I think the fundamental mistake people make regarding a higher power is that they liken God’s mind to their own minds. The more religious among us assume, for example, that God is in control of the universe. Many of us believe that God has drawn a vast and indescribably complex central plan. We believe that if we can discover what that plan is and adhere to it, we’ll be able to solve our problems. We conceive of God as an old Soviet statesman who developed a centrally planned economy and micromanaged each one of its separate parts. We assume a divine plan in which every single moment of each day was accounted for, like the teeth in interlocking gears of an intricate clock.
Those who lean toward scientific explanations make similar assumptions. They assume that the universe is constructed in such a way that it makes sense, that there is a logical and consistent set of rules which underlay physical reality. These same reductionist thinkers claim that life arose by accident and that it has no inherent or ultimate meaning. Yet they believe that matter and energy contain inherent order and make a certain kind of sense. They believe and they assume that physical laws control the outworkings of the universe. Those who believe in mathematics rather than God might assume that that if we can just divine the Grand Unified Theory which makes the cosmos tick, we can solve our problems rationally, instead of through faith in God. So, whatever our belief, the assumption is that there’s a centralized plan, or design, witch which we can come into harmony.
What if God doesn’t plan? What if central control doesn’t exist in the “mind” of whatever created the physical world? For those of us who believe, maybe God doesn’t work like that at all. Maybe God isn’t in any more control than we are. After all, we spiritually-inclined are taught to surrender, to accept, to go with the flow. Why would the God-force teach us to do something it wasn’t already doing itself? Maybe God flows like a river flows. Perhaps God blows like the wind blows.
And for the materialistically-minded, what if there is no mathematical plan, no divinable design? What if that assumption of consistency is a fallacy existing within the human mind that is a product of the physical universe? What if the mind imposed that fallacy of order on the material world?
In each case, there is no plan and no control. Neither the river nor the wind intends its direction.
And maybe natural law is like the wind, obeying no parameters, operating outside the bounds even of probability. And though the wind does influence the shapes of mountains while it carves them into natural spires, there’s no master law to the wind. Maybe God’s choices are as arbitrary as the decisions of a cat. Perhaps probability isn’t probable, but only random. If, as the materialists posit, there’s no reason to it all, then reason itself is suspect.
Yet, even if is there is no central controller in the universe, whether that planner is mindless law or a mindful Creator, the end result hasn’t been chaos, has it? The end result is that, well, God makes a cat, and the natural laws give rise to a tree, and, either God or scientific principle or both being responsible for the end results, there’s still a human standing here and a mountain standing there and a river flowing, and the wind blowing.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Four of his short stories have recently been published online:
Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)
The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October
Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within