Finding God After the God We Were Taught to Believe In
Primary Text: Acts 17:22–28
Supporting Texts: Exodus 3:13–14; Luke 17:20–21; 1 John 4:7–12
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being.” — Acts 17:28
Introduction: When the Old God No Longer Works
There comes a moment in many spiritual lives when the God we were taught about no longer makes sense.
Perhaps we were taught that God was an enormous supernatural person somewhere above the universe—a cosmic king sitting upon a heavenly throne, occasionally reaching into history to reward the faithful, punish the wicked, answer some prayers, and apparently remain silent before others.
For some people, that picture remains meaningful.
For others, it eventually becomes impossible to believe.
And when that happens, we are often presented with only two choices:
Believe in that God—or become an atheist.
But perhaps there is another possibility.
Perhaps losing belief in one particular picture of God does not necessarily mean losing God.
Perhaps sometimes we must lose the God of our imagination before we can encounter the Mystery toward which the word God was pointing all along.
The Christian mystical tradition has understood this for centuries.
Meister Eckhart famously prayed:
“I pray God to rid me of God.”
That sounds almost scandalous.
But Eckhart was distinguishing between God as God truly is and the mental pictures of God that human beings construct.
Sometimes our ideas about God become idols.
And sometimes faith requires letting them die.
I. God Is Not Another Object in the Universe
When Moses encounters the Holy Mystery in Exodus 3, Moses asks for God’s name.
The mysterious answer comes:
“I AM THAT I AM.”
The Hebrew phrase Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh is notoriously difficult to translate. It can carry the sense of:
“I am who I am.”
“I will be what I will be.”
“I am becoming what I am becoming.”
Already the biblical tradition refuses to place God neatly inside our definitions.
Centuries later, Paul stands before philosophers in Athens and says:
“God that made the world and all things therein… dwelleth not in temples made with hands.”
And then Paul quotes Greek poetry:
“For in him we live, and move, and have our being.”
Notice the difference.
Paul does not merely describe a God who exists somewhere.
He speaks of God as the reality within which everything exists.
The theologian Paul Tillich developed this insight by speaking about God as the “ground of being.”
For Tillich, God is not simply a being—not even the biggest and most powerful being imaginable.
God is the depth and ground of existence itself.
That means asking, “Does God exist?” may already be too small a question.
A chair exists.
A planet exists.
You and I exist.
But God cannot simply be one additional item placed alongside everything else in the inventory of the universe.
God names the inexhaustible Mystery from which existence arises and within which existence participates.
That is remarkably close to Paul’s words:
“In him we live, and move, and have our being.”
II. The Death of the Supernatural God Need Not Be the Death of God
Friedrich Nietzsche famously announced:
“God is dead.”
Nietzsche was not reporting the death of a celestial organism.
He was diagnosing the collapse of an entire religious and philosophical worldview.
Modern science, biblical criticism, religious pluralism, psychology, philosophy, and the horrors of history have made certain traditional pictures of God increasingly difficult for many people to maintain.
Where was the interventionist God at Auschwitz?
Where is that God when children die?
Why does one person’s cancer disappear while another faithful person dies?
Why does one family survive a tornado while another loses everything?
Traditional theology sometimes answers:
“God has a plan.”
But we must be extraordinarily careful.
If everything that happens is God’s plan, then God becomes morally responsible for everything that happens.
War.
Genocide.
Child abuse.
Disease.
Earthquakes.
Famine.
That does not solve the problem of suffering.
It magnifies it.
Perhaps divine power has been misunderstood.
The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, one of the foundational thinkers behind process theology, imagined divine power not primarily as coercion but as persuasion.
God does not dominate creation like a dictator controlling puppets.
God calls.
God invites.
God lures creation toward greater beauty, relationship, complexity, justice, and life.
Divine power may therefore look less like a fist and more like an invitation.
Less like domination and more like love.
III. The God Who Insists Rather Than Exists
Contemporary philosopher of religion John D. Caputo pushes this idea even further.
Caputo provocatively speaks about what he calls “the weakness of God.”
By weakness, he does not mean worthlessness.
He means non-coercive power.
God does not arrive with armies.
God does not force the world into obedience.
God calls.
God summons.
God insists.
But we must respond.
Caputo famously writes:
“God does not exist; God insists.”
This sounds atheistic until we understand what he means.
Caputo is challenging the idea of God as a supernatural object possessing unlimited controlling power.
Instead, the name God carries a call.
When justice calls us—
God insists.
When mercy interrupts our desire for revenge—
God insists.
When the stranger asks for hospitality—
God insists.
When the oppressed cry for liberation—
God insists.
When somebody is hungry and something within us whispers,
“Feed them”—
God insists.
When hatred seems easier but love calls us toward another possibility—
God insists.
The event contained in the name of God is happening.
But it does not happen magically.
It requires human participation.
IV. Jesus Shows Us What Divine Power Looks Like
This changes how we understand Jesus.
Jesus does not spend his ministry demonstrating the behavior of an imperial ruler.
He touches lepers.
He eats with people labeled sinners.
He welcomes children.
He crosses boundaries.
He confronts religious hypocrisy.
