Wrestling with God in an Age of Doubt

 

When he taught at Union Theological Seminary in the 1960s, the great Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “If you want to have a well-attended lecture, discuss God and faith.” Since the beginning of human existence, we have longed for a deeper understanding of life, our place in the world and our relationship to the universe, seeking answers to the Big Questions: Does God exist? Why are we here? What is our purpose?

For all my life, I have professed a belief in God, even as I have struggled to understand the nature of God and why God often seems non-existent in a troubled world. Is my belief in God an irrational means of fulfilling an emotional need borne in childhood, or is there really some higher power that allows me to feel on rare occasions God’s presence? 

I was born the son of a Lutheran minister and grew up with an unquestioning acceptance of the teachings of my mainline Protestant faith. In the four decades since, my spiritual journey evolved into a deep affection for liberal Judaism and other more humanistic traditions. The more I study religion and history, the more I am convinced that the world’s many different religious expressions represent humanity’s imperfect attempt to understand God, the universe, and our purpose in life. And yet, I remain conflicted about religion and filled with doubt, about God and the relevance of religion in modern times. 

My confusion may have less to do with God than with humankind’s inability to satisfactorily explain the nature of God in an imperfect world. It may also be due to the propensity of religious institutions to insist on doctrinal certitudes that do not stand the test of time. I am frustrated by how often biblical literalism and religious fundamentalism everywhere drown out the gentler voices of religious reason and compassion. I am equally frustrated by secular society’s failure to appreciate the diversity and beauty of religious expression, and the compelling human need for God, purpose and meaning. 

This past November, I had a thoughtful discussion with my brother-in-law Art who, like many in my wife’s family, are proud secular Jews generally skeptical of formal religious practices. Art exemplifies the rational man of modern times. He is persuaded only by facts, reason, and evidence. “I’m curious about your belief in God,” he stated, non-judgmentally, while I sipped a glass of wine on the outside deck of their Florida condominium. Art was interested in learning why I believe religion continues to have relevance in modern times and why I continue to hold, if not religious convictions, at least a spiritual belief in a higher power. Reminiscent of Heschel’s seminary class, Art wanted to talk about God and faith. 

The most difficult problem for me in explaining why I believe in God starts with language. First, what do we mean by God? Are human beings really created in the image of God, as Judaism and Christianity traditionally teach, or is God a force of nature that humans are incapable of describing or fully understanding? Second, if God exists, why is there suffering and cruelty in the world? What kind of God would allow the devastation of wars, genocide, and other human atrocities? How can one believe in God after the Holocaust and Hiroshima? The questions are endless.

I explained to Art that, from my vantage point, a belief in God in no way conflicts with scientific knowledge and advancement. Religion has nothing to fear from science, as Heschel’s writings explain. Human beings are simply incapable of fully understanding God, whom Heschel describes as “ineffable” or beyond description. Heschel explains that all religious awareness and insight is rooted in “wonder” and “radical amazement.” Thus, evidence of God’s existence is all around us, in the reality and wonder of the universe and the miracle of life itself. 

Art was unmoved. “All of the things you mention,” he countered, “life, the universe, and our surroundings, have scientific origins and explanations.”

“Maybe so,” I said, “but this does not disprove God.” I pointed out that most rational, thoughtful people of faith believe that scientific knowledge, in the words of Heschel, “extends rather than limits the scope of the ineffable, and our radical amazement is enhanced rather than reduced by the advancement of knowledge.” Indeed, two things can be true simultaneously: that which we can measure, quantify, and prove objectively, and that which we experience on a deeper, spiritual level.

“I cannot prove the existence of God,” I said, “any more than someone can prove that God does not exist.” Nevertheless, as I read to Art from my 2009 essay (“In Defense of God: Faith in an Age of Unbelief”):

[W]hen I walk among the stars; when I stare at the moon on a warm summer evening; when I acknowledge the beautiful life presence of my two daughters, I experience God’s presence. When I observe the joy in a young child's heart over the embrace of a grandparent; when I watch the trees sway back and forth on a breezy fall day and feel the moistness of the ocean at my feet; when I experience all of these things, and the multitude of ordinary everyday events, I see, first-hand, evidence of God’s existence.

Art remained unconvinced. I understand. Clearly I am incapable of expressing in language what can only be experienced on a deeper, cosmic level. I suggested that the question of God’s existence is not much different than whether love exists, or the emotional power of music and poetry. Although we try to describe the warmth, passion, and intensity we feel from art and music, we cannot quantify them or prove they are real any more than we can prove that sensing God’s presence is real. 

Art countered that psychology and science provide better and more rational explanations for humankind’s emotional dependency on religion and a belief in God. “Maybe so,” I said. But evidence of God’s existence is all around if people are willing, as Heschel suggests, to open their hearts and minds to the wonder and radical amazement of our lives. The world, the vastness of the universe, the intricacies of life itself—all are so momentous that it seems irrational not to believe in some form of infinite force we call God, which created the universe and set everything in motion. Art’s facial expression revealed that I had not moved the needle for him. 

