Hunting for God (conversations with Beth)

Hunting for God (conversations with Beth)

Dr John Winter with Forward by Professor Stuart Elborn

layout by Keith Winter illustrated by Matthew Sutton contact: info@huntingforgod.co.uk printed in UK Š John Winter 2016 published by Allotrope Press ISSN 2046-2859

contents 5

FORWARD

6 8 14 17 23 26 33 36 40 48 54 58 61 64 73 82 84

PROLOGUE – conversations with beth introduction the big questions the hunt for god/s life beyond our universe? whose authority? what evidence? life after death? which religion? god in control?

ANGUISH + ATROCITY the fear of god – what is it? evangelicalism – good or bad? sin, sex and hell – what is that all about? what are the positives? author’s notes bibliography

88 96 98

appendix i – christians and homosexuality? appendix ii – god’s gender? appendix iii - evolution, is it true?

FORWARD People throughout the centuries have sought a sense of meaning and purpose. This has been found through different paths and many find purpose, encouragement and comfort in a faith. Discovering anchors and signposts is particularly relevant in our current times when noise from the digital universe intrudes much of our waking hours. We are bombarded and diverted with information through electronic media, while large sections of this planet suffer the consequences of greed, war and natural disasters. There are no grand solutions to the dilemmas we face but one of the ways we can find a place of resolution is to talk.

All of the great faiths rely on written and oral traditions and talking about God is central to finding a sense of transcendence in which we can live. John Winter in this short series of essays describes conversations between a father and a daughter. He touches on some of the challenges we face in a turbulent post-modern era. As it should be, there are more questions than answers in these dialogues and no simple recipes for understanding. Thinking, talking and reading with words that reach outside of ourselves allows us to have different perspectives and helps us to better understand some of the paradoxes.

This book will encourage you to think through and discuss with those around you some of the things that are difficult, confusing and challenging in the modern world. We thank Dr. Winter for stirring our minds and souls.

Professor Stuart Elborn

5

PROLOGUE – conversations with beth Discussing the Big Questions started a few years ago while visiting my daughter at University. We would chat over a pint or while walking up the endless hills of Bristol, waiting for buses to get home or sitting in the little cafes on Gloucester Rd. The questions became a recurring theme.

For Beth she was examining whether to pursue faith in the light of having many friends who could not see the point or logic in religion. She found it hard to fit into local church life or relate to traditional Christian culture. For me, it came at a time when I needed to evaluate my personal convictions and start from scratch in my thinking. It was not enough to continue in certain beliefs and practices just because of my history.

We were not interested in dry, academic debate. For many of us thinking about the point of life in general, and our own particular 6

hunting for god

lives, is very real. It affects our emotions, ambitions and the direction we choose to take. God or spirituality can seem vague until we meet believers with specific attitudes and ideas. In the UK the dominant faith is still Christianity although this may be changing. What about church teachings - how do we reconcile attitudes to sex or relationships or climate change or war? Does the Bible or any other ‘holy book’ have anything relevant to say in our generation? Can we believe it and why should we? Is atheism more civilised; or a more rational way of looking at our universe? Will it lead us into a better understanding of reality?

We both had gay friends and several of my patients would be gay.

Do traditional faiths somehow exclude them? Why? Are churches of various types anti sex? Do they seem to talk a lot about rules and sin? Are they a helpful or negative influence in society?

We are all aware of suffering individuals among our friends; as well as tragedies around the world. How do you square this with the concept of a loving and ‘all-powerful’ god or gods?

Is there evidence for any life beyond death or entities beyond the natural order? Both of us instinctively felt there was more to life than just making the best out our natural existence. Was this wishful thinking or something very plausible? Is there something or someone out there?

This book comes from asking these and many other questions.

The opinions expressed in these chapters are personal and do not claim to have arrived at ‘The Truth’. If any of these seem hurtful or dismissive to particular individuals then I apologise unreservedly.

If they seem challenging at times then I am delighted to stimulate further discussion, exploration and hopefully enjoyable debate.

I appreciate Beth’s encouragement to write all these conversations down. I also recognise Keith and Alison’s contributions to the discussions over the years and enjoy a questioning family. And finally for my wife Marion who endeavours to keep my feet on the ground most of the time.

7

introduction The other day I celebrated a ‘milestone’ birthday with a family gathering. I explained that I had been writing a book based on discussions with Beth about the Big Questions. It was not intended to be a book with all the answers or even an academic treatise. It was just my ‘take’ on god and faith and religion and all that stuff.

“Great” they said, “but you need to include your experiences so that people know where you are coming from”. So here goes . . .

