Whenever we enter into a conversation about God and prayer, it’s helpful to remind ourselves that despite what some religion’s would have us believe, the Creator or Initiating Consciousness that created of our universe, the Ground of Being we refer to as God, is in fact, Ultimate Mystery. Thus, the concepts in this article are my thoughts and ideas, not absolute truth.
I do not believe that anyone knows for certain who God is, what God is, what God believes, or what God does or does not like. And that includes me. The thoughts I’m about to share with you are not about faith. They are not about religious beliefs. These are my ideas about God and prayer. They reflect where I am in my spiritual journey.
If these ideas make sense to you, I hope you can use them to deepen your spirituality. If they don’t, let them go. When talking about God, one understanding of Ultimate Mystery will not fit everyone. And because God is Ultimate Mystery, it never will.
In the first century, people had “God experiences” and they talked about those personal experiences using words and worldviews that were commonly understood and accepted at the time.
We now live in the 21st century and our worldviews are radically different from those of the 1st century. Through the science of evolution we now know that everything in creation is evolving and “becoming” something new. Therefore it makes sense that our human understanding of God should also be undergoing change and evolving.
If we resist that notion, then we are most likely stuck in an authoritative religious belief that speaks of religious certainty or absolute truth; a belief that is best left under the heading of faith, not absolute certainty. So lets take a look at some of the ways we might define God, and prayer, using more modern, scientifically literate, 21st Century worldviews.
For example, if God is incarnate in all of Creation, and the “evolutionary impulse to “become” is also incarnate in all of creation, then it would make sense that the “spirit” of God, could be referred to as the “evolutionary impulse to “become”.
The Goals And Purpose Of The Evolutionary Impulse To “Become”
Since the goal of evolution appears to be the creation of life, consciousness, and greater complexity created through cooperation, and the purpose of evolution appears to be the creation of increased beauty, truth, and goodness, then it makes sense that our human prayers should focus on those goals and purposes.
Given that we are created in God’s image and have the same pure self-reflective consciousness to create form that God used to create our Universe, then it makes sense that we are co-creators with God or the Creator. For example, we use our consciousness to think of a bridge, and then we create the form called a bridge——the same bridge that we first created in our pure self-reflective consciousness.
Since evolution is impersonal, God’s grace in the Universe could be defined as the evolutionary spirit or impulse to evolve and “become” incarnate in all of creation. To say that a different way, God’s grace would simply be the ability for us to evolve or “become” whatever we can imagine and then co-create.
This leads me to conclude that if we truly are co-creators with God, and the evolutionary impulse to “become” is impersonal, then the Creator, or Initiating Consciousness, has no ability to offer compassion, unconditional love, healing, or in any way “come down” and influence things here on this planet. Through the evolutionary impulse to “become”, the Creator gave “us” the ability to do those things!
If we want compassion and unconditional love to exist on this planet, then we have to create them. If we want healing to exist, on this planet, then again, we will have to create the conditions for healing to take place. I find it instructive to remember that Jesus never asked God to heal, He healed those who needed healing.
I know these ideas and concepts are new and probably feel radical. What I would encourage you to do however is to think what it might mean if I’m right. For example if you want compassion and unconditional love to exist as a created “forms” on this planet, it would be your responsibility to create them. If you want grace to exist as a created “form” on this planet, you would have to enable and support the conditions needed for “becoming” and “evolution” to happen. You and I would need to support and embrace change.
Continuing this line of thinking, if you want to eliminate the “forms” called hunger, violence, and suffering from our planet, then it would be your responsibility to eliminate them. Asking God, or praying to God for those things would literally be praying to ourselves.
Before you reject these ideas out of hand, I would ask that you think about them for while. Then if they still do not make sense to you, you have my blessings to let them go. I respect your right to believe in “God” whatever way makes sense to you. But if these ideas do make sense to you, I hope that they will deepen your spirituality and help you “become” and “evolve” into a more compassionate person, not simply a person that does compassion or waits for God to somehow bestow compassion.
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