our diversity is required for humanity to truly display the all-encompassing image of God. The image of God is in your reflection, and I’m convinced that image is never more complete than when we unite in all our diversities to lift one another into a transcendent exaltation.
This is the esthetic that inspires me. This is the community I want to transcend with. This is the God worthy of my worship.
Beyond Rationality
Some will mock me for maintaining any faith in theism, but even so, I maintain. For me, faith is the only thing that makes sense after secularism, atheism, and nihilism. Proof in the miraculous only comes after belief that proof is possible. But in the journals of academia, how do I cite a feeling? How do I cite faith? They say my feelings, my faith, are unreliable confirmation biases, but to me, what I feel is the only thing I really know. All other knowledge I might gain depends on my subjectivity, biases, and feelings. I cannot deny my feelings any more than I can deny my logic. I have a feeling that tells me there is more to my existence than I currently understand, and it comes by a power greater than myself. Perhaps it is faith in those feelings which will be the pathway to proof. If priesthood power is the ultimate placebo, why not put all our faith in it? If we want the power of God on earth, why not believe it enough to act like it? If we want God to exist, why not become it?
I choose to believe in a God—my Mormon God—because it brings me hope. God inspires me to be my best self. When my finite reasoning has reached its limits, I trust in my God, my feelings, my biases. My biases are not something to be condemned, but something to be reconciled with other intersubjective realities.
Imagination
My atheist friends will often joke with me that they just believe in one less God than I do, which is true, but my response is their atheism will always be limited by my imagination. So long as I can keep imagining, reworking, and creating Gods, you’ll have to keep disproving them. We create new Gods, predicated on old Gods in a symbiotic cycle of becoming—its almost compulsive. As William James said, “Religion will drive irreligion to the wall.” I tend to agree, the religious drive is not one to be casually dismissed. The existential angst that persists within humanity calls out for a God, a trajectory to aspire to. What that feeling is and where is comes from I cannot say with any certainty, but I’m confident it is a drive that will persist beyond atheism.
Instead of trying to rid ourselves of our Godly desires, let’s harness that passion and direct it towards useful goals. You might ask, what is useful? Good question. I’m not entirely certain, but I suspect usefulness and rightness has a lot to do with love. Our imagination will lead the way which begs us to consider, what is it we really want? What lurks within the human heart and mind? What do we want to want, and for better and worse what are we will to do to get what we want? The answers to these questions will tell help us imagine the kinds of Gods that are worthy of our worship and emulation.
Some might be inclined to contend that I’m not a “real theist” that theist must necessarily include ridiculous or even epistemically unknowable truth claims about a supernatural immaterial being. If that is the case, we’ll have to simply disagree. If being a theist means I have to throw out logic and rationality in favor of superstition you are perpetuating a harmful view of theism. I believe in a God, and that is the definition of theism. You may not like or agree with how, why, and what I believe in, but that doesn’t make me any less theistic as the next person who believes in God.
I concede, the God I imagine is likely not an actual God that exists outside my imagination. I suspect if I truly knew anything about an actual God, I would be God herself. However, in the meantime, I trust my imagination has the capacity to manifest Godly realities. If that is the case, the line between fiction and reality begin to blur, and the question is begged, if belief in a fiction leads to a reality at what point did belief become knowledge? When exactly was fiction made real? What was an instrument of imagination a tangible reality? I honestly don’t know, but these are the sorts of question we should be asking. This is the path a more robust, thoughtful, and substantive theism.
