Unquiet Gods
“Gods.” “One True God.” What do those words mean? It just occurred to me, looking into universalism through a metaphorical lens, that perhaps most of us have it backwards. Maybe it’s not as complex as we think, this notion of gods. Some things will have to stand as given, primarily that humanity needs gods. (Or God.) It’s evident that humans are driven by that need: it drives us to argue about the existence of God; it pressures us to go to war over which God is the right one. Our religions are anchored in the belief that it’s we who are in charge of the existence and attributes of God. We are helpless in the face of our own beliefs. I wondered if we might be going about this bassackwards (as my grandmother used to say) and I was moved to ask the question, “What if the need for God isn’t limited to humans?” I thought of all the ancient pantheons of divine spirits who were associated with some primal force: God of the Sea; God of Thunder; God of Rain, God of the Moon,...