I had no big conversion experience that I can remember. Just a ritual ‘giving my heart to Jesus’ on most Sundays; growing up in a fairly strict Brethren church. My parents were not inherently strict, and became remarkably tolerant in later life, but the background was very fundamentalist. The Bible was held to be literally true in every word and could not be questioned.

8

hunting for god

At an early age I was allowed to pray, preach and share out the sacraments while my mother and other deeply spiritual women were unable to speak, as this was prohibited by their interpretation of the Bible. The Brethren believe that we are living near the ‘end of the age’ and at any moment we could be whisked away to heaven in a ‘rapture’ of believers. Meanwhile everyone else would slug it out through a nasty time called the ‘tribulation’. Then we’d all come back for 1000 years and afterwards the judgement, hell, and a new heaven and earth. The Bible prophecies were all taken very literally.

During school my favourite subjects were the sciences, especially biology. This led to a clash between loyalty to my childhood faith and fascination with the origins of the world and universe. I felt torn; would I have to reject Christianity or science? Only later did I discover that many great scientists were also people of faith and they did not think the two were incompatible.

As a teenager I attended a Christian camp in England and learned a completely new way of looking at religion. It was not just a collection of creeds, rituals and Bible knowledge but all about a personal experience of god and the spiritual world. This was revolutionary for me.

I became part of a group of young people who formed what became known (by its critics) as the ‘God Squad’; which aimed, in an idealistic way, to spread peace, reconciliation, faith, and social action in our wider community. Out of this grew several loose Christian groups with no denominational allegiance but huge passion and enthusiasm. I helped to lead one of these, meeting in my parent’s home with about 60-80 people.

This was religion in a whole new format; it was ‘out of the box’ with an emphasis on experiencing god, experimental worship, reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants (at the height of N.Ireland tribal warfare) and building authentic community.

By the late 70s our Christian community had grown into something 9

a lot more structured. It was remarkably free and innovative in some ways; yet still very conservative in theology and culture.

In 1978 I graduated in medicine and got married on consecutive days in July. Marion was teaching on the Shankhill Rd. in Belfast (one of the ‘troubles’ hotspots) and I moved to Ards Hospital as a junior doctor. Our community was interdenominational while we were both members of a Presbyterian church as well. Two years later we became Methodists as the community forged close links with this denomination and our ethos was very similar to the roots of Methodism. Later, those links were unfortunately broken and our organisation was forced to become a church denomination in its own right.

Our children reflect this journey; Keith was baptised a Presbyterian, Alison a Methodist and Beth in the new church, Kings Fellowship.

We also had a lot of interaction with Anglicans, Baptists, Brethren, Pentecostals, and significantly Catholics with vibrancy and life.

In 1981 I was encouraged to work full time as a leader in the new church. This meant leaving medicine and my consultant in A&E at the time took me aside and tried to “talk some sense into me”.

He spent time explaining that he thought I was a good doctor and asking “why would I give it up to become a minister?” – especially in a church that was evangelical – which he thought was the worst type. I have always appreciated his input as no one had said these positive things about my work before. Generally consultants took you aside if you did something wrong; not if you just did a good job.

However I still felt a strong sense of vocation to church leadership.

But, over the next few years, clouds were building on the horizon and a storm would later break. Eventually, huge emphasis was placed on developing the gifts and skills of each individual through accountable and responsible ‘lay’ leadership. While started with excellent ideals, it was ultimately a disaster. Many lay leaders overstepped their role of mentoring in an unhealthy way; at the same time as many members placed false expectations on them.

For some the freedom and passion was replaced by hurt, anger or 10

hunting for god

disappointment.

The fall-out from all this took a large toll on me. I hadn’t felt damaged by the system personally and few people expressed any sense of deep hurt by my leadership (and if so were easily reconciled). But I felt an overall sense of burden and responsibility. I questioned “Why would god allow this to happen if our intentions had been for good and for serving him or her?�

In the early 1990s we started a new church in a nearby town. We moved house, moved our meeting to the local Leisure Centre and I started part-time GP medicine again after 10 years of being out of it. Marion began teaching again part-time in a nearby school.

Many friends from the old church joined us in the new one as well as local folks.

Prior to the decision to move into a new town I went through a period later recognised as depression, for the only time in my life.

It came from feeling trapped by church life; the joy and pleasure had become duty, obligation and burden. I could understand why many friends and fellow Christians had given up church altogether.

However all this lifted when we decided to strike out for something new.

We discovered that another church community had begun in the area at much the same time as ourselves. After five years we started doing a number of events together and eventually the other main leader and I met to discuss a church merger. We later also merged with another small church and combined the overall leadership in a team together. The larger church was exciting and challenging.

