© Evans Liberal Politics, Fully revised version of March 29, 2012, revised from March 22, 2012, revision of an article from February 29, 2012, revision of an article from February 5, 2011, by Paul Evans, very old symbol of the Triquetra from Wikipedia: Feel free to republish any or all of this under a Creative Commons license. Please do not quote me out of context.

This is a discussion and I am not any sort of credentialed authority on Christianity and certainly not on Wicca. The start of the article focuses on a comparison between Christianity and Wicca. Also there are Taoist and other spiritual ideas in the discussion, and quite a few scientific ideas, as well. The later focus is specifically on the nature of God, generally (most often) approached from a Christian perspective. The philosophical nature or type of the discussion might be described as both idealistic and also materialistic. While I insist that the thrust of these ideas is Christian, much of the discussion is earth centered. Even so, there are some central ideas I have about God which are much more universal. Basically, I am attempting to discuss what I have been led to believe God’s nature or reality might be, although I am quite aware how ambitious such an attempt is. I will say that I have been thinking, meditating and reading on the subject matter since 1979.

I have been a Christian, despite spiritual struggles, since the beginning of 2009 and am a member of a local United Church of Christ, having also attended other Christian churches in Wooster, Ohio. I have particularly enjoyed the local Wooster Church of the Nazarene and Wooster Mennonite Church. Most Christian churches have some unique wisdom to teach us.
Since the fall of 2005 I have studied primarily about Christianity, generally from a spiritualist viewpoint but also from different Christian perspectives, and I have often read portions of other books from other religions. As one non-Christian book I have become familiar with recently, let me recommend Ralph Alan Dale’s translation of the Tao Te Ching (2002, 2005 Barnes & Noble). Perhaps my interest in other religions follows from the fact that, for 25 years, I studied several world religions (including Christianity) as a member of a Unitarian-Universalist church. During that time, in particular I studied various kinds of yoga (such a gnanni yoga and pranayama breathing techniques), Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and read generally on spiritual matters, including books on Christianity. I have felt a spiritual presence in my mind which I have interacted with since my birthday in 1987. For almost a decade before that I did some reading on my own.
Somewhere around 2007, I purchased three books on the religion of Wicca (a rather common variety of witchcraft) to read. The Unitarian-Universalist religion, generally considered under the Christian umbrella of denominations, allows and encourages its members to explore spirituality in any way they feel led, so long as it does not involve harm to another. It was simply some exploratory reading. I believe the religion of Wicca is thought to originate from among the ancient Celts about 5,000 B.C. At least one authority, however, believes that any ancient overall “Celtic” religion did not exist, or that there is little evidence for it, and that Wicca is a synthetic, more recent creation, although I am certain it existed by Reformation times. Also, in the Neolithic period of prehistory, Goddess figures are pervasive stone artwork, which is strong evidence of the religion’s existence, since it involves Goddess worship.
Surprisingly, near the beginning of one of these books in particular is a claim that there is a Wiccan Trinity which is essentially the same as the Christian Trinity. I do not believe the fact that there is any sort of Wiccan Trinity is widely known, and in fact I do not think it is a concept widely believed among Wiccans, although that is only speculation on my part.

In the book book I read the most of, by Vivianne Crowley, it was stated that the Christian “God” corresponds to the Wiccan concept of “The One” and comprises all the light of the Universe. I guess that this would include phenomena such as the 100 billion suns in our Milky Way galaxy, with scientists now believing that there are at least 250 billion galaxies in the (known) universe. I also think that quasars and nebulae often give off a lot of energetic particles that involve light, and I believe also that a good many black holes emit huge amounts of energy. (Because I have had a college education in science, I often am drawn to try to understand phenomena in terms of a material conception, sometimes, my father would say, like a moth is drawn to the flame of a candle.)

What Wiccans call “The God” is supposed to be the same as our “Christ,” and is actually believed by some Wiccans to be our sun. I will have more to say about the importance of Light and stars as well as elemental hydrogen as a concept, and the reality of this in understanding God, and the part of water, H2O, in this later in the article.

”The Goddess,” Wicca’s preeminent object of worship, these witches feel to be a kind of feminine life force existing as a sort of earth moon synergy. Sometimes they view the Goddess as simply life, in the universe or as a force, or, for some, simply the feminine aspect of life on earth. The Goddess is stated in the book to be basically the same as Christianity’s “Holy Spirit.” She seems to me to have affinity with the Taoist concept of “yin.” It may be relevant to say that the Bible sometimes speaks of wisdom in terms of its femininity. And I want to say that even though I have referenced some concepts which describe the Goddess, I am not really that familiar with the religion and do not know about this well.

Speaking of the Bible, an interesting Bible I looked through quite a few years ago had an introduction stating that the book is not straightforward, and is “a very difficult book.” I would add that in various almost unknown, unquoted parts of the Bible are some very interesting ideas indeed. Let me add that although I am aware that this is so, I think you would have to read the whole Old and New Testaments a couple of times to really learn what you might be able to. rather than if you just took what you heard in church as “Gospel.” I live a fairly ordinary life except for this website and have not read the Bible nearly as much or as thoroughly as I should except for the Gospels and Book of Acts, from which many of my values come.

To elaborate on Vivianne Crowley’s book and from what I have been told, Wiccans honor and cherish the fructative or female principle or part of life on earth (which is a main conception of “who” the Goddess is). It seems to me that this involves a difference with the Judeo-Christian Holy Spirit, which is generally thought to be male, or else it might comprise the whole of spirituality – both male and female, yang and yin. Perhaps since Christians so value light and the sun, and since historically Jews and Christians have had a rather patriarchal society, more correctly, the Judeo-Christian Holy Spirit might in reality be solely the male or yang aspect of spirituality, which has some equation with day or light.

