The Problem With Theism
Thoughts of a Secular Buddhist and Non-Theistic Hesychast
“And there are followers of still other paths who think everything depends on a creator…. Those who think like this are incapable of seeing that there is no self in dharmas, and for them there is no liberation.” — The Lankavatara Sutra
Theistic ways of expressing mystical experiences of ultimate reality are inherently flawed insofar as they predicate things of “God” or the Absolute that don’t actually apply. To say that God is a Being or is Good — or whatever else — is to miss the mark. The ultimate reality is not anything that can be predicated of things that we know. The truth lies in the apophatic method of negation. When you personify the Ultimate and make it into a thinking, caring, loving entity that designed the universe and has a plan for us, you’ve already fallen into heresy.
That which is Absolute, which preceded space-time reality, cannot be the Cause of the Universe. It cannot relate to “creation” as a “Creator” because causality is a concept that only makes sense within the framework of space-time. This thing collided with that thing in space at a particular moment in time and caused it to move. The mother causally preceded the child in time. But that which is beyond space-time can have no such causal relation to things in space-time because, insofar as It transcends time, it must be omnipresent and eternal. But even that statement is bound to be misunderstood…because omnipresent implies that it is everywhere while eternal implies that it is forever in the past and forever in the future but the reality is that It is beyond space-time. It isn’t really everywhere and always any more than it is nowhere and never. The categories simply don’t apply.
Consciousness, logic, and morality, as we know them, cannot apply to It. We evolved minds that operate via compare-and-contrast analyses. We see things that are different and things that are similar and apply our rational faculties in order to understand them. So, the one and the many are both essential to how we understand the world. That which is beyond space-time can have no distinctions within Its nature. Space and time are the relational categories necessary to differentiate things. If all that exists is everywhere-always (occupying a single moment and infinite location eternally), then Everything is One. It is Absolutely Simple in the Neo-Platonist (or Augustinian) sense. It is most basic, like the smallest subatomic particle, and cannot be divided into component parts. It is a singularity. But Its absolute simplicity (singularity) might as well be an absolute diversity because what does it even mean to say “look at this one thing” if there is no “something else” to contrast it against? The single particular is meaningless without other particulars to contrast it against. The category is empty of meaning without the diversity of the particular things that fit into that category.
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts and My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.” — Isaiah 55:8
And morality is particular to a species. Human morality is just that — human morality. As members of the same species, we share a common human nature and a common set of values that is particular to our shared nature. We experience pleasure and delight in it, yet we recoil from pain and dislike suffering. We sympathize with our fellow beings whom, we presume, also enjoy pleasure and suffer from pain as we do. We do not randomly beat people with sticks because we would not like it if someone did that to us. Sympathy is essential to our code of ethics. Now, the Absolute (“God”) exists outside space-time and did not evolve inside a physical body with the ability to feel sensations as good or bad, pleasant or painful — so “God,” by nature, can’t suffer and, therefore, can’t “suffer with” others (sympathy and compassion both, etymologically, mean to “suffer with” and we can feel another’s pain by putting ourselves in the other’s shoes). The Absolute can’t relate to sentient beings within this world. “God” can have nothing like morality or ethics in the human sense. Whatever “morality” the Deity might have must be peculiar to Its nature — and, hence, altogether different from human morality. Man, as a moral animal, can have absolutely no ethical point of contact with “God.”
This Ultimate Reality that is frequently spoken of apophatically must not be mistaken for being a “personal God,” “benevolent Father,” “wise craftsman,” or “divine lawmaker.” When one is “alone with the Alone,” experiencing the ultimate nature of reality as it is, it can only be explained apophatically, which is why it’s best understood as emptiness (śūnyatā) in the Buddhist sense. Mystics like to wax poetic and use metaphorical language that personifies and humanizes the Ultimate. But the Ultimate isn’t a thing. It isn’t a person. It isn’t conscious. It isn’t a phenomenon. It doesn’t know you exist. It doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t care how you behave. It can’t and won’t punish you for bad behavior nor reward you for good behavior. It doesn’t know or care what you believe.
