The\u00a0Rev.\u00a0Frank Schaefer (author of \u201cDefrocked\u201d) meets Frank Schaeffer (author of \u201cWhy I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God\u201d) at the Wild Goose \u00a0Festival June 2014 I mean how confusing is that?!<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the passage from my new book WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD:<\/strong>\u00a0How to give love, create beauty and find peace<\/em><\/a>\u00a0I read to open my talk at the Wild Goose Festival.<\/p>\n My youngest grandchildren Lucy and Jack are still comfortable with a paradoxical way of seeing reality. For them make-believe and the material universe merge in a poetic non-literal way that mirrors the scientific finding that one particle can instantaneously affect another particle light-years away or even be in two places at once. Schr\u00f6dinger, the Austrian physicist who developed the field of quantum theory, called this idea \u201centanglement.\u201d Einstein called it \u201cspooky action at a distance.\u201d Lucy and Jack just accept that life is weird, wonderful and defined by imagination.<\/p>\n Lucy and Jack seem to accept that something may never have happened but can still be true. They take Bible stories we read at face value and yet I see a flicker in their eyes that tells me that they already know the stories are not true in the same way boiling water is true and can be tested\u2014it\u2019s hot!<\/p>\n When they\u2019re older, maybe my grandchildren will embrace apophatic theology, the theology of not knowing. Maybe they will look for ways to make the irrational rational by hiding behind words like \u201cmystery\u201d in order to sustain their faith. Apophatic theology teaches that the divine is ineffable and recognized only when it\u2019s felt. In contrast to the literalistic evangelicals and Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Muslims and Orthodox Jews, some of the earliest Church Fathers were closer in their thinking to Wettstein. They said that scripture was to be read through an apophatic approach. Tertullian said, \u201cThat which is infinite is known only to itself.\u201d St. Cyril of Jerusalem said, \u201cFor we may not explain what God is but candidly confess that we have not exact knowledge concerning Him.\u201d In other words, the word God<\/em> was to be understood by not<\/em> understanding it.<\/p>\n The words objective reality<\/em> are just a metaphor for something I\u2019ll never encounter. Lucy\u2019s and Jack\u2019s universe is more dependable and predictable than mine. They still think that what they observe is what is there. Their world is a safe place where parents stay married and there\u2019s no need to justify clinging to a sustaining myth by embracing fancy terms like apophatic <\/em>or mystery<\/em>. My son John and his wife Becky come home after work each day and routines are kept. Ba (that\u2019s me) and Nana (that\u2019s Genie) are always \u201cat Ba and Nana\u2019s house.\u201d And Jack and Lucy still believe that Genie and I can answer their questions, even guarantee the future.<\/p>\n At the ripe old age of five, Lucy was pondering death. She asked why my mother had died and I told her it was because \u201cMom was very old.\u201d Then Holly died. A few weeks later as we walked up the drive, Lucy took my hand and quietly said, \u201cBa, when you pray in the morning, please ask God to make you grow old slowly.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, I will,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n A few days later we were walking up the drive again and I said, \u201cHow long do you want me to live?\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy thought about it for a long moment and then answered, \u201cI want you to live until my children are\u2026 twelve years old.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOkay, I\u2019ll try,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n Of course, I have no idea what the right age is to die, just as Lucy thinks that twelve is old. She also told me, \u201cThe sun is really big, even though it looks small.\u201d I asked her how big, and she said, \u201cIt\u2019s really<\/em> big, as big as a tree!\u201d<\/p>\n Lucy\u2019s sense of time, place and scale is no more or less misinformed than mine. The only things in life I have fairly complete information about are minor household appliances. As for when to die, what to believe, whom to marry, where to live, whether or not God exists, when to have children, and what work to do, I think all this big stuff\u2014stuff as \u201cbig as a tree!\u201d\u2014is best left to chance. My illusion of control over my life is long gone. I am part <\/em>of a story; I am not the<\/em> story. I\u2019ve given up on planning. Rather, I plan while hoping that my plans won\u2019t work. I\u2019ve experienced the serendipity of my plans failing. Then my failures sometimes open doors to things better than those I\u2019d wished for. I was pissed off with the Swiss national airline for bumping me to a center seat. Then I met Camilla.<\/p>\n Anyway, since no one is ever just one thing, who are we planning for<\/em>? Which \u201cme\u201d should be running the show? We\u2019re all in the closet, so to speak. We barely come out to ourselves and never completely to others. I\u2019ve never met an unequivocal atheist or religious believer. I\u2019ve only met people of two, three or four or more minds\u2014people just like me. Atheists sometimes pray and eloquent preachers secretly harbor doubts. The evangelist Billy Graham preached certain salvation and heaven guaranteed yet privately told my dad, a friend and fellow evangelist, that he feared death and had many doubts.<\/p>\n We\u2019re all of at least two minds. We play a role and define that role as \u201cme\u201d because labels and membership in a tribe make the world feel a little safer. When I was raising my children, I pretended to be grown-up Daddy. But alone with my thoughts, I was still just me. I\u2019m older now, and some younger people may think I know something. I do! I know how much I can never know.<\/p>\n Muslim, Jew, Hindu or Christian, you are that because of where and when you were born. If you are an atheist, you are that because of a book or two you read, or who your parents were and the century in which you were born. Don\u2019t delude yourself: there are no good reasons for anything, just circumstances.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t delude yourself: you may describe yourself to others by claiming a label of atheist<\/em>, Jew<\/em>, evangelical<\/em>, gay<\/em> or straight <\/em>but you know that you are really lots more complicated than that, a gene-driven primate and<\/em> something more<\/em>. Want to be sure you have THE TRUTH about yourself and want to be consistent to that truth? Then prepare to go mad. Or prepare to turn off your brain and cling to some form or other of fundamentalism, be that religious or secular.<\/p>\n You will always be more than one person. You will always embody contradiction. You\u2014like some sort of quantum mechanicals physics experiment\u2014will always be in two places at once.<\/p>\n This has been an excerpt from Chapter 3 of my new book. TO READ MORE OF THIS BOOK PLEASE GO TO AMAZON AND ORDER THE PAPERBACK OR THE E-BOOK (ONLY $3.99)<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe new book, \u2018Why I Am an Atheist Who Believes in God,\u2019 is [a] distillation of wisdom.\u201d\u00a0Washington Post<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(June 12, 2014)<\/p>\n Follow Frank on Twitter\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>www.twitter.com\/frank_schaeffer<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n See Frank\u2019s paintings\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>http:\/\/www.frankschaefferart.com\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Follow Frank on Facebook<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/frank.schaeffer.16<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nFrank Schaeffer<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is a writer. His latest book \u2014WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD:<\/strong>\u00a0How to give love, create beauty and find peace<\/em><\/a><\/div>\nAvailable now on Amazon<\/h2>\n
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