A friend of mine, who is in fact a Wiccan, takes exception to the claim (stated in the book, which, I pointed out to her, was on the subject of Wicca, and written by a High Priestess of Wicca), about even the existence of a Wiccan Trinity. She believes only in “The Goddess,” and I think that is likely what most Wiccans and other witches adhere to as a belief. Some if not most Wiccans believe that the only approach to any sort of overall God would be described by a rather vague belief of theirs in a “Great All.” The Goddess is also an “object” of worship for Wiccans in a fully religious sense, much in the same way that Christians reverence the cross.

The overall reason I have explained all of this is that I simply found quite fascinating a possible distinct similarity between a supposed Wiccan Trinity and our own Christian Trinity, and wanted to share this with you. It was at this point in my original article that I somehow referenced the Wikipedia article on the very old symbol shown above called the Triquetra. The Triquetra has been used by Germanic paganism, in Celtic art, and by Christianity. Wikipedia says that “in contemporary Ireland, it is traditional for a man to give a loved one a trinket such as a necklace or ring signifying his affection towards her,” and the Triquetra then symbolizes a man’s promise to a woman to “love, honor and protect” her.

Whatever religion you believe in, it seems to me that perhaps I have found some interesting concepts which are spread throughout more than one religion that I wanted to share with you. What I am exploring in detail is the intersection of these ideas with Christianity. Some ideas are just closer to the mark than are others, perhaps. Many ideas are certainly fascinating to think about.

Perhaps you may be aware of a phenomenon in liberal Christianity over the last few decades of a tendency to think about God as having both male and female aspects. Pertaining to this is a newly discussed idea in Christian theology referred to as “the sacred feminine.” Just as the Roman Catholic Church officially discourages any full worship of or adoration of the Virgin Mary, so conservative Christian Protestant theologians really dislike this last concept.

Would the idea which follows from a God who has both male and female attributes — of God as Life — be the same as was referred to in John 1:1? Remember that there it is stated that “God Is Life, in Him is no darkness at all.” I would think that in this sentence, perhaps many Christians feel the second part of the sentence is more important, referring to God as Light, literally. Others might see the first part equating God with Life to be primary and think the second part referring to God as having no darkness to be metaphorical. (Perhaps it may even be true that both are true, more literally than not, a theme I will develop later.) Certainly Life, or life on earth, has both male and female attributes. (The Taoists have some interesting ideas about this, incorporated in their concepts of yin and yang — I introduced this above and go further into the concept below.)

In this description of God as Life, perhaps even as the Wiccan “Great All,” or possibly their conception of God (or Goddess) as life, (in its feminine aspect on earth), and because some Wiccans also believe in a Trinity similar to the Christian Trinity, I believe there is some room for common ground between the two religions. I want to add that Wiccans are a peaceful sort of witch who are also associated with herbal skills, and usually not much with any magic or spells, and certainly not with anything evil at all. I have been told that no true coven of witches would tolerate a member who was at all evil, or he or she would be cast out.

(I feel sadly compelled to point out, for those who would judge me for my knowledge of this, that I have at no time been a member of any coven of witches. At one time I explored the religion because it is interesting and there are some noteworthy ideas for us to learn from it. The above discussion of any intersection between Christianity and Wicca is basically separate from the following part of the discussion.)

Let me go into more detail about the concept I mentioned, that with a God of Life who has male and female attributes, there is some equation with the Taoist idea of yin and yang. This is best known from Chinese Taoism and Buddhism in their artistic, circular symbol of the yinyang. In that case yin and yang, female and male, dark (night) and light (day), form a circle which is a whole. So, perhaps with the overall “circle” of Life on earth, and as it says in Genesis, (in the story of God’s creation), God created the sun to watch over the day, and the moon to watch over the night. Yet it is life which benefits from the sun’s giving rays, and if you study biology, if I remember correctly from high school, plants need to have the night’s darkness as a part of a diurnal cycle by which they exist, as well.

Recommended: Watch Ram Dass – Part 1 Complete: Compassion in Action – Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove, YouTube video from June 2, 2011: 27:33.

At this point I want to say discuss a very difficult subject, which is evil, or, the nature of evil. I have been doing a lot of praying and struggling about this. It seems to me, that in the world, evil, unlike God, is not in reality any kind of a thing or an entity or deity, and that Satan, if you believe he is real, may be complementary with God or even serve His purposes. Perhaps evil on earth consists of people’s actions (acts) which are evil in nature, including selfishness, and the consequences which arise from this behavior. Different people have different conceptions of ethics and morality, so different people (and cultures) define what is an evil act differently. Also, belief in evil, or in an evil deity, or the terrible embracing of evil in any kind of belief system, causes terrible sickness and grief for mankind.

At the same time, we really need to remember that this is God’s world, to think about the stories from the Old Testament, and perhaps about what He required of Jesus, and to look at history. We need to really realize that God can do what He wants. Then it might be well to be a little more humble, unselfish and more honestly worship God and fear Him, however you conceive of Him, and also be grateful for what you have.

Very sadly for mankind, some people, especially the villains of history, have embraced evil as a concept and tried to give life to it as a being, as in belief in some evil sort of Satanism. And who says the night or literal darkness, which I definitely tend to think more of in terms of wisdom, peace and a certain sort of spirituality than any sort of evil, is a Satan, that is to say, one who must necessarily be evil? If you believe that Satan is the night or darkness, exactly what is definitively evil about the night?