All sorts of new initiatives were tried. After a couple of years I felt a new direction personally and was drawn into going back to medicine full-time.

I needed to retrain in order to gain College membership and went back to hospital medicine as a junior doctor. It was as if a soldier who had been out of the army for 15 years was suddenly parachuted back into the middle of an Afghanistan war zone. My younger colleagues 11

were very kind to the ‘old bloke’ working alongside them. The first month I was in a permanent state of shock while doing intense shifts and going home in between to sleep and crash out.

I continued in leadership in the church but was less involved in day to day running. The three years of training needed to gain further GP qualifications seemed to go past in a flash. Two weeks after completion I was very surprised to be offered a partnership in my present practice. The church was also developing rapidly with small groups, congregations, a dynamic youth church and an increasing focus on social concern.

Leadership as part of a genuine team with someone else steering the group was ideal for me. The community was free and easy, noncontrolling, and the focus was on loving god, one another and the surrounding community that we served.

However, out of the blue, another storm burst as a serious split occurred when one leader tried to oust the team leader. I and another person in the team spent weeks trying to reconcile the parties and were hurt and shocked ourselves at the bitterness and self-righteousness stirred up.

Eventually the church was healed after a few key people had left.

However the toll was heavy on the attempted reconcilers. My friend dropped out of church altogether and questioned whether there was a god at all (he now is a ‘believer’ but is still very wary of church).

For my part, I felt my faith had taken a battering again and I stepped down from the leadership team for a period of time.

For the first time in my life I completely lost all inner sense of religious conviction. I still chose to believe in God but had lost any certainty of his presence or personal attention. All my life I had felt sure of god’s existence, his love, an ‘eternal’ future etc., and this all disappeared. It was very odd. I knew it was not depression, a lack of hope or even a lack of peace. I just wondered if everything I had believed in was maybe an illusion. This led me to also consider the alternatives such as atheism or other religions. I found Dawkins 12

hunting for god

book “The God Delusion’1 quite useful because it helped to give substance to atheism and allowed me to consider alternatives in a rational fashion. I read it alongside Alistair McGrath’s book “Dawkins God”2 – he was a N.Ireland scientist and atheist who became a Christian and Oxford theologian. It gave an appropriate balance to Dawkins’ writing.

This time led into the discussions I had particularly with my daughter Beth, while visiting her at university. We enjoyed raising questions and exploring possibilities in the realm of the natural/ spiritual interface.

I entered a new phase when I was keen to explore the ‘arty’ side of life. So much effort goes into logical and rational thinking in science and medicine and this can shield you from experiencing the depth of poetry, art and more reflective dimensions of our existence.

Poets help you to see things from a completely new perspective.

They add colour and subtlety to the stark choices of pure science.

I also discovered a different way to read and enjoy the Bible – knowing that forty percent of it is poetry and even the stories are often told as poets would relate things; rather than as historians or scientists would do. It was helpful to realise that the Bible does not need to be understood in the literal ‘conservative’ pattern at all. In fact, most theologians through history have not viewed it this way.

All of this helped me back to a place of contented and hopeful faith.

Over the next few years it was important to believe this faith was plausible and rational as well as inwardly fulfilling.

13

the big questions Is there really a god?

Is there life beyond death?

Is there any point to our existence?

Is this it?

And does it really matter anyway?

Of course, if you answer yes to some of the above then this raises a whole lot more questions; e.g.; Which god or gods?

Why all these religions?

What books or systems or people can we trust?

Why would a god allow (or cause) suffering or anguish?

14

hunting for god

Why is there no irrefutable evidence for the supernatural?

Why do religions sometimes seem negative, intolerant or even repressive at times?

And the biggest query of all is “Why do we still keeping asking these questions?”

Because there is a group of people, often seemingly clever and articulate; who appear to regard those of us still asking them with pity or a slight disappointment. They are tolerant of individual beliefs but feel it should be obvious that civilisation has outgrown religion; and science has disproved ‘outdated myths’ and ‘superstitions’.

Then there are more hard-core atheists who believe religion is not only wrong but should be eradicated as often as possible.

There are some people who are just not interested in the questions.

This may be because they seem irrelevant to their lives at times or, more likely, because they seem to take you around in endless circles. Mostly they cannot have a proven answer so eventually they become avoided and no longer really ‘cool’.

Of course, there are also many believers of various faiths who have clear answers. If you ask, “How do you know these things?”, the reply often boils down to “I believe the Bible/Qur’an/Holy Writings and this tells me all I need to know”. Now this may be fair enough but it doesn’t really help the discussion.