Fundamentally, I think the best I can do is accept that I am conflicted, caught between faith and rational thought. Perhaps this is what it means to be human. To embrace that doubt is a necessary component of a life that remains open to the advancement of human and scientific knowledge and to the mysterious wonder of the universe. 

If we submit everything to reason our religion will be left with nothing mysterious or supernatural. If we offend the principles of reason our religion will be absurd and ridiculous . . . There are two equally dangerous extremes: to exclude reason, to admit nothing but reason. – Blaise Pascal, Pensées (“Thoughts”) [circa 1660]

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Many people understandably have given up on the idea of God because there is little evidence of God’s presence in the harsh and cruel world in which we live. How do we relate to a God that allows so much suffering and destruction in the world? It is a question to which I must turn to wiser sages for answers.

In The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism, Rabbi Irving Greenberg recounted that, while at Tel Aviv University in 1961, his faith was shattered when he immersed himself into the evidence and accounts of the Holocaust. Greenberg could not comprehend how, less than two decades earlier, “such a cruel and catastrophic fate could have been inflicted . . . without any Divine intervention to stop it. . . . If the world was ultimately to live by a moral order, how could God have not intervened?” 

Rabbi Greenberg began a lifelong journey to understand whether religion, including the modern Orthodox Judaism of his upbringing, “had lost all credibility.” He came to believe that the Holocaust happened because the victims were powerless and because the local populations and existing religious order proved incapable of responding to and preventing the atrocities. Indeed, as Greenberg discovered, some people with no faith were more capable than religious people to understand and respond to the Holocaust.

The philosopher Albert Camus, an atheist, described himself yearning and praying in vain for a word from the pope opposing the Final Solution. He expressed his disappointment and disillusion on realizing that being Christian did not make people more likely to support the Resistance. If the Nazis could see themselves as people of faith and see God as integral to their project, if an atheist could understand the absolute need to oppose the horrors of the Final Solution while the pope himself could ignore it, then something must have been wrong with inherited approaches to religion.

Greenberg concluded that we needed a new way of understanding the nature of God and humanity’s relationship with God. After study and reflection, he came to believe that, while God is deeply connected and concerned for humanity, bad things happen because God gave human beings free will and God’s presence is hidden and power self-limited. During the Holocaust, “God was neither absent nor indifferent.” But it is only through human agency, and by humans acting in covenant with God—through acts of kindness, love, and grace—that God’s presence can be felt in this world. It was humanity, not God, that was absent during the Holocaust.

All of us have a conscience, the capacity for love, and the ability to build, create, and uphold life. Thus, every person can repair the world. “Rather than relate to the Divine out of fear, incapacity, or childlike dependency,” wrote Greenberg, “we are to seek God out of our capacity and free will and relate to God out of love and a sense of common cause.” 

Decades before Greenberg, in God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, Abraham Joshua Heschel similarly professed that God is in search of human partners to participate in the work of redeeming the world. This, according to Heschel, is the fundamental tenet of a covenant between God and humanity. Heschel believed that God is present in the world but hidden from human perception. “Our task is to bring God back in the world. . . . To have faith is to reveal what is concealed.” Tragically, according to Heschel, “the failure of perception, the inability to apprehend [God] directly is the sad paradox of our religious existence.” 

I appreciate Heschel’s notion of a God who is always present but hidden, waiting in the wings for humanity to make space for and be receptive to God’s revealed presence; to understand that life is a gift, and that God demands something of all of us. Humankind’s thirst for power and material wellbeing, its self-centeredness and indifference to the suffering of others, is our undoing. That God granted us free will and unlimited freedom, and that God does not actively intervene in the world, does not mean there is no God, only that humanity has squandered God’s gift of life. 

But even Greenberg and Heschel cannot fully resolve the tenuous nature of faith itself. To believe in God requires a belief in an unknowable and hidden presence. While concepts like “free will” and a “covenant” between God and humanity to repair the world may explain how God can exist despite untold suffering and despair, Greenberg and Heschel leave unresolved many remaining questions. When does God’s hiddenness become indistinguishable from abandonment? If God’s power is self-limited to allow for human free will, are there no depths of human destruction and cruelty that would compel a God of decency and love to intervene? 

In the end, on whether God continues to be alive and present in the world, and to wherein lies our fate, I must agree with the 17th Century French mathematician, philosopher, and Catholic theologian Blaise Pascal:

Just as I do not know where I came from, so I do not know where I am going. All I know is that when I leave this world I shall fall forever into oblivion, or into the hands of [God], without knowing which of the two will be my lot for eternity. Such is my state of mind, full of weakness and uncertainty. The only conclusion I can draw from all this is that I must pass my days without a thought of trying to find out what is going to happen to me. 