Ask yourself if Satan was not doing God’s will, in a preordained way, when he tempted Jesus, almost as though the whole thing were scripted. Did not God and Satan have a bet about Job and discuss the events of that among themselves? Is that something enemies would do? Is not the main thing that so many people engage in evil actions “under cover of darkness,” or else have some kind of sick, compelling belief that night is evil, which I am certain actually causes evil behavior and mental illness, too?” Yet that is not all. In the Bible we see Satan, who is often described in terms of darkness, shown as a liar (“and the father of liars,”) and as a great tempter of mankind who can lead us into evil deeds. I believe that, while this is true, Satan acts as part and parcel of a basically good universe, and subject to God’s will or even acting as an agent of God. That is not to say that we should fear him less.

To me, this belief in evil itself as incarnate, or that darkness is positively evil, is delusional. Believing that Satan, or darkness, if you believe he is real, is in reality no more evil than is God, (as I said), does not mean that we should not fear him. Just as with God: omnipotent (so far as humans are concerned) is omnipotent. I know that my belief that darkness or Satan is not evil is outside of the norm in Christianity, but I believe it is an aspect of my emersion in eastern thought for several years. The conclusions here are more recent, however. In all honesty and truth, spiritually I have led by Jesus to believe that this is so, as well.

The alternative rock group U2 has a song, “Vertigo,” wherein part of the lyrics are “…and though your soul it can’t be bought, your mind can wander.” Such is the nature of temptation, and perhaps in some way you might imagine that Satan’s temptation of us accomplishes God’s purposes as an instrument of His judgment.

Many times – and in my own case as well in the past — the belief that darkness is evil constitutes a variety of mental illness, even if the person so troubled is entirely of a good nature, otherwise. Unfortunately, I think the phenomenon is fairly pervasive in fundamentalist Christianity, and I wholeheartedly believe it is just “wrong-headed.” Evil consists entirely of doing wrong actions, or else going against God’s wishes for us, or in the horrible worship of by a few, or belief in the existence of (by a larger number of people), of the false (and nonexistent) entity of evil incarnate. Again, I do not believe evil is incarnate. Satan, if real, is either complementary with God or else, as I see it, is (also) an instrument of His will.

In other cultures, not just the night, but even the day or sun has been thought to have been evil. The Mexican Aztec people, before the Spaniard Cortez conquered them, worshiped a sun god whom they felt strongly to be evil, and to whom they made human sacrifices. And that belief is equally wrong, is that not so?
I also think that when we act in evil ways, God (or also Satan) punishes us in ways which may involve delusion such as belief in evil, especially belief in evil as incarnate. Evil itself I fully admit to be very real, but to define it one must make a moral judgment or value judgment, which may sometimes be difficult: should we begin war with Iran?

What I am saying is that I believe that God allows and sometimes even encourages or even might cause, for reasons of the holiness of true goodness, evil to grow worse in people and in the world. Eventually we regret this, individually and as a society. But holy is holy, and it is not to be invoked lightly. It may be very necessary to have a life-long sort of patience (or long-suffering), as recovery from past mistakes may take decades.

Karma is one of those “new age” beliefs which has gained currency in recent years, but it is a very ancient eastern concept. As a Christian I would add that I absolutely believe that God can do to us whatever He wants, whether it is punishing a family down to the nth generation, or really almost anything, right? We are His children and He is fully omnipotent. The Old Testament, however true or fanciful you believe it to be, gives a good idea of this omnipotence, and in no way do I conceive it to be just all “stories.”

When I try to convince the reader of the eastern conception that neither the day or night, God or Satan, yang or yin, are evil, nonetheless, it gives me chills when I think of the fact that, conversely just as Life and Love are very good, they have polar opposites in death and hate. I believe that these are simply horrible aspects of reality, as I see it, a way that God made the universe, despite popular symbolism such as the grim reaper. I will note that the latter is something from the Dark Ages, a time of little knowledge and less education. Death exists simply because God made humans and all animal life with finite life spans – this is the way that evolution worked. I do also think, along with the Beatles’ John Lennon, that “we all shine on,” and that in some way, no one is lost. Hate is a fully human creation, and as such, we should be able to move beyond it.

At the same time, there is one Judge, and perhaps there is a heaven and a hell, although really, I do not know. I know that Jesus speaks of both in the Gospels. Our actions have consequences, of this I am certain.
Day and night, light and dark, form the whole which is a circle of Life or All, and as such, are a wonderful, awesome goodness. I believe that the universe is a caring place, although sometimes with a stern father.

To finish this discussion of evil, doing what you know is right, behaviorally, is a goodness and doing what you know is wrong is an evil, insofar as God has not granted any clemency though prayer, and there are degrees to those. (But it is not up to us to judge, is it? And in judgment, God has warned us that in such a measure — judgments — as we give forth in this life, so God will judge us – Matthew 7:1-2, Luke 6:37-38, John 7:24, Romans 2:1, James 4:11-12.)

And evil is getting worse in the world over the last few decades. Partly this is just because of more people and a finite amount of resources, but also because of our technology, which allows power to be projected whether it is for the good or for evil. Moreover the Middle East seems ready to explode into a regional conflict. Yet we see that, throughout history, many groups have believed that the end of the world and God’s judgment were at hand, and of course they were quite wrong. As a news and politics website owner and writer, however, I see the Middle East, vis a vis Israel, Iran and The United States, closer to a war which might well engulf the Middle East than at any time since I started this website in November of 2008.

