I see many people (especially evangelicals in USA) recounting their faith deconstruction online. Some continue their journey into “reconstruction” (continuing their faith-in-God journey; often seeking a new faith community appropriate for their transformed faith). But I also see a large group who are now atheists; they don’t believe in God. But I don’t believe in that God either!!!

So, in their deconstruction, they are not deconstructing the concept of “God”. And, once they lose their faith in this God (the one I don’t believe in either!), they don’t deconstruct their proselytising proclivity, but simply continue with their unmitigated evangelical fervour attacking (Christian) faith in the same manner that they not so long ago attacked those who held the position they now hold.

Furthermore, none of their “deconstruction” has led to much humility about the beliefs and position that they now hold.

The “God” that these deconstructors abandon is some sort of “supreme being” – the greatest and most powerful being (or person) in the universe, in existence. This “God” has existence, goodness, etc – simply lots of it; the most possible.

It’s not difficult to see the evolution of humanity’s understanding of God (even within the Bible) from polytheism, through henotheism (there’s lots of gods but our god is the best god), and monolatry (there’s other gods but we should worship only our god), all the way through to the classic Christian understanding of God where (say, expressed at Nicaea) the word used was “ὑπόστασις (hypostasis)” – a word meaning “to stand beneath” or “underlying substance”. Nicaea declared God to be one divine essence (ousia), with three hypostases: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Translating hypostasis into English simply as “Person” hasn’t helped! The impression many have is of three (almighty!) people discussing who will do what!

God – in this classical Christian understanding of God – isn’t simply some (almighty) being that (to approach it mathematically) can be added to any number of beings and thereby increase the number of beings by one (or three!). God IS being. God IS goodness. God IS beauty (see Augustine, Aquinas, etc.). God is the source of all being. God is the SOURCE of all consciousness, goodness, beauty…

In the discussion between Richard Dawkins and Rowan Williams, Rowan highlights that Richard sees introducing an extra explanatory level or agent (God) to the wonder of our universe almost spoils our sense of awe in the thing itself. And yet, says Rowan, that is precisely what science does: it elegantly and coherently provides delight in realising such an elegant explanation.

Limiting our methodology to science and materialism, without critiquing that limitation, is not to have gone on the full rigour of the deconstructing journey. If all we are using is a metal detector, then, yes, all we are going to end up detecting is metal!

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