Some Final Thoughts on President Carter

 

“Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

I recall years ago having read an article about John F. Kennedy, Jr., the son of the 35th President of the United States, a few years before he so tragically died at a young age in 1999. What stuck with me, the only thing I remember, was Kennedy reportedly having said that, although he had studied the lives of many great men of history, he had concluded, with some introspection, that a lot of the great men of history were not good men. “People often tell me I could be a great man,” he said. “I would rather be a good man.”

Winston Churchill apparently understood this sentiment when he said, “Good and great are seldom in the same man.” To be considered great in the eyes of history, one needs to leave a legacy of accomplishment that positively impacts future generations. Napoleon Bonaparte was a brilliant military tactician who led the French Republic in volatile times. Thomas Jefferson authored the Virginia Declaration of Rights and much of the Declaration of Independence. Pablo Picasso was among the most influential artists of the 20th century. Henry Ford automated the assembly line and made cars affordable for the middle class. Robert Moses built the parks, bridges, and roadways of modern New York. But accomplishing great things often involves a singularity of mind and purpose at the expense of everything else that matters – family, moral and ethical considerations, the people who get in the way, anyone or thing that does not advance the greatness of the man himself. 

With the death of President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, the world has lost a good person who accomplished many great things over the course of his lifetime. That he did so without compromising his fundamental decency and goodness is what sets him apart. I have written previously about how many of us have fundamentally underestimated the accomplishments of Carter’s term as President (1977-1981), which included successfully brokering peace between Israel and Egypt—a peace that has lasted 45 years; elevating human rights as an instrument of U.S. foreign policy; leading efforts to ratify the Panama Canal Treaty; establishing the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum; and instituting forward looking environmental and consumer protections that remain to this day. He did all these things in one term despite, at times, vicious political opposition. And, although the press and political pundits unfairly labeled him a failed and inept president, his many achievements in office materially improved the lives of Americans and our standing in the world for generations to come. 

Of course, Carter’s true greatness became most apparent in his post-presidential life, when he quietly and with humility showed compassion for people who had few possessions, no power, and little money; people who were without a home, or who suffered from hunger and disease. The Carter Center helped eradicate diseases in Africa and established village-based health care delivery systems in thousands of African communities. The former president personally monitored and ensured free and fair elections in dozens of countries and mediated peaceful solutions to some of the world’s most intractable foreign conflicts. Through his work with Habitat for Humanity, he and Rosalynn devoted thousands of hours to building houses for impoverished families. And he did all of it without daily press releases and photographers.

It has been gratifying to see and read about the many tributes to President Carter that are finally giving him his due. But I believe two aspects of Carter’s life and presidency that deserve more attention are his political courage and fundamental honesty. Jimmy Carter was that rare leader who believed in telling the truth, even if it hurt him politically. According to Stuart Eizenstat in President Carter: The White House Years (St. Martin’s Press, 2018), the least effective argument Carter’s aids could make to convince Carter not to do something was to say, “It will hurt politically.” Take, for example, Carter’s “Crisis of Confidence” speech in July 1979, when he addressed the nation during the peak of the energy crisis. This was at a time when Americans were experiencing long gas lines, rising prices, and exorbitant interest rates. Stories abounded about America in decline. It was during the “me decade” when appeals to self-interest and political apathy were at all-time highs, and the nation seemed directionless. 

In the speech, Carter contended that the biggest threat facing America was not to the strength of our economy or military might, but to a “crisis of confidence. . . . that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation.” Carter explained that “too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption” and we are “no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns.” He argued that materialism and consumption cannot “satisfy our longing for meaning” and “piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.” He cited the growing disrespect for the institutions of American life, for government, schools, religious establishments, and the news media. 

He spoke with a directness not typical of presidential speeches; “people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.” He challenged Americans to make necessary sacrifices to conserve energy and help America become energy independent. He called on Americans to reject self-interest, to avoid always seeking “some advantage over others” and to instead pursue “the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values.” He did not promise “a quick way out of our Nation’s problems” and correctly warned “there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.”

Although the speech was initially praised, within days it was dubbed the “malaise” speech (even though that word was never uttered by Carter) and the political opposition easily exploited what any student of politics would describe as Carter’s political naivete. Although the speech was honest and attempted to appeal to the better angels of our nature, it was bad politics. Indeed, it was likely the last time an American president will ever again call for shared national sacrifice or for placing the common good over individual gain. The days when an American president could “[a]sk not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” as JFK so eloquently stated at his 1961 inaugural address, are over.