If in fact the Middle East blows up, insofar as I can discern, I do see God’s intervention as a likely or at least a highly possible reality. Here see Beautiful Day: The Saints are Coming: (A Few Thoughts on UFO’s and Judgment Day), Evans Liberal Politics, February 20, 2012, by Paul Evans. Whether any intervention by aliens or God’s angels would occur with an overall Middle East conflict, this might be Judgment Day and Armageddon, or else (I hope that) the Bible is more generally then absolutely true in that regard, and that the Book of Revelation is not literally true. I believe, with amazing technology I am aware of myself and perhaps with some help from above, Israel and the United States are ready for this.

At least, I pray that Revelation is not both literally true and might not in fact happen soon, as quite a few facts do suggest. Simply, as a follower of Jesus, I have a hard time believing that God would do that to the world, that he would do something like the Rapture and the Tribulation and ultimately the end of the world, even if he would remake it. I also think the neocon militarist mentality is very dangerous. The whole thing reminds me horribly of the old black and white movie starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott, called “Dr. Strangelove.”

For some of these devout conservative Christians, the whole purpose of the military of the U.S., as they see it developing in the near future, is to fight the battle of Armageddon. I think this is shameful or ignorant and extremely dangerous. Maybe (belief in this) is another instrument of God’s judgment for some of those who almost evilly conspire to bring it about. Of course most people who do feel this way have little or no evil in them, but are simply misled, as I see it. It may be one example of how wrong things can go when people believe in an ultimate conflict between good and evil, in terms of a fight against evil incarnate. I have stated above that any belief in evil as incarnate can cause grave harm. How would a caring God desert and doom most of the population of the world, and what does it say about those who would believe He would do that?

I have described a way in which deception actually may serve God’s purposes. Holy is fully Holy, and as I see it, the projected events in the Book of Revelation are far from that. It is easy to fall for false reality, (especially if God sets it up), and there is One who ultimately will judge us, individually and as a society. It is not up to us to work for anything like Armageddon. (Of course, many ordinary citizens have not thought that through in the way I conceive of this whole business, and for those who believe that the entire Bible is literally true, my words may have little or no effect.) I cannot really believe the Book of Revelation is at all mostly literally true: I pray it isn’t so.

Could the angels be aliens? Sheryl Crow and conservative Christian theologian, New York Times bestselling author and Middle East expert Michael Evans think so. Spiritualist Christianity often speaks of angels in terms of their existence as “beings of light,” or else more conventional portraits of aliens may be more accurate, yet I am convinced of their reality. I have seen a UFO very clearly visible and motionless, not too far away for about 40-45 minutes quite recently. I am also aware of (and have seen video of) the behavior of UFO’s in ways which defy the known laws of physics, and am aware that the United States has been reverse-engineering technology from a few downed craft for decades. Iran may well find out about this.

One thing is fairly certain, unfortunately: analysts believe that in any Middle East conflict, at least for a short time, the price of oil would double. I think that this alone might even necessitate martial law here in the United States. Do you think that a President should start such a war, even if regime change is absolutely necessary in Iran, lightly, or should he make all due preparations and be fully ready, and then fight the war only if the conflict is completely necessary? Should the United States start wars which are not completely necessary, or before they have to, or are prepared? Actually, starting a war for reasons other than necessity is a violation of the U.N. Charter, of which the United States is a signee, for what that’s worth. I know that Barack Obama must pray for guidance about this daily.

My own personal, unconventional belief is that BOTH President Bush and President Obama have been decent or good presidents. O.K., liberals, do you remember that George W. Bush started the prescription drug benefit (Medicare Part D)? Did you know that under Bush, discretionary spending was TWICE what it was under Bill Clinton? As a typical pro-business Republican, Bush made a really big mistake about (not) regulating the big investment banks. As to Republicans’ intense dislike of Barack Obama, I think if you dispassionately look at what he has done, he has been pretty damn wonderful. I also think the current climate of mutual hatred in Congress and in society at large between liberals and conservatives is SHAMEFUL, and believe it to be displeasing to God.

Getting back to the discussion on the nature of God, here, in terms of earth I am thinking, “does not all life proceed from water and is not water its source?” And where did the water come from? We have found it on the moon and Mars: apparently it is found pervasively throughout the universe. Here is another thought I have had: Our sun is 90 percent by weight hydrogen. Well, water is H20, and so in some atomic-level way it is closely related to the sun’s composition, right? Scientists tell us that it is at the molecular level that most substances have their properties, and so in that way water would actually not be very close to the way the sun behaves, but still…

Of course, in terms of yin or the night or Goddess or Satan or the blackness of space, science now believes that “dark matter” constitutes (variously stated as 84 to 94) percent of the known mass of the universe. On the other hand, photons, the main particle emitted by most stars, are one of the largest and are about the most energetic particles known to man.

Let me say again that this article is not meant to be any kind of definitive truth, but a discussion, as mentioned above and in one of the titles given, “Thoughts About God.” I have often thought that perhaps those Christians who feel that God is light, as I hinted at above, are correct — perhaps there is something exceedingly special about hydrogen. It is the most “elemental” and smallest of atoms, and it does seem to have special properties when combined with oxygen as water. Remember that, despite all of science’s recent emphasis on subatomic particles, it is at the level of the atom that elements have many of their basic properties. Hydrogen, as the smallest atom, perhaps is closest to the more amazing, unknown substance of All which much have existed before the Big Bang when many Christians believe that God said, “I AM,” and decided to have “an experience,” you might say.

The fusion of stars emits photons, which as mentioned constitute an amazing, hugely energetic subatomic particle. To complicate this whole business further, if you only delineate darkness and light, you miss the fact that all wavelengths and all particles, masses and energies exist as a part of a whole, overall electromagnetic spectrum. I sometimes wish that I had more of a gift in mathematics and physical science, and had become a physics major in college.

