Thinking about God again

 By *Jomo Sanga Thomas

(“Plain Talk” Dec. 20, 2024)

“A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?” — Jeremiah 5:30 -31.

Except for the days when I imagined a socialist world in my lifetime, no subject area has engaged and arrested my mind more than religion. A new and better world is still possible, necessary, and inevitable, but it appears that this effort will be much more long-term and protracted than I imagined when social consciousness arrested, detained, and condemned me to a “life sentence” (Sulle’s coinage) of commitment to struggle and commitment for SVG.

This fascinating journey has taken me far and wide. I have immersed myself in the Bible, reading it cover to cover. I can best describe it as a foreboding text that makes one want to scream, cry, shrug, acclaim, proclaim, deny, and wonder.

Why would an all-powerful God who knows and sees all things, even our most secret thoughts, test us as God does with Abraham and Lot? Or order Joshua to kill all of his enemies without regard to the feeble, weak or children? Or destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, killing even innocent children? Or destroy so many human beings and countless life species with the great flood of Noah? Why is God jealous, and of whom is God jealous?

I feared maths and the sciences in high school and truly perceived them as “hard”. By the time I got to Brooklyn College, maths, biology, chemistry, physics, and geology were compulsory requirements for graduation. These subjects opened new vistas that pointed to the secrets of life and the universe. Life’s complexity and the vastness of the universe compelled one to seek more knowledge and greater understanding. And so, issues related to physics and biology grabbed my attention.

The universe is releasing its secrets fast and furious. We now know that biological scientific knowledge doubles every 18 months. Scientific research tells us that Pluto is no longer considered a planet, but stronger telescopes and more careful study have discovered hundreds of planets and other suns. Yes, the universe has more than one sun.

Life, too, has its intrigues. It can exist in extreme conditions and temperatures, such as hot springs on ocean floors or under the deepest Arctic ice.

To understand and appreciate what is coming in this century, there is no better text than John Maddox’s “What remains to be discovered”. The former editor of the world’s premiere scientific magazine, Nature, identifies new areas of discovery in physics, biology, health, intelligence, the origins of life, and the beginning and end of the universe. For me, this book sits next to Ray Kurzweil’s “Age of the Spiritual Machine” for an insightful look at what awaits us. Think artificial intelligence.

But back to religion, Karen Armstrong’s “History of God”, “The Battle for God” and “The Case for God” are all classic works that lend foundation to the biblical text. Armstrong is important because she says that the notion of the literal interpretation of the Bible as the word of God is a recent development. Armstrong tells us that earlier writers say the Bible was viewed as Logos (mind and reason) and mythos (myths).  Importantly, Armstrong argues that we may have to give up religion to find God.

Bart Erhmann’s “Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew” and “Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament” are revealing if only in so far as they point to reasons why Christianity won the battle for souls and became world dominant.

On a political level, Tariq Ali’s “Clash of Fundamentalisms” is absolutely indispensable if we are to understand the many long-standing religious conflicts and why the more radical and fundamentalist fringe in religion always seem to win battles, with the attendant loss of lives and destruction of cultural treasures. Syria is a most recent exhibit.

The books that have enthralled me in recent times, causing me to break my jogging regimen, wake me up at night, and prevent me from going to bed are Francis Collins “The Language of God” and Richard Dawkins “The God Delusion”.

Collins, the former head of the American effort to decode the genome and the National Institute of Health, attempts to show that there is no dividing line between science and religion. Collins, a scientist, says that the universe is too ordered for it not to have been designed by a superior intellect. He takes up many of the objections to “God’s design” and explains them away.

Collins fears leaving decisions, especially ethical ones, to scientists, among whom he is pre-eminent because he is mortally afraid of the scientific mind habit or compulsion to play God. Evidently, he was too arrogant to heed his own advice because during the COVID-19 plandemic, he led the charge to smear dissenting scientists and blocked their views from contending in the marketplace of ideas.

Dawkins says that natural selection, as opposed to mere chance, is responsible for the universe and life. He says that Darwinian natural selection is more easily seen in regard to living things, but he argues that the reality of the physical world also calls into question the design notion on which creationism is premised.

Apart from sharp disagreements with persons of faith, Dawkins maintains that the world is too complex to have been designed. If the universe was designed, says Dawkins, then it stands to reason that the designer (God) has to be even more complex. This begs the question of where this initial complexity originated.

All of these readings were augmented by Sam Harris’ “The End of Faith” and Basil Charles’ “From Atheism to Christianity”, Martin Amis “Koba the Dread”, a book on Stalin’s crimes, tops off a literacy journey for knowledge and information.

At the end of it all, one thing was confirmed: reading is fundamental.

This column was first published on Jan. 20, 2012.

*Jomo Sanga Thomas is a lawyer, journalist, social commentator and a former Speaker of the House of Assembly in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

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