By Sister Abigail Hester, OFC

For many people, the religious conversation seems trapped between only two options: either believe in a supernatural God who lives somewhere “up there” and intervenes in the world, or reject God entirely and become an atheist.

I believe this is a false choice.

The debate between supernatural theism and atheism often assumes that both sides are talking about the same kind of God. The theist says, “God exists.” The atheist says, “God does not exist.” But both are usually referring to a supernatural being who exists as a separate entity somewhere beyond the universe.

If that is the only definition of God available, then many thoughtful people understandably become atheists.

But what if God is not a supernatural being at all?

The Death of the Old God

Modern science has changed our understanding of the universe. We no longer live in a three-tiered cosmos with heaven above, earth in the middle, and hell below. We understand evolution, cosmology, genetics, and neuroscience.

The old image of God as a heavenly king sitting above the clouds becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.

As Bishop John Shelby Spong often argued, the God who can be rejected by modern people deserves to be rejected. A God who occasionally intervenes in nature, suspends natural laws, and controls events like a cosmic puppeteer is no longer believable to many educated people.

Yet the death of that understanding of God does not require the death of spirituality.

God Beyond Supernaturalism

Rather than seeing God as a supernatural being, I understand God as the Sacred Depth of Reality itself.

God is not a person in the sky.

God is the Source of Being.

God is the Ground of Existence.

God is the Love that calls creation toward greater compassion, justice, beauty, and wholeness.

This understanding owes much to theologians such as Paul Tillich, John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, and process theologians who have sought to speak of God in ways that remain intellectually honest in the modern world.

In this view, God is not “out there.”

God is present within every atom, every ecosystem, every relationship, every act of love, and every movement toward healing and liberation.

Why I Am Not a Traditional Theist

I do not believe God is a supernatural ruler who micromanages the universe.

I do not believe hurricanes, diseases, and tragedies happen because God wills them.

I do not believe prayer changes God’s mind.

I do not believe God selectively answers some prayers while ignoring others.

I reject the image of God as a cosmic dictator, divine monarch, or supernatural scorekeeper.

Such images often create fear, guilt, dependency, and spiritual immaturity.

Instead, I see prayer as opening ourselves to the Sacred Presence already surrounding and filling us.

Prayer transforms us rather than persuading God.

Why I Am Not an Atheist

At the same time, I cannot call myself an atheist.

When I stand beneath the stars, walk through a forest, share communion with others, witness courage in the face of suffering, or experience profound love, I encounter something greater than myself.

I experience mystery.

I experience transcendence.

I experience what many traditions call the Sacred.

To deny this dimension of existence seems just as incomplete as reducing God to a supernatural being.

Reality possesses depths that cannot be measured with instruments alone.

Science tells us how things work. Spirituality explores what they mean.

The two are not enemies.

The Way of Mystical Humanism

My perspective might best be described as mystical humanism.

I believe human beings are responsible for creating a more just and compassionate world. We cannot wait for supernatural intervention.

The hungry are fed because we feed them.

The sick are healed because we care for them.

The oppressed are liberated because people organize, resist, and work for justice.

Yet this work is sustained by an experience of profound interconnectedness.

We are part of something larger than ourselves.

Whether we call it God, Spirit, Love, the Sacred, the Ground of Being, or simply Mystery, there is a depth dimension to reality that continually calls us beyond selfishness and toward compassion.

Jesus and the Sacred

I understand Jesus not as a divine exception to humanity but as an example of what humanity can become.

Jesus lived deeply rooted in the Sacred.

He embodied radical compassion.

He crossed boundaries.

He welcomed outsiders.

He challenged systems of domination.

He revealed what a fully awakened human life can look like.

For Christians, Jesus becomes the lens through which we encounter the Sacred Mystery at the heart of existence.

A Third Way

The future of spirituality may not lie in choosing between fundamentalist theism and militant atheism.

It may lie in a third way.

A way that embraces science without fear.

A way that honors mystery without superstition.

A way that values reason without losing wonder.

A way that seeks justice without waiting for miracles.

A way that discovers God not above the world but within it.

For me, faith is not believing impossible things.

Faith is trusting that love is stronger than fear, compassion is stronger than cruelty, and that the Sacred is present in every moment, calling us toward greater wholeness.

That is why I find myself neither a traditional theist nor an atheist.

I stand somewhere beyond both, seeking the Sacred Mystery that surrounds us, sustains us, and continually invites us to become more fully human.