Water – H₂O — insofar as our science is aware, I have said is a requirement for just about all life of which we have had knowledge. The question remains as to whether hydrogen alone in suns constitutes the primary God the Father or else life proceeds directly from water. On earth, although all life here is water-based (except for certain sulfur based bacteria found near volcanic vents in the deep ocean trenches), life would be impossible without the sun. Moreover, science tells us that earth actually is within the outer atmosphere, or corona, of the sun. If God is light, or stars directly, or hydrogen, then the Holy Spirit would be water, perhaps in some obscure crystallographic form, as a vapor, maybe, yet with the fullness of God within it.

I believe I am pointing at something deep and very important here, and the uniqueness of hydrogen should not be overlooked. Jesus I see as our personal salvation — that we all have, as the recent song goes, our own “personal Jesus.” The Gospel portrait of Jesus is the main idea of His holiness and nature that I have conceived. I cannot really think of Jesus in any other way.

There is a real problem I have seen between thinking that life proceeds from hydrogen and water and seeing reality or God as a complementary reality of yin and yang, darkness and light, female and male – which seems to me to be a logical problem about origins. (The philosophical study of the origin of things is called eschatology.) Although there may be a problem, I have noted the importance of hydrogen in both stars and water. Perhaps God is the Light and Satan is the darkness, and the light proceeds from hydrogen fusion and emits photons yet darkness is from what scientists call dark matter. But then how does that relate to Life itself? (This is the old problem I mentioned in interpreting John 1:1.) I like the words of the old hymns which describe God the Father as the “source of all,” whatever His nature may be. It may be something theologians have thought about a lot (I don’t know), or it may be something for the future, at least for science, but it does seem to involve a partial logical inconsistency or lack of a direct connection. It seems to me important that animals depend on plants, and plants need darkness as well as light as part of the diurnal cycle by which they exist, and that Life proceeds from hydrogen-based water.

Let me say it again: Stars, at least of our type, are composed overwhelmingly of hydrogen, and water is of course H2O. Still, science at present believes that the origin of water is pervasive in the universe as frozen little globules in meteorites. If you believe in the “cold accretion” theory of the universe’s origin, that makes perfect sense. To me, the Big Bang makes more sense, but I am no expert at all. Maybe the two ideas are not at all incompatible. Perhaps a form of this “cold accretion” is the way that stars form, too, I wouldn’t know.

Any real understanding of God definitely has a cost to us personally. In developing the ideas I write about in this article, there has been a very large cost to me over decades. I had some of the ideas for this article long ago, but there was much suffering involved in putting it together coherently, and in finding and developing the ideas for it. I know that the article is “too long,” but it is a difficult subject and there is a lot to this. Perhaps you might benefit from some of these ideas without having to go through the suffering which I did, yet if you understand something of the nature of God, but do not follow Him and then live outside of His love and direction (however you conceive of Him), there is an even greater cost. God does not like hypocrites.

If you are a Christian, I do not see how you could claim to follow Him and yet not lead caring, giving and sometimes sacrificial lives. I think, as a friend has discussed with me recently, that the great fault of the modern age is that we are simply far too selfish (but also deceitful). I know that in my own work on coding web pages for this website, writing articles myself and finding authors for the site, I neglected many other aspects of my life, including to some extent the care of my elderly parents…may God forgive me. I am also fairly certain that this is the explanation for a good deal of my more recent suffering, too.

You just can’t be any sort of hypocrite and a true Christian, because though you may deceive yourself about it, or ignore it, you certainly won’t deceive God, and I don’t think He will ignore it. There may be hell, and there is certainly suffering, which you will ultimately pay for any sort of uncaring, hypocritical lifestyle especially in any opposition to your espoused beliefs. I am sure that I upset quite a few people by saying here, in terms of money, Jesus’ quote that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” Are those thoughts at all hard to understand and appreciate, or do you rich folks really believe in God? I cannot judge you….

Another main idea I want to cover is the Gaia Hypothesis, which Wikipedia discusses very well, so I will just give you that introduction to the concept. The Gaia Hypothesis has been introduced as a formal, scientific hypothesis by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970′s and is very controversial among scientists, but has never in any important regard been disproven:

“The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system (or whole – PE), maintaining the conditions for life on the planet.”

Science – meteorologists and biologists – also know that earth’s phenomena of water, winds, weather and temperatures are driven at a larger scale mainly by the sun, despite a lot of smaller level departures, and changes at our own level. We think of global warming as entirely man-made, yet if we think of the large temperature drop of the “little ice age” of the late Middle Age and Reformation times, this I think must have been more solar in origin. It hurt European agriculture and caused the abandonment of Norse settlements in Greenland. While science is becoming aware of just how complicated all this is, certainly the sun is fully involved in earth’s changes and fate, and the patterns of its weather.

Now that I have discussed a few ideas I hope you found interesting, let me discuss one last phenomenon which I ran across in the fall of 2005. I discovered an old concept invented by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus (535 to 475 B.C.), called Logos. Logos is sometimes described as the Logic or order of the Universe or the Nature of God, considered philosophically and also in “rhetoric, linguistics, psychology and theology.” If you look at the Wikipedia article on Logos, you will see that there are a lot of nouns and adjectives associated with the term, yet there is only ONE value, and that value is CARING.

