Sunday Sermonette: Nice Work If You Can Get It
One of the biggest problems with any religion is that the subject matter is ultimately incomprehensible.
When a Catholic priest says “The Lord be with you,” the congregation replies as one, “And with your spirit.” Do any of us know what we’re talking about?
Catholics have the Baltimore Catechism to define such terms as God. Question 163: What is God? is answered, “God is a spirit infinitely perfect.”
That doesn’t make much sense, so we read on.
Q. 164. What do we mean when we say God is “infinitely perfect”?
A. When we say God is “infinitely perfect” we mean there is no limit or bounds to His perfection; for He possesses all good qualities in the highest possible degree and He alone is “infinitely perfect. ”
Q. 165. Had God a beginning?
A. God had no beginning; He always was and He always will be.
Q. 166. Where is God?
A. God is everywhere.
Q. 167. How is God everywhere?
A. God is everywhere whole and entire as He is in any one place. This is true and we must believe it, though we cannot understand it.
The Baltimore Catechism goes on, but you get the gist. God is perfect, eternal, infinite, and everywhere. It is impossible for the finite human mind to imagine such a being, but even though it is incomprehensible, it must be believed.
But that collection of improbable attributes does tell us one thing. It is impossible for such a deity to need anything, desire anything, or do anything. Eternal perfection already has everything and is everything. "What does God need with a starship," asked Captain Kirk. He didn't get an answer.
So why are we told that God wants the saccharine adoration of a small band of ape-descended life forms who have only recently arrived on an unremarkable rock circling a fairly ordinary star on the outer edge of one bog-standard spiral galaxy amidst hundreds of billions of such galaxies?
Aha, says the priest. God doesn’t need our worship. We need to worship God, who is the only thing worthy of worship, in order to move closer to him. Already God is whittled down to human shape. It’s now a male, vainglorious, and needs praise.
God is everywhere, infinite, and eternal. We cannot move closer to God. You and I need food, shelter, sex, and so on. God has no desires, no need for us to “move closer.” If God is who the Baltimore Catechism says God is, then we have no grounds whatever for understanding. We have no common frame of reference. We have no basis for comparison. The denizens of the anthill on my front lawn have far more in common with me than I do with God - at least they’re from the same planet.
God is love, cry the priests. Why shouldn’t he create humanity so he could love them? And since the Bible says the greatest expression of love is to die for one’s beloved, why wouldn’t God save us from our wickedness and do that too?
Like God, love is left undefined. But think about it. Is there any possible definition of love that could apply to an omnimax perfect infinite and eternal deity? Love implies need and desire, even such forms as, “I love the beauty of the Grand Canyon” or the banality of “I love cheeseburgers.” And the matter of God dying to prove his love is utter nonsense when speaking of a deathless and eternal being.
We need God to provide an objective definition of goodness and morality, say the priests. But how can a perfect, infinite, eternal God who nevertheless created a very imperfect universe and very imperfect ape-descendants on the third rock of this particular solar system do that? Good and evil are defined by humans. A perfect God with no needs or desires can’t do it. Desiring a divine trainer doesn’t mean there is one. If people want to be better, it’s up to people to do it. Otherwise we’re just trained rats in a cage.
As I said, a perfect, eternal, infinite God is incomprehensible to me. But priests? Priests I understand. We’re the same species and from the same culture. We both have imaginations, a love of stories, fondness for good food and drink and creature comforts, and a dislike of sweaty manual labor. I avoided hard work by fixing computer problems - there’s seldom much heavy lifting and it’s always air-conditioned. Telling stories about the ineffable will of an inscrutable impenetrable Unknowable doesn't involve much heavy lifting either, it's just a short walk to the pulpit.