What is a Nontheist?

[Ahimsa]

Both within and outside the informal association of Friends * who call themselves nontheists, there is little common understanding of what the word nontheist means. There is also little common understanding of related words such as atheist, agnostic, humanist, and materialist, but believers and unbelievers alike have at least a sense of what they* mean by those words.

Some of those who write about the subject on Quaker blogs seem to read nontheist as a synonym for atheist, which is unfortunate. A great many of those associated with nontheist Friends would not go so far as to describe themselves as atheists. I would personally go that far, but that’s an subject for another day…

Nontheist seems to be a fairly new word. Some of its earliest uses have been by those who feel a deep and genuine attachment to something they choose to call God, but who feel a need to reject traditional understandings of what God is. Most prominent perhaps is Bishop John Shelby Spong, who is quite clear about rejecting theistic understandings of God as “a personal being with expanded supernatural, human, and parental qualities, which has shaped every religious idea of the Western world.” Yet he holds to some yet-unformed understanding of God not as a personal being, which does not intrude in the natural world as a supernatural agent, and which in fact may not be presumed to have a separate, objective existence. He uses Paul Tillich’s phrase “ground of being,” though to be honest I have always had a hard time comprehending what is meant by this. In any case, it seems to me not far from the understanding of a great many Quakers who would not dream of describing themselves as nontheists.

So, I would put forth that a nontheist is someone who does not accept a theistic understanding of God, as described in the preceding paragraph.

 

[RebeccaJ]

If there are any Quakers here perhaps they could clarify. I believe that Quakers are very much into each person finds their own spiritual path, undefined by any other individual or organization. Where "theist "implies finding a path to God that has already been defined by someone else. And “atheist” implies finding a path to no God that has already been defined by someone else.

Sort of like, everyone is wandering around in the mountains and theists take the well worn trail to God, atheists take the well worn trail away from God, and nontheists follow their feet.

 

[Contarini]

I don’t think Spong is clear at all about what he means by a “theistic” God. Half the time it sounds as if he’s condemning anthropomorphism without realizing that the Church has done this for him in the fourth century, and half the time it sounds as if he doesn’t believe in God in the classical Christian sense. Actually I think he’s creating a false dichotomy (let’s hope for his own soul’s sake that he’s doing so out of ignorance and not out of malice, though ignorance this crass in someone in his position is hard to see as “invincible”): either you are an anthropomorphist or you reject the idea that God has intellect and will, can work miracles, direct the course of history, etc.

Edwin

 

[Valke2]

Interesting posts. Certainly got me thinking and for that I thank you.

 

[Ahimsa]

I don’t think Spong is clear at all about what he means by a “theistic” God. Half the time it sounds as if he’s condemning anthropomorphism without realizing that the Church has done this for him in the fourth century, and half the time it sounds as if he doesn’t believe in God in the classical Christian sense. Actually I think he’s creating a false dichotomy (let’s hope for his own soul’s sake that he’s doing so out of ignorance and not out of malice, though ignorance this crass in someone in his position is hard to see as “invincible”): either you are an anthropomorphist or you reject the idea that God has intellect and will, can work miracles, direct the course of history, etc.

Edwin

I see Spong as groping towards what Eckhart referred to as the God-beyond-God. Eckhart believed in the God of intellect and will, miracle-worker, history-director; but he thought (or so I understand him) as saying that even those descriptive words can’t fully capture who/what/why God is. The trouble with Spong, in my estimation, is that – unlike Eckhart – he doesn’t understand that God, as well as God-beyond-God, exists.

 

[Publisher]

Non-theist is the understanding…at least for this Quaker…that the Eternal Presence…the First Cause…the Creator of all things…the Giver of Life is not simply a “big magical Santa Claus in the sky.”

That Presence we call God, is beyond our understanding…God is Wholly Other. What we think we know about God is through experience with the Eternal…with the Divine…God is understood through the Light Within…that of God in each of human being.

All that we know about God is ‘construct’…God is “More Than” anything we can understand or conceive of. God is not a “he” or a “she”. The Old and New Testaments are “testimonies” of man’s search and experience with God. The writings of the Old and New Testaments are filtered through the writers experience and understanding…sometimes quite profoundly…but many times a product of time, culture and the writers own sense of “tribalism.” The Bible is a very human book…so human in fact if you slap it’s cover, dust will come off of it.

Traditionally Friends have not sought to define God…but seek to experience God. All doctrine and creeds are simply “constructs” and lacking. All “outward forms” we typically understand as “sacraments” are pale shadows of a Greater and Inward Reality that words and sacraments simply fail to convey. Friends believe that “sacraments” hinder our experience with God, for we trade the “form” for the Reality. Even “theist” and “non-theist” do not convey the Eternal…God is Love…God is Light…God is Life and the capacity to “know God” is not found in our doctrines, but is manifested in our lives and our relationships toward others. As the writer of one of the letters attributed to John said…“If a man says he loves God and hates his brother he is a liar…one cannot hate his brother whom he has seen…and love God whom he has not seen.”

God is Holy Mystery.