Personally, it was because of this preeminent caring value as a main fact about Logos, and also my familiarity with the Gospels and the life of Jesus, that I was led to try to make my own very small contribution in terms of a website which might help people see that they need to build a more caring society. As one who might be considered “spiritually gifted,” there must be fifty times in the last year when I have felt “connected” to Jesus in prayer. I would even go so far as to say that at this point I feel that he is a very ready resource whom I am grateful to connect to in prayer, though the time is not necessarily at all of my own choosing. I believe that only God controls our spiritual direction and the experience of our reality of that spiritual experience. (And who does not remember the old spiritual hymn’s words: “and he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own.…”)

This sort of connection which I sometimes feel with Jesus and my overall experience in life, particularly my personal life and all about my family, can be read about here (although I need to revise it, and some of the struggles I went through are plainly and painfully evident in it). It is a kind of short biography, if you are interested. At this point I can say that I truly know the love of God, yet it is only recently that I have learned to perhaps more fully fear Him and serve Him with better effort.

Sometimes what we ought to do in situations or in life is not at all evident, and sometimes the answers are plain, if only we are ready to accept them. Anyway, I’m trying. God can be a rather stern Father to us, yet it is all His love, shining though in all that we must suffer, as well as that which we enjoy. Everything happens for a reason, although sometimes the evil in our lives is really our own fault, or else seems to be entirely of human origin. But who can see through the veil of causality of this life?

Perhaps I am just an old fool in my efforts in life, but I have rock hard faith that it is God who will judge me, and if any evil comes to me from those who claim to know better than me, or who make the mistake of judging me, and think that I am deficient in my faith or efforts, I forgive them, as I hope God forgives me for my deficiencies.

A word about politics and its intersection with religion: many liberals are led to make efforts towards building a caring society and being our brother’s keeper because we feel God is a caring God, who expects us to (as Jesus says three times at the end of the Gospel of John), “Feed my (His) sheep.” For us, it is our actual Christian faith which so motivates us to work as we do for liberalism, for the common man, for working people and decent, caring people everywhere, and, of course, for God. We can only do this as each of us perceives His will for us to be. For other liberals, their motivation is simply the conception of building a caring society.

Many conservative Christians are of course very caring people too; it is just a different mindset. I do think that the wealthy (many obscenely rich people, and big corporate CEO’s as well as executives in the big investment banks here in the United States), have conned ordinary Republicans of faith, workers and far too many Americans in general into thinking that we should not be our brother’s keeper and take care of each other and those in need. These rich, privileged leaders keep trying to push (false reasons for) tax cuts for the rich, and cuts in benefits and help to the poor, often quite derisively, only interested in the instrumentality of power and money. They say that they are the true Christians and that liberals cannot have any sort of real Christianity. And because they proclaim this to the rooftops, many Americans believe them. They offer in the place of a caring government only a “root, hog or die” mentality which I had been hopeful we had moved past as a society.

While one can find passages in the Bible in support of many ideas, I am certain that the Bible does not support an uncaring society in any important way or aspect. If we say we follow Jesus, how could we in any way work for a less caring society?

As to our government, do you really want to do away with those loathsome regulations which however keep poisonous chemicals from spilling out into our water supply and keep our food safe? Do you think that the U.N. is evil? It is not an institution of “world government” superseding that of the United States or any other country. It is a world organization of member states working to make the world better, although of course it is only as good as any sort of democratic institution, with much room for improvement.

To finish this line of argumentation, it is not only up to God to care for His people. He expects all of us to do what we can do help those less fortunate than ourselves without judgment and even to the limit of our abilities. As Jesus enjoined (three times) before He ascended into heaven, he expected Peter and the church to “feed my (His) sheep.” This is central in my beliefs.

Another idea which has been formative for me is the First Principle of Unitarian-Universalism, which is “the inherent worth and dignity of every human being.” In this regard, remember that Jesus refused no one help in his ministry on earth, including the Samaritan woman, with whom Jews were not supposed to have any contact, and Cornelius the Roman Centurion, who was a pagan Roman soldier and as such an enemy of the Jewish people. In other words, He did not judge the individual in need, just as He told His people to be very careful about making any judgments of others. In His life on earth, Jesus only offered up only His caring love, advice, healing and help, and then His life itself.

Getting back to Logos, it is very noteworthy that the early Christian church appropriated the concept of Logos from Heraclitus as referring to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, or Jesus Himself. (In that case, the main value of Jesus would be caring, if an identity is made between Logos and Christ.) My own United Church of Christ has a Logos ministry, as well as a fairly well developed concept we speak of as, “God is Still Speaking.” Almost equally noteworthy as the early Christian church’s use of Logos, perhaps, is the fact that the concept of Logos, as originally conceived by the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus, was meant to incorporate both day and night, light and dark, and in fact was described as the nature and logic of the whole universe (as the ancient Greeks saw it then). Remember then that it was believed to be caring in its entirety.

This goes along with my own conception, as in fact I have been spiritually led by Jesus to believe, that darkness is in not really evil, and is often used in the Bible metaphorically, and that Satan may even serve God’s purposes. Yes, evil is real: because God gave man free will and we are descended from killer apes. Only through real faith can we overcome this in reality. But darkness is not evil, it is to a large extent mankind who is far too evil. As I see it, it is only men, as noted, the descendants of killer apes, who behave towards one another so often in unkind, uncaring, and indeed sometimes murderous ways. Theologians historically have basically said that this follows from the fact that God gave man free will. As Christians, we say that we believe in faith, in hope, and in love (or charity). We struggle to get beyond our origins, before it is too late for us, and indeed too late for the planet. We should not judge each other – that is part of the problem – yet we have One who will judge us.

Back when I first read about Logos, I felt spiritually warned by God not to try to “discover” the nature of God in terms of what He is. Despite this, I have been driven to write and rewrite this article, (as well as the beliefs in my mind), to the extent that I feel that perhaps it is a calling from Him. I have felt that you can get an idea of who God is, if you are a Christian, by reading the Bible and the writings of important theologians, and some people have an identification with what is Holy to them in nature, or in what is beautiful to them, or through prayer and meditation. For some, or in other regions of the world, there are other writings from other religions which are considered to be holy, and equally meaningful to those people. For me, all of these were my particular path to Christian worship and belief.

