I recently re-read a modern theological classic entitled God as the Mystery of the World by German theologian Eberhard Juengel. Juengel is not as well known in English-speaking countries because he did not speak English. I heard him speak, in German, in Munich in 1981. I didn’t understand every word, but I noticed that he had some of the audience in tears. Some of his books have been translated into English including God’s Being Is in Becoming and the above mentioned God as the Mystery of the World. Juengel taught at the University of Tuebingen together with Juergen Moltmann and Hans Kueng and other world class theologians. His books are not easy to read.
In God as the Mystery of the World, Juengel argues that God is “more than necessary” and is quite critical of natural theology, appeals to evidence and reason to establish the existence of God. For him, as for many modern German (and other) theologians, God is always subject and never object.
Well, I have trouble going along with Juengel about that, except that I agree that God is more than necessary—especially for Christians and other believers in a personal God.
But for what is God necessary (even if he is more than necessary)? For three things. As philosopher Mortimer Adler demonstrates in How to Think about God, God is necessary as the creator of this contingent (not necessary) world/universe. The world does not explain itself. Without God it has no explanation.
Second, God is necessary for basic trust in the meaningfulness of life. This Kueng demonstrated conclusively in Does God Exist: An Answer for Today. Without belief in God there is no reason to trust anyone or anything, even life itself because there can then be no over-arching purpose to anything.
Third, God is necessary for moral absolutes.
I read a lot of Stephen King because he is a master writer and because his novels raise serious ethical questions. At the end of The Institute (now a television series streaming on Paramount Plus), King poses a tough ethical-moral question. Would saving the whole planet and everything on it justify torturing and killing a few children? The book (and series) sets up the question. What if only torturing and killing a few children would save life on earth? I won’t spoil the ending for you. The ending implicitly answers the question.
Torturing and murdering children is absolutely, unconditionally wrong, regardless of the consequences of not doing it.
I would fear anyone who disagrees. I would not want to be around him or her.
But anyone who agrees should also believe in God because without God there are no moral or ethical absolutes; absolutely anything is conceivably justifiable.
In Christian theology, God did not torture or kill his Son, Jesus. Jesus voluntarily offered himself up as the absolute sacrifice for sins. But this is not the place to go into that in any detail. I have done so elsewhere here and in my books. (So don’t bring it up in response here.)
All that is why I think at least Deism should be and remain, and always was, the implicit cultural, civic religion of America. I believe Deism is incomplete; it is not Christian. It does not satisfy the soul. It is purely intellectual. But it is good in the absence of a more robust Christian theism and it requires no revelation or faith. It is hardly a religion at all. A deist does not necessarily worship God or pray to God or do anything else “religious” but believe in God as the creator and moral governor of the universe. But the God of true Deism is good, not a monster, even if he is remote and uninvolved in day-to-day affairs.
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