He announces good news to the poor.
He tells stories about Samaritans becoming heroes.
He washes feet.
And when violence finally comes for him, Jesus does not summon an army.
Traditional empire says:
Power means making people obey.
Jesus says:
Power looks like love.
Empire builds thrones.
Jesus builds tables.
Empire creates insiders and outsiders.
Jesus keeps expanding the guest list.
Empire says:
“Conquer your enemies.”
Jesus says:
“Love your enemies.”
That is a radically different understanding of power.
The cross therefore becomes not God’s demand for violence but the exposure of what violent systems do to vulnerable bodies—and God’s call toward resurrection, resistance, reconciliation, and new life.
V. The Kingdom Is Already Among Us
Jesus says in Luke 17:
“The kingdom of God cometh not with observation… for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Other translations render this:
“The kingdom of God is among you.”
Perhaps both meanings can preach.
The sacred is not simply somewhere else.
Not merely above us.
Not merely waiting after death.
The possibility of God’s kingdom is among us.
Whenever someone chooses reconciliation over revenge—
the kingdom happens.
Whenever hungry people are fed—
the kingdom happens.
Whenever LGBTQ people are welcomed after religion told them they were unwanted—
the kingdom happens.
Whenever racism is confronted—
the kingdom happens.
Whenever creation is protected—
the kingdom happens.
Whenever someone sits beside another person’s suffering instead of abandoning them—
the kingdom happens.
God happens.
Not because we manufactured God.
But because we answered the call carried in the name of God.
VI. Love May Be the Best Name We Have
First John makes one of Christianity’s most astonishing theological statements:
“God is love.”
Notice what the text does not say.
It does not merely say:
“God loves.”
It says:
God is love.
That opens an extraordinary theological possibility.
Perhaps whenever genuine self-giving love occurs, we are already touching something divine whether or not we use religious vocabulary.
The atheist feeding hungry people may be answering God’s call without believing in God.
The Buddhist practicing compassion may be participating in the divine event without Christian language.
The Muslim practicing mercy, the Jew pursuing tikkun olam, the Hindu recognizing sacred reality within another person, the Pagan honoring the living Earth, the humanist defending human dignity—all may participate in something Christians dare to call divine.
The labels matter less than the fruits.
Jesus himself said:
“By their fruits ye shall know them.”
VII. Faith After Certainty
This kind of theology also changes faith.
Faith no longer means pretending we possess certainty about invisible realities.
Faith becomes trust.
Commitment.
Orientation.
Response.
Paul Tillich described faith as ultimate concern.
Søren Kierkegaard emphasized risk.
The mystics emphasized unknowing.
Caputo emphasizes the call.
Perhaps mature faith can therefore say:
“I do not know exactly what God is.”
And continue:
“But I hear the call toward love.”
“I cannot prove that heaven exists.”
“But I can create a little more heaven here.”
“I do not understand the universe.”
“But I can stand beside someone who is suffering.”
“I cannot explain God.”
“But I can answer the invitation carried by God’s name.”
That is not weak faith.
That may be faith after certainty.
VIII. From Believing in God to Answering God
Perhaps Christianity has spent too much time asking:
Do you believe in God?
Maybe Jesus asks a more demanding question:
What are you doing about the call?
Because it is possible to believe all the correct doctrines about God and remain cruel.
It is possible to recite creeds and ignore suffering.
It is possible to defend orthodoxy while neglecting mercy.
James warned us:
“Faith without works is dead.”
So perhaps the question is not simply whether God exists.
The question becomes:
Will love exist because we are here?
Will mercy exist?
Will hospitality exist?
Will justice exist?
Will forgiveness exist?
Will hungry people eat?
Will lonely people find companionship?
Will rejected people find belonging?
Will creation receive care?
The call cannot force us.
Love does not operate like an empire.
God insists.
We respond.
Conclusion: After the God Above the Clouds
So what remains after traditional theism?
Mystery remains.
Wonder remains.
Love remains.
Justice remains.
Hope remains.
The sacred depth of existence remains.
And the call remains.
Perhaps God was never the celestial monarch we imagined.
Perhaps God was always closer.
Closer than our breath.
Closer than our doctrines.
Closer than our names for God.
The Ground beneath us.
The Mystery surrounding us.
The Love arising between us.
The Justice calling ahead of us.
The possibility of something new trying to be born through us.
And perhaps that is why Paul could stand among philosophers and declare:
“In him we live, and move, and have our being.”
And perhaps that is why Jesus could say:
“The kingdom of God is among you.”
God does not need to descend from the clouds.
Love is already knocking.
Justice is already calling.
Mercy is already insisting.
A fuller life is already trying to happen.
The question is whether we will answer.
May we become people through whom that sacred possibility becomes flesh.
May the hungry encounter God through our bread.
May the lonely encounter God through our presence.
May the rejected encounter God through our welcome.
May the wounded encounter God through our tenderness.
May the oppressed encounter God through our resistance to injustice.
And may a world exhausted by domination discover through us another kind of power:
the weak power of love,
the stubborn insistence of hope,
and the sacred possibility of a fuller life for everyone.
Amen.
Leave a Reply