But it seems even more true to me that God is too holy for us to ever really understand His nature adequately for our limited, human understanding. I have made an attempt to try to learn what I could, not just in reading and by attending various churches, but also though prayer and meditation, and of course, I wanted to share that. This may be the last article I write on Evans Liberal Politics for some time, because I have no time really to write that much any more or to code web pages and I am too poor to have an internet connection right now. I sincerely hope this attempt might help a few people.

Maybe it is that just that even though we cannot begin to understand God in His holiness, we still have an idea of what He is to each of us. It is only in the particular way or ways in which God reveals Himself to each of us that any of us have any real understanding at all. Here I have more than a little identification with the Lutheran conception of the “priesthood of all believers.” (Actually, I was baptized as a Lutheran in 1979.) It also seems to me that one cannot really say, “the Bible is literally true,” because it is only with our education, inspiration, and with our limited, human minds that we can understand this difficult subject matter. What seems central to me is the nature of this “Life,” which proceeds from God or is an aspect of Him.

In terms of my personal journey into Christian belief, it is difficult to escape what I was raised to believe, and I was raised as an agnostic. For those of you that don’t know, there is a large difference between “agnostic” and “atheist.” Atheists believe or claim that they know without doubt that there is no God. Agnostics believe that they don’t know whether there is a God, and they believe that it may be impossible to know that. I came to my initial Christian faith and have renewed it several times while realizing that God offers little or no proof, and that logic cannot prove His existence. Believe me, I have read and meditated on this for 33 years, and have discussed it with quite a few pastors, priests and Ph.D.’s.

I am certain in my mind that belief and Christian faith first requires just that: faith. Without strong faith there can be no true Christianity, and the particular doctrines and beliefs beyond that are to me less important than faith. Most Christians will tell you this is so. My upbringing made belief a very difficult struggle for me, but it also made me extremely curious about different ways of thinking about God. In 2005, when God warned me not to try to understand Him as exactly what He is, I did not listen to His warning and as a result, my obsession with this whole business caused me some painful mental difficulties, which actually have extended over many years, before and after 2005. In history, many writers and thinkers have suffered because they wanted to understand the nature of God, and the effort to do so unhinged them or even ruined their lives. Recently I have felt better able to try to synthesize my own thoughts on this subject, although I feel incredibly inadequate.

At this point I basically can see Light or perhaps hydrogen as God; some form of water vapor or other unknown crystallographic form of water as the Holy Spirit; and Jesus as God’s human and divine son perceived much as the Gospels portray Him.

However, all the above discussion and that summary totally ignores what I am sure may be crucial facts about subatomic particles, about which I am basically ignorant. I also strongly would caution the reader that even more than this, I believe God will always be too holy for us to really understand. The above conception of the Trinity of God would be how I would overall summarize my beliefs as I write this article.

How I live my own life, especially recently, is an attempt to in some minor and modest way try to follow the caring of Jesus. He has shaped my morals and ethics almost entirely. Even though I have been a liberal politics website owner, I much more personally follow Jesus than the Constitution or mankind’s laws, although I note that Jesus did say, “render unto Cesar what it Cesar’s and render unto God what is God’s.” At the same time, I feel that as a giving, charitable person in everyday life, I still have a way to go. I need to get away from computers and writing political articles, get out into the world and get into the rhythms and reality of a more caring life in which people more directly come first.

Of course, it is difficult to escape what we were raised to believe, and I was raised as an agnostic. This made belief a very difficult struggle for me, but it also made me extremely curious about different ways of thinking about God. In 2005, when God warned me not to try to understand Him, I did not listen to His warning and as a result, my obsession with this whole business caused me some painful mental difficulties, which actually have extended over many years, before and after this. In history, many writers and thinkers have suffered because they wanted to understand the nature of God, and the effort to do so unhinged them or ruined their lives. Recently I have felt better able to try to synthesize my own thoughts on the subject.

At this point, after struggling for 33 years, I feel strongly that the about three things I think are most good, and holy, insofar as I can see, are LIGHT, LIFE and LOVE, and perhaps we should add to that, WATER. Another goodness I feel is important is wisdom (intelligence + experience and education, or sometimes God’s unmerited, life-changing grace in our lives). Most of these are insubstantial, except for water — as is Spirit — right? And water is a very real “spirit” is it not? Light is apparently particulate in nature, but, as for me, I have absolutely no understanding of stars’ fusion reaction which produces it. I have heard our sun’s nature described as constituting 100 billion modern fusion bombs going off at any given time. But as I said above, “Life proceeds, (at least directly), from water.” And I am just repeating myself to say that hydrogen is the main atom of both water and our sun.

I’m sure everyone has his or her own additions they might make to my own ideas, and thinks some things are more important than others. Again, I want to say, I do not believe that darkness is evil and that light is good, but that they are complementary, although of course I love a sunny day – but the night offers a peaceful silence, as well. Of course, I follow Jesus and worship God. It seems likely to me that all these ideas about God and the universe are more spiritual in their non-material (or basically still unknown) reality, or that they have their basis in hydrogen or water, (and also dark matter), and that God is Spirit, and very real whether Spirit is material or not.