Only a minority of religious folk seem to be seriously interested in examining the basis for their faith. These are the explorers who can join with people of no definite faith who are happy with more questions than answers. Seekers after ‘truth’ but that truth may not be provable in the way that a mathematical formula can be.

For us, over the years, the questions have been more important than having all the answers. The quest is a vital part of life. It is more than just intellectual debate. It is about making sense of our lives in a way that is logically plausible, inwardly satisfying and brings 15

peace.

This extract from ‘Salmon fishing in the Yemen’ said by the fictional Sheik Muhammad to the scientist Dr Alfred Jones seems to sum up our starting point; “ I taught you to take the first step; to learn to believe in belief. And one day you will take the second step and find what it is you believe in.” 3

16

hunting for god

the hunt for god/s There is no point in starting a hunt unless you think the quarry might exist and is capable of being found, glimpsed or engaged.

Why fish in a lake if you don’t think any fish are there? Why seek for a bird that you don’t believe has come to these shores? However, if you think a rare and beautiful bird may have come - you’ve had hints and heard rumours - you might spend hours, days, months or even years to get a glimpse. It depends on your initial inclination first; then gathering evidence, your ongoing passion and ultimately perseverance.

You may remember Madeline McCann; a little girl abducted several years ago from a Portuguese holiday apartment. The Portuguese police did the initial investigation but it became clear, in retrospect, they never believed from the outset that the girl would be found alive. Now they may have been right, but if you don’t believe from the start in a certain possibility (however remote it may seem) then it is pointless to begin the search. Your own bias will determine your own outcome.

So it is with god/s and us, I think. Do we believe there is a genuine possibility, however unlikely it may seem, that she exists and can be found? (please see appendix 2 discussing my dilemma about whether 17

to refer to god as he, she or it). And if we did find her would this be a remarkable achievement? Do we have just curiosity or something a bit more - a real desire or hope to find answers? If we say yes, then I think our hunt or investigation will be fruitful, whatever the outcome. If not, then I think it will be like the Portuguese police - all outward show but no inward integrity.

Where do we start? I would start with the hints, clues and rumours to guide us on a path. These are the big hints for me: a) Oddly, maybe, I would start with the ‘revelation’ or idea of the monotheist god that she is the ‘I AM’ - i.e. the ever ‘present’ god and therefore eternal or ‘outside time’.4 The concept is recorded thousands of years before our modern understanding about how time and space are interconnected. This opens up all sorts of possibilities about how an ‘outside’ time entity could relate to an ‘inside’ time universe. It allows an explanation of many seeming difficulties when looking for scientific ‘evidence’ for god/s.

On first thoughts, you would expect a god entity to be able to demonstrate her existence with spectacular ‘miraculous’ events that could not be explained in any other way than supernatural forces at work. Why couldn’t a god being just write in the sky or create something that could not be explained by natural development?

On the other hand, there seems to be a lack of defining historical or physical ‘footprints’ for supernatural beings within our world and this seems powerful evidence for atheism.

However, if a god entity from ‘outside’ time left historical footprints, then I believe that time would be fundamentally altered; or else the entity would become a part of time. This ‘always present’ being would be trapped within time itself if she left clear chronological evidence. She would become fixed to our past also and be a part of history; therefore she would no longer be ‘I AM’.

The nearest analogy I can offer is the dilemmas faced by sci-fi time travellers in e.g. Star Trek, Back to the Future, Time Traveler’s 18

hunting for god

Wife, Dr Who, etc. If the traveler goes back in time and leaves clear evidence of their impact then time is somehow altered or the person no longer ‘belongs’ to the ‘future’. In fact, time travel for a human is likely to be impossible in this sci-fi way for the reason outlined.

A god entity, of the type we are considering, would not ‘time travel’ but in fact would be outside time. If so, she could not leave objective evidence for the same reasons as the time traveler.

So how could an entity outside time connect at all? Any evidence appears to come from people relating to this ‘person’ in their present and writing this down as stories, teaching, poetry etc. This becomes the past over time for both us and them – but would NOT be the past for the eternal being. So, by definition, this evidence will always be subjective. We have to trust the thoughts, experiences and writings of individual encounters rather than irrefutably supernatural events, if we believe in the spiritual realm at all.

(I’m not suggesting that god entities could not influence events or people in our past and present. But, I believe, it would not be possible for these interventions to be objectively proven without ‘fixing’ god/s into time and history. This also raises questions for those who believe Jesus was god in human form. If so, then he, as a human, was a part of history and this brings all sorts of other dilemmas. I don’t want to explore these here as we get into complex theology). b) The existence of a universal ‘code of behaviour’ or ‘moral law’ - beyond the boundaries of religion and present in all societies throughout known history. This is a sense that humans ought to behave in certain right or decent ways even if they don’t or don’t want to. It often gets linked with religion but is independent of it. Non-religious people will usually still have a strong sense of morality and opinions about what is right or wrong.

