Can Your Disbelief in God Wink Him out of Existence?
Can Your Disbelief in God Wink Him out of Existence?
This and other “Me” problems
“I don’t believe in God.” Does that statement have any effect on reality? Obviously not. Either God exists or he doesn’t. Your own disbelief has nothing to do with it. Saying that you do not believe in God does not wink him out of existence, if in fact he does exist. Becoming convinced that God does not exist is no better. You are still focused on you. You may have a “Me” problem.
“I believe in God,” does not bring him into existence either, you might say in challenge to this. And that’s true. His existence outside the minds of believers is not dependent on their belief. Again, either he exists or he does not. We cannot wink him into existence outside of our minds any more than we can create a real Jedi Knight. To think that we could do so would also be a “Me” problem.
[As interesting aside, even the idea of God has power. If God was only an idea in our collective minds, think of the impact that alone has had on the world. The history of the Church and the lives of the saints attest to this. Oh, and please do not bring up that old trope about religion being the cause of wars and suffering. Those things happen when we are not following our religion as we are supposed to.]
My central point, as simple as it is, is that you can’t simply declare your unbelief in God. You cannot create or change reality by doing so. The truth is external to you. Seek it and go where ever it leads you. There are eternal consequences involved here.
God’s very nature is to exist; he is “I am who am.”
Other “Me” Problems
There are other “Me” problems that can beset us in our relationship with God. Below are some that I’ve seen enumerated. Any of us may fall into one or more these categories to some extent at some point in our lives.
Making God after your own image
You’ve probably seen paintings of “Hippy” Jesus. This exemplifies in my mind a false image of Jesus that a certain sort want to make out of him. While I don’t pretend to know what Christ actually looks like, I don’t see this feel-good, “everything’s cool” version as the true Jesus. While that’s just my own opinion there (and possibly falling into this problem myself!), the point is that we can mistakenly try to make God into our own image of him. Perhaps even as a more perfect image of ourselves.
Creating a belief system based your own likes and dislikes
In the Catholic world, someone in this category is a “Cafeteria Catholic.” You are basically creating your own religion by picking and choosing what you want to believe in. This is a very “Me” approach in that you, not God (via his Church on earth), are deciding what is truth. That’s not following truth, that’s following yourself. (And, honestly, if you don’t believe that your church has the truth in its fullest, I’m not sure why you would remain in that church.)
Christ is the Bridegroom—You are merely the wedding guest
This one I got from my parish priest. If you have issues with anything you’ve been given by God, or any particular truth of the Church, you have a “Me” problem. You need to remember your place—you are merely an invited guest to the wedding banquet. This is the Bridegroom’s event, not yours.
It’s easy to forget our place, as we’re told that God loves us each as if we were the only creature in creation. We shouldn’t try to take bad advantage of that love. It’s foolhardy and not worthy of us.
There are other “Me” issues, such as when someone gets mad at God and blames him for something that has happened, such as a death of a loved one. This one, it’s easy to see, involves people who are overcome by grief and are not completely responsible for their feelings. They can only focus on their loss, not seeing that God had other plans for their dead loved ones. The problem of course is that it’s quite useless and counterproductive to get mad at the author of the universe.
I’m sure we could create a much longer list with a little brainstorming, but perhaps that’s not the best use of our limited time here on earth. The way around all of these “Me” issues is to see that we need to get over ourselves and look at things from an external, eternal perspective. In other words, search for the truth.