“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” — 1 John 4:8
The Ultimate Truth is emptiness. Emptiness, though, is openness. What is the open seat but the empty one? And this receptivity feels very much like pure love, so it’s only natural for mystics to describe it as a lover because that expresses the emotions that they associate with It. Nothing feels very much like something. Pure nothing feels very much like unconditional love. But this Emptiness, as the Ultimate Truth, isn’t the sort of void that leads to nihilism. Instead, It is the sort of empty or open space where creativity can flourish. It is the blank canvas on which one can paint. It is the open door through which one may freely pass. It is the womb through which one is born again, regenerated unto new life.
“Feeling, thought, and choice, indeed, consciousness itself — are all [only emptiness]. [Emptiness] is the original character of everything: not born, not annihilated, not tainted, not pure, neither waxing nor waning. In emptiness, there is no form, no feeling, no thought, no choice, and no consciousness — no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no thoughts, no sensations.” — The Heart Sutra
In a certain sense, atheism technically comes much closer to properly describing reality than theism does, though atheists do tend to fall into nihilism. This error is the result of rationally grasping the truth in part without having understood it through experiential insight. There is something spiritual to be grasped by the perception of emptiness as the Ultimate Truth. There is a unity of being that begins to emerge from emptiness, a perception that all beings that are aware of their existence and experience pain or pleasure are in the same boat — indeed, they are essentially the same. The man and the cat are both, in spite of their fundamental nature as empty, nevertheless experiencing the world and suffering or enjoying pleasure in like manner. We have two points of contact here: the first in our shared emptiness and the second in our shared experience. But, as empty, we just are the Ultimate Reality. The differentiation between I and thou is illusory. So the Ultimate Reality, though not a lawgiver, does have ethical implications. How can I relate to you as an enemy if we aren’t really different? But this idea can be hard to explain in words because it’s really a perception that comes from mystical experience more than a rational proposition, though I do think it can be logically demonstrated as well.
“I have said, Ye are gods and all of you are children of the Most High.” — Psalm 82:6
Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon, the universe becoming self-aware. But we who experience consciousness, sensation, and emotion are ultimately empty. What am I? I am not my body. I am not my thoughts. I am not my behavior or actions. You cannot pinpoint the soul or “essence” of a man because “there is no ‘there’ there.” The person is indefinable. If we metaphorically call the Absolute (the Ultimate Truth) “God,” and, as the mystics and philosophers assert, we can only really describe It in apophatic terms — without form, neither good nor evil, beyond life and death, etc. — then the same is true of the individual “soul” or self. Its nature lies in emptiness and is vague and indefinable. This means, of course, that God and self are fundamentally identical. But this also means that they are malleable. As I said, emptiness is openness. God and self are but formless clay to be fashioned according to the mystic’s creative will.
But all of reality is also empty/open. Reality, to a certain extent, is what we make it. The dead trees by the river can be fashioned into a log cabin. The river rock can be transformed into a gravel driveway. The copper from the mines can be collected and turned into wires to carry electricity to the lights. We can make whatever we want of the world around us! We can make of our neighbors either enemies or friends. We can make of our work a chore or a hobby. And regardless of what we were in the past, we can make of ourselves something better in the future. We can pick up the clay of our “self” and shape it however we like — we can make our self into a martial artist, a musician, a saint, a philosopher, a role model, an economist, a programmer, a scholar, a linguist, a carpenter, a painter, a gardener, a farmer, a lover, a writer, a poet, an athlete, etc. Who we are today and tomorrow does not have to be entirely the same as who we were yesterday — indeed, it will not and cannot be the same.
If we make any positive assertions about ultimate reality, it must be understood that we are speaking entirely by analogy or metaphor. The positive statements are, at best, poetic. If we speak of “God” as loving or caring, it is like saying that the wind is whispering or the leaves are dancing. If we say that God spoke to me, it is analogous to saying a work of art called out to me. What is experienced as divine union within the hesychastic tradition of Eastern Christianity is the same as what is experienced as emptiness within the context of vipassana/zen in the Buddhist tradition. However, I think it’s much safer to use the non-theistic terminology of Buddhism to describe the reality that is experienced here because the use of theistic language will most certainly be interpreted in a problematic way. Theistic language with its poetic anthropomorphism and romanticism can sometimes accurately convey the emotional content of the experience of ultimate truth but the use of mythological language unnecessarily lends itself to being misunderstood, whereas the pure apophaticism of Buddhism more accurately conveys the nature of reality at its core.