This argument is well documented in C.S. Lewis’s book “Mere Christianity”5 and he explains how this is more than just the development of social behaviour or ‘herd instinct’. He also 19

describes how the ‘moral law’ is similar throughout widely differing societies, despite local variations. Many Christians start from this point of reference including Dr Francis Collins - a founder of the Human Genome Project and outlined in his book “The Language of God”.6 Many believe this inherent ethical code goes against evolutionary development and implies an influence on humanity in addition to purely evolutionary forces. Others (if coming from an atheistic point of view) argue that it must be the result of complex social development in the evolution of human behaviour.

The debate sometimes centres on whether there could be true altruism as a result of the obligations of the code. This would seem incompatible with mere evolution. A pure evolutionist may make the assumption that altruism does not exist; that all seemingly unselfish actions are still part of an agenda which would promote the survival of the species or the welfare of the genes.

Yet many of us believe in altruism; and that this ideal hints at an influence beyond mere evolution and from ‘outside’ a mechanistic universe. The desire for goodness, fairness and rightness in our behaviour implies an intervention in addition to the pure ‘survival’ agenda; even in the complex community of Homo Sapiens.

c) The widespread belief in god, gods, spirits and supernaturalism in all cultures throughout known history and at the present. It is universal in scope but obviously does not include all individuals in those cultures.

This would be remarkable in a species that has only evolved by chance. If the only forces shaping the culture of that species were chance mutations, survival of the fittest, and natural selection then it is not obvious that belief in supernaturalism would become so endemic in all societies. This is powerful evidence of the possibility of supernatural existence.

20

hunting for god

d) The sense of significance or meaning in our life. Most if us instinctively live as if each person is fundamentally important. We have a sense of purpose. If this is a mechanistic world of pure chance then the reality is that we are completely expendable organisms.

We are now part of a species that already has enough members to survive and develop without our input or existence. If we had not appeared, it would have made almost no difference to the evolution of the human race or the genes involved.

Evolution and chance no longer have any need for me - as a single organism I am entirely unnecessary (especially past my reproductive prime); and would carry no real value in a world where the human race is no longer fighting for survival and, in fact, may be overpopulated.

The strong sense of personal ‘meaning’ or identity points to the likelihood of factors in addition to the evolutionary process that formed us. e) The Anthropic effect or ‘Goldilocks’ principle in the universe.

The Goldilocks concept comes from the story where she settled for food that was ‘not too cold, not too hot, but just right’. The universe is incredibly finely tuned to allow the formation of life to the point we are at on earth.

Stephen Hawking in ‘A Brief History of Time’ states, “The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron. ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life.”7 Nevertheless, in response, you can postulate an almost infinite number of possible universes and so we happen to be in the Goldilocks one, as you would expect; as the others are unlikely to have sentient life forms. But another possibility is a conscious 21

‘influencer’ who can affect the ‘setup’ of this universe knowing what time, chance and evolutionary forces could produce. The odds of a single universe alone having all these ingredients simply by chance would be infinitesimal.

Obviously there are all sorts of other clues, hints and lines of enquiry in our search. Some are philosophical; some are more artistic or poetic. Some are inward on our own personal journey. Some are anecdotal stories from others with perceived, deep experiences of the supernatural.

Personal encounters with what appears to be supernatural or divine can have a powerful influence as they touch our emotions and fire the imagination; as well as just helping intellectual evaluation.

Where the hunt goes from here is up to each individual. We all have inbuilt biases, which are not automatically wrong but need acknowledged and examined. We have personal history, family background, friends, conversations and encounters that can be explored and reflected upon. Books may help or hinder at times.

Evidence may come from the most unlikely places.

Philosophy is a vital area to investigate but it sometimes seems to go round in circles. Science brings hard evidence in some areas but can be rigid and limited in others. Poetry and art can, at times, provide glimpses more penetrating than philosophy or science on their own.

Areas of personal faith are subtler than religious practices. Religious philosophy (theology) is a lot more intricate and complex than many peoples’ superficial understanding of it, I think. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions too quickly.

And finally, there is another intriguing thought. If god exists and is interested in human affairs then the possibility remains that she is hunting for you! Many individuals have expressed the sense that they were the quarry rather than the hunter. A sense of being ‘under investigation’ rather than the detective.

22