The God I Never Knew

[kayre]

My own comments are in [brackets].

Chapter 1: Thinking About God: The God I Met the First Time
11 “All of us have some concept of God, whether vague or precise and whether we are believers or nonbelievers. [I’ve occasionally said to friends that ‘the God you don’t believe in isn’t the God I believe in.] Borg presents two ‘root concepts’ of God, saying that both are found in the Bible and in Christian tradition. The first is the supernatural being ‘out there’ described in the introduction. Calls this concept “supernatural theism” (12).
The second root concept is of God as the encompassing Spirit... “a nonmaterial layer or level or dimension of reality all around us; God is more than the universe, yet the universe is in God.” (12) Calls this concept “panentheism.” [note the extra “en”-- not pantheism!] Borg says “becoming aware of panentheism made it possible for me to be a Christian again.”
Borg talks about his childhood in the Lutheran church: “I don’t remember being taught very much about God in Sunday school, though God was the presupposition of everything we learned.” (15)
Borg unconsciously identified God with his childhood pastor. [I suspect many children do this!] While very young, Borg became aware of a conflict between God being in heaven, and being “omnipresent.” Came to understand it as meaning God was in heaven but could see anywhere, could decide to be anywhere-- but normally was in heaven.
“God the finger-shaker” (17)-- Borg learned that “God had requirements, and Christianity was about how to meet those requirements.”
Page 18 contains a 7-point summary of Borg’s early beliefs about God. The most telling point is #7, “The afterlife.” “Salvation meant going to heaven, but some people would go to hell..... if somebody had been able to convince me... that there was no afterlife, I wouldn’t have had any idea why anyone should be a Christian.” (18) Overall image of Christianity as “a religion of meeting requirements now for the sake of eternal rewards later.” (19)
Borg talks about his later experience as “reliving the history of modern thought in my own experience.” (23) Premodern as a child; living through Enlightenment in high school and college. Goes on to discuss disillusionment with the literal understanding of the Bible, and the traditional understanding of Jesus. (24-26)
Though the Bible points to a God who is both transcendant and immanent (in the world, in everything), the Enlightenment worldview emphasized God’s transcendance... and the expanding knowledge of the universe made God seem incredibly remote, if God is beyond the universe. (27)