The deity dilemma

Kathleen Parker proves week in and week out that you don't have to know much to win a Pulitzer Prize.  You just have to write about it well.

The gist of her recent column: we're all praying to the same God because our brains show activity in the same place when we pray to our respective deities.  "If the whole world prays for a common good, will no good come of it?" she chastises.  "Oh ye of little faith."

As I see it, we have but three possibilities for the way things are in reality.

1. There is no God.
2. There is a God, but he didn't or doesn't communicate very well to his creatures.
3. There is a God, and he has spoken with clarity.

Atheists and the lion's share of east Asian religions plop into Category 1.  These folks make the best of it in this life by whatever pathway suits them best.  Here you'll find Bill Maher and Tiger Woods.

Ms. Parker and most of America believe in Category 2.  These folks acknowledge the God-shaped hole within their soul, but they think filling it is like deciding where to eat tonight.  "You in the mood for Texas Roadhouse or tofu.  It doesn't much matter.  It's up to you.  Whatever fills the space, as long as the space gets filled.  God didn't make it very plain, so as long as we're pretty good, we're sure to appease him (her? it?  them?)."  To quote Ms. Parker:

Different routes to the same destination...Understandably, these are not glad tidings to some. Centuries of blood have been shed for the sake of religious certitude. But transcending the notion that only some prayers are the right ones might get us closer to the enlightenment we purportedly seek...In the meantime, it would seem eminently rational to presume in our public affairs that God does not play political favorites with His creation.

Religious certitude.  These folks hold to Category 3, folks like Franklin Graham who Ms. Parker dismisses with her prize-winning prose.  They believe in the One who spoke the cosmos into existence and created man unique above all the created order because he imbued man with his likeness. 

But there are other Category 3 folks.  They shop at Caliphate and Bangs for the latest in C-4 fashions and at Bed, Bath and Beheading for well-honed cutlery.

Category 3A folk and Category 3B folk can't both be right.  Which takes us back to Category 2.  Perhaps Cat 2 folks don't like conflict.  "Can't we all just get along?  I mean, aren't we just talking about minor variations in the God of Abraham?"

Maybe Cat 2 folks are just ignorant.  I don't mean that as an insult.  Maybe they have never read the Koran or the Bible.  Or maybe they don't think the words mean what they say.  Both claim to be divinely inspired and without error.  Considering the insurpassable discontinuities between these two books, they cannot both be right.  If they are wrong on the divine inspiration point, then they are the concoction of a man (or men) who was (were) seriously deluded or had an axe to grind (or wield).  Why would such teachings be worth following?  And if they do contain error in history, what precludes it from containing error in theology?

While they cannot both be right, they can both be wrong.  Or perhaps, one of them is right. 

If God did want to reveal himself to his creatures, it is not unreasonable to think that he would do so.  If he did so, is it unreasonable to think he could do so with exactitude and simplicity?  While I often have trouble ordering my thoughts in an understandable fashion, I would think an omniscient God would have no problem communicating to us through an objective, written word.

Even if he has no Pulitzer.
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"The fool says in his heart there is no God..." ~ Psalm 14:1
"But you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true." ~Psalm 119:151