Man Seeks God

The Literature of the Heretics, pt. 3

This might be considered a bit of a sidebar in relation to this present series, which has focused on my rebuttals regarding two very specific books by two very specific heretics: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, and God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. I do have every intention of getting back to those books, but I want to use this one post to address another work that I have just read, by another heretic I have learned to pity.

The book is Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine, and the heretic is a talented writer (but terrible theologian) named Eric Weiner. Weiner is, for all intents and purposes, an agnostic, which may seem odd, considering I have already labeled him a heretic. I stand by the label; however, as I believe that this particular brand of agnosticism may amount to one of the most powerful, dangerous, and prevalent forms of heresy.

Reading the book wasn’t my idea. I was far more focused on the literature of the “true” heretics—the well known God-haters, who have provided me no lack of material. But the book presented itself before me in the form of a Christmas gift from my grandmother this year, and I couldn’t help but read it when she gave me her reason for the purchase: “I thought you might like to argue with it,” she said. Who can deny that this is one of the most perfect reasons a grandmother has ever thought to give her grandchild anything—a devout Christian grandmother gives her devout Christian grandchild a book, not for edification or entertainment, but that he might have the glorious challenge of argument. If only all 86 year old women were as enlightened.

So I read it, happily seeking the aforementioned argument, but I admit that from the very beginning I was disappointed. I found in the pages of this book, much to the dismay of the inveterate iconoclast within, that there is nothing here to argue with; nothing tangible enough to fight. Even thinking of taking up arms against the whimsical search for religion in this book is as futile as taking a sword to the body of a ghost; no matter how perfect or true the strikes, one is really only ever swinging at the air.

For the record, the book is the account of a young agnostic who, faced with a medical emergency, is confronted with the question, “Have you found your god yet?” The question intrigues him and inspires him to travel the globe, investigating the pros and cons of some of the world’s most popular and intriguing religions. Every priest, rabbi, shaman and monk is given fair treatment; every faith is treated as equally valuable; every religion seems to have an even weight of pros and cons. In the end (at the risk of ruining it), the conclusion is just as non-committal as the search: “So, instead of looking for my God, I must invent Him. Not exactly invent. Construct. Assemble. His foundation is Jewish, but His support beams are Buddhist. He has the heart of Sufism, the simplicity of Taoism, the generosity of the Franciscans, the hedonistic streak of the Raelians...” and so on. Hopefully you get the picture.

This is, roughly, the content of the book. How does one possibly argue with something so lacking in any real value or weight? Or, a better question, where do I even start? So it is not the content of this book that I am addressing, but the lack thereof; it is not the theology (or even lack of theology) that I find concerning, but the overall sense that theology does not matter. It is not that the author did not find truth; it is that he treated truth as if it does not matter. As far as I’m concerned, it is not orthodoxy or heterodoxy that proves the state of society, but the question of whether or not society understands that things such as orthodoxy and heterodoxy so much as exist in the first place. Chesterton once said that “there are some people—and I am one of them—who think that the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy’s numbers, but still more important to know the enemy’s philosophy. We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether, in the long run, anything else affects them.”

What I mean is simply this: what could be more important than the question of God? And why would anyone embark on such an absurd quest as to find “his” god—as if there is some unique deity awaiting him in the heavenly realms, a specially tailored, perhaps genetically altered, cosmic being perfectly suited to his tastes and proclivities. One cannot help but understand the sad truth of this question: though the title of the book may bear the name God, complete with capital “G”, the book only ever sets its sights on the small “g” gods. The author is concerned, not with truth, but with perception. Not with theology, but with personal fulfillment.

The question the author faces is one I hope no one in my audience can relate to. “Have you found your god?” What a difference a word makes! Who would have thought that the inclusion of a little pronoun like “your” could turn a  question of eternal importance into a question of abysmal impotence. A non-question, really. It can turn the most important question in the universe into a question that could almost have no less impact. (The purist, it might be noted, will take the argument a step further, reminding us that, even without the “your” it is an improper question, as it is God who does the finding, but I’m not prepared to entertain those hopeless theologians here)

Suffice it to say, to find one’s own “god” is not to find God. To suggest that one may search the panoply of the gods of the religions of the world in order to find the one deity fitting one’s personal hopes and expectations is to neuter the very concept of deity beyond all recognition. In fact, could there be a more powerful rejection of God then to believe that one could fold him up and carry him around in the neat little box of our expectations? Why would anyone even want to seek such a weak creature?

But this is precisely what happens here. The author strives to create a perfectly-balanced presentation of a number of different faiths, showing mostly sympathetic images of the various “gods” sought by men all over the world, each chapter ending with the same indecisive shrug—a quick “this isn’t quite what I was looking for”, and a “let’s try another one.” It goes without saying that the search is doomed from the start.

So what have I brought out of all of this?

First: I will gladly say that I would rather read Dawkins or Hitchens any day of the week, for those men may be classic heretics, but at least there is some conviction in their heresy. At least they aren’t wandering the globe in a vain, self-centered search for the “-ism” that best matches their personalities. At least they give me something to argue against.

Second: My own faith is reaffirmed, as I am reminded that my hope is placed in the “Word made flesh”, who came to us in Grace and in Truth. I find my spiritual comfort in Christianity’s grace—it’s devotion to a perfect love that is unconditional and unending—and I find my intellectual comfort in Christianity’s truth—it’s assertion that the one who has found the Word has found the truth; a truth that is absolute and unchanging; a truth that frees one from the pursuit of religion and sets him on the path toward true freedom.