By honestly acknowledging the real problems then confronting our country, and by urging Americans to confront deeper truths about ourselves to fix those problems, Carter said what no politician should ever say. Had the country embraced the ideas Carter set forth in that speech and been open to concepts of shared national sacrifice and appeals to the common good, we may have solved some of today’s lingering problems and toned down the divisiveness and demonization of others. But the fault, dear Brutus, lay not in Carter’s honesty, but in ourselves. It seems we wanted only to hear that “it is morning again in America” or, as in more recent times, a falsely dystopian view of the country in chaos followed by promises to restore American greatness.

Carter was also willing to state unpopular truths in the cause of peace, even at the risk of causing discomfort. In December 2002, Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize while the nation was still healing from the 9/11 attacks, American troops were actively fighting in Afghanistan, and many advisors in the Bush administration were calling for war in Iraq. Carter provided another path:

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. The bond of our common humanity is stronger than the divisiveness of our fears and prejudices. God gives us the capacity for choice. We can choose to alleviate suffering. We can choose to work together for peace. We can make these changes, and we must. 

Many people were angry at Carter for these comments, believing they undermined America’s war plans. But years later, after U.S. forces had unleashed unprovoked devastation and destruction on Iraq (a country not responsible for 9/11) and after a 23-year war in Afghanistan, it is fair to ask: Did we accomplish anything? Is the world a safer place, a more just place? Has anything really changed, and at what cost?

As the president whose persistence, mindfulness, and knowledge of history were instrumental in brokering peace between Israel and Egypt, Carter remained committed to a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2006, Carter published Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (Simon & Schuster 2006), in which he contended that Israel’s settlement expansion and treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories was a primary obstacle to peace. The book’s provocative title caused great controversy and resentment in Israel and much of the American Jewish community. Many critics unfairly called him anti-Israel, and some called him antisemitic. 

Critics of the book, however, frequently misunderstood the essence of Carter’s argument, which was not that pre-1967 Israel was a form of apartheid (he called Israel within its internationally recognized borders a “wonderful democracy” that guaranteed everyone, Israeli Arabs and Jews alike, equal rights under the law). Instead, Carter’s book forewarned that Israel risked becoming an apartheid state if it permanently occupied millions of Palestinians who were deprived of the rights of citizenship and legal protections that were afforded to Jewish settlers and other Israeli citizens within the Green Line. Carter courageously described Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, including the bulldozing of Palestinian homes, the dual system of justice in the occupied territories, one for Palestinians and one for settlers, and many other aspects of the occupation of which most Americans were not aware. He also set forth three fundamental conditions for peace, none of which should be controversial: (1) that Palestinians and other Arab countries grant Israel full recognition; (2) that Palestinians end all violence and terrorism against Israeli civilians; and (3) that Israel recognize the right of Palestinians to live in peace and dignity in their own land (i.e., a two-state solution). 

According to Nadav Tamir in The Times of Israel, “Carter posed an equation that many here have since internalized: without peace, the occupation turns Israel into an apartheid state, where two different legal systems exist for people living in the same territory.” In fact, Carter’s words were prophetic and honest assessments of the realities on the ground. He understood that the well-being of Israelis and Palestinians are irretrievably connected; and that the two-state solution, in the words of Tamir, “is the only way to ensure both the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and the rights of the Palestinians.” 

Carter understood two decades ago what the majority of American Jews and Israel’s supporters now more openly acknowledge, that Israel’s continued occupation of millions of Palestinians poses an existential threat to Israel itself. Israel can either occupy all of Palestine and deprive millions of Palestinians the rights of statehood, at the expense of Israel’s democratic character, or it can grant equal rights to all Palestinians at the expense of Israel’s Jewish status. Only a two-state solution that guarantees Israel’s security while respecting the right of self-determination for the Palestinian people, will enable Israel to remain both majority Jewish and democratic. As Jeremy Ben-Ami, founder and president of J Street, the liberal pro-Israel advocacy group, wrote in The Forward, “This is the existential conundrum that Carter was trying to get Israel’s supporters to face up to after his decades of work to resolve the conflict, both as president and in his subsequent career. Almost 20 years later, the choice he articulated still has to be made; there is no way out of doing so.”  

Despite enduring harshly unfair personal attacks and criticism, Carter never wavered in stating what needed to be said in the pursuit of peace. He welcomed debate and was not afraid to admit mistakes. He was never a politician in the traditional sense. If he were, he would never have given the “crisis of confidence” speech in 1979 and would never have linked the word “apartheid” to the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 2006. But these were painful truths borne out in time, even if one disagrees with his prescriptive remedies. Guided by his faith and sense of justice, he spoke courageously and honestly. He had a counter-cultural instinct that sometimes left him alone in the wilderness. But throughout his long life, Jimmy Carter remained forever humble, decent, and compassionate, and never wavered in his commitment to a better world for all.

Rest in peace, Mr. President. May your memory be a blessing.