The Un-God

Religion says the existence of God can be proved; the agnostic says it can’t be proved; and the atheist claims proof of the nonexistence of God. Obviously, the dilemma of the wanderer from faith is that of profound confusion. He thinks himself lost to the comfort of any conviction at all. He cannot attain in even a small degree the assurance of the believer, the agnostic, or the atheist. He is the bewildered one.

TWELVE STEPS AND
TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 28

I am comfortable with my belief in an Un-God. Because I believe in this Un-God doesn’t make me an atheist or agnostic. It is more to me that the whole idea of God being irrelevant to my experience. Yes, I have made contact with my innermost spirit and, by virtue of doing so; my spirit has made contact with a far greater Spirit. My Christian friends feel a degree of pity for me because this seems so impersonal or a flat-out intellectualization of a personal relationship with God. My seeming indifference would even appear to them that I can’t possibly relate mine to their spiritual experience at all. It is my conviction, however, that nothing could be further from the truth. My experience has more in common with theirs than they might think. I just am not able to dress mine up with preconceived notions, concepts of God, or dogma other people have passed down through the ages. It has proven to be most productive for me to refer to my Un-God as the Heart of Compassion and by calling God this name I describe the action this Spirit empowers just as Jesus Christ does for Christians or enlightenment does for Buddhists. The Heart of Compassion allows me to look at the religious beliefs of others and in this Spirit I am encouraged to see the similarities of our faith instead of the differences.

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