This Spirit is the God-over-all to me, and constitutes the nature of and meaning of “life,” and it has been my unmerited grace to know God’s spirituality. At the same time, most people are poor in spiritual gifts, and I am sure that this is in some way completely within God’s plan and has nothing to do with any salvation or grace. (“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 5:3)

While I have some identification of Spirit, at least in the microcosm, as having to do with earth’s life-giving environment, and especially about water, I do challenge anyone to describe exactly what Spirit is. However, some ideas about Spirit are primary, at least to me. The most interesting book on earth history I have read, by Preston Cloud, is notably titled “Oasis in Space.” And it is especially noteworthy that as Christians, we baptize new believers or infants with sprinklings of, or emersion in, water. When I was a beginning crystallography student (I was an undergraduate geology major), I studied the various “states,” thermodynamic conditions and molecular structure of water and what is known about it. It is a very amazing substance, even in terms of what mankind knows about it. For example, it is extremely rare among known, natural molecules to find one which expands in two different temperature ranges.

While I do not know, then, I believe that spirituality has to do with light, with life on earth (and in the universe), and with a form of water: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is so very present and real, spiritually, and available to us, however we conceive of Him. Knock, have faith, repent, and keep knocking. Lead caring lives and follow Jesus.

I also think that darkness may offer a peaceful spiritual presence to us which is not evil, yet which I strongly caution is usually be deceiving or even dangerous, mainly because of our own deficiencies and the role that Satan plays in the universe. Have faith, do not be deluded, follow Christ, and for your own sake realize that he is no sort of incarnate evil Lord, and that he offers only modest danger or delusion, unless you lead some kind of evil life, or believe that he is definitively evil, yourself. Would you like to be thought of that way? Remember that omnipotent for us humans is still omnipotent. God certainly does not always intervene.

What I am really getting at is that as Christians we believe that goodness is incarnate in God, however we conceive of Him. Insofar as any real evil is concerned, I believe this lies basically with man, caused by our mere thoughtlessness, selfishness, sickness and free will, which God gave us. While the Old Testament is replete with vital lessons for us, and constitutes a wonderful history of the Jewish people while pointing the way to Jesus, it sometimes has a few wives’ tales or sometimes simply takes a poetic license. Consider Jesus’ temptation by Satan. I believe that is a dramatic representation of our human nature’s struggle to follow God no matter what the cost, even though it might be real, but that Satan was not acting in any actually evil way. It seems to me that perhaps the whole thing was preordained and scripted by God. At this point in His life, some theologians believe, before Easter, Jesus was basically human, (yet in important ways divine after crucifixion). Satan’s role was to tempt Jesus’ human nature with gifts most humans would be unable to resist, but Jesus rejected, thus proving his worthiness to God. Following God’s will is not easy for any of us and look what it cost Jesus Christ! Perhaps as mentioned above, and shown in scenes like this in the Bible, Satan is coexistent with God and may even serve His purposes. The degree to which Satan may be fully enabled to follow his own will, whatever that is, seems to be fairly large, yet we humans just don’t know. God certainly grants him leeway, right?

In the Bible, perhaps the most abundant references to God associate Him with light, but there are in fact several other ideas scripturally about God. One of the first things that comes to mind is that heaven was believed in scripture to be something like the sky above us. The Germans have an expression, Gott im Himmel Blau!, or literally, “God in the blue of the sky!” which is an exclamation of astonishment. There are many references to water as important in the Bible, not least of which are the parting of the Red Sea and the story of Noah’s ark & the Flood, as well as Jesus walking on water and the Christian use of the symbol of a fish for Jesus. In various verses in the Bible, God is described as Life, and also as Spirit.

Some people believe the inner nature of Spirit to be something insubstantial like LOVE, perhaps especially agape love (Christian love), or, in the early Catholic church as caritas, which is Latin for spiritual love. I also think as mentioned above that the ideas of Spirit as proceeding from water, and the concept of the Gaia hypothesis may well have something to teach us of real worth. If God is Spirit, and spirit is life and love (whatever its origins), perhaps the society of those who lead decent and sacrificial lives comprise the “Body of Christ.” I really think that all three personas of the Trinity are spiritual in crucial regards and nature.

Please let me emphasize that as I have grown older, and maybe even wiser, I have come strongly to the belief that we cannot really understand the nature of God, except in terms of His holiness. Limited, flawed and human, we can only approach but never attain to such knowledge. I really believe that it is in some ways counterproductive to try to understand something so Holy, or at least, I have found it a dangerous pursuit. However, I have read and studied about this since 1979 and I wanted to make an attempt to summarize what I believe I may have learned. It is for you to pray and meditate as to any truth in my efforts. I can only understand and attempt to explain anything I have learned as God (and Jesus) have led me, personally. Perhaps if God had really wanted us to understand His nature in a better way, he would have made that known Himself, and yet perhaps it may even be that “God is still speaking.”

I feel strongly that my father, Dr. Jack E. Evans, who is a Yale Ph.D.; Rev. Dr. Elaine Strawn; and Rev. Dr. Kevan Franklin were strong influences on my thinking and writing in this article. I also have felt more or less connected to Jesus in thinking about the subject matter throughout most of the writing of the article, particularly in this revision.

I hope this may help a few people with their concepts and ideas of who and (to some extent) what God is, and please have a Blessed day! ~ Paul Evans

Download this article as a Microsoft Word document (.doc), here.

See Inspirational Thoughts for a Sunday, Evans Liberal Politics, August 28, 2011, by Paul Evans.

I also really hope you might have time to watch a set of four YouTube music videos that express my compassion, fears and hope for the world. Please watch, in order, Cat Stevens’ O Caritas, Gordon Lightfoot’s The Pride of Man, another video of a song by Cat Stevens, Ruins, and Ten Years After doing I’d Love to Change the World.

Proverbs 13:7 – There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches. (King James version)

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