Who is God?

I’m sure you’ll all be interested to know the answer to this question. I’m sure many of you are wondering how I’ll answer it in a 10-inch column.

Well the truth of the matter is that I can’t answer it in 10 inches, nor can anyone answer it in a letter to the editor, Sunday sermon, academic volume or ad infinitum.

As a matter of fact, there is no human alive who could even begin to sum up the qualities of a being that surpasses human knowledge, but we keep trying don’t we?

I first became interested in the answer to this question about a year after sanitizing my brain from the effects of six years of drug and alcohol abuse in those smoky, but friendly rooms where Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are held.

A few of the 12 steps of AA deal with the concept of a personal “higher power,” also the most prevalent theological concept in Western society.

It sounds very nice doesn’t it? You’ve got your God, I’ve got mine, and we’ll all just be frolicking in the same heaven someday. Logic be damned.

“My name’s Joe B., and I’m an alcoholic.”

“Hi Joe,” the sober chorus would chime.

“I’m going to tell you about my higher power, whom I choose to call God. He keeps me from slugging back a fifth each night,” Joe, the drunk turned theologian, would begin.

Then Sue the former prostitute, who apparently dried out enough to enter a dynamic career as an unemployed philosopher, would describe her higher power who was much different than Joe’s. She would sound a bit like Immanuel Kant in her agnostic monologue. No one ever disagreed with anyone about this. It’s their own business.

I mean no disrespect to recovery-types out there. In fact I admire them for at least searching for answers to the most important issues they will ever face. The logic of 12-steppers is also merely a representative of the rest of the world.

I began to get rather irritated while listening to various theological diatribes based on nothing other than personal experiences and barstool revelations. I was more irritated with myself, because I had nothing better to say.

Most of the time I entertained the rest of the crowd with my own little rendition whenever the higher power topic came up, never fully admitting I hadn’t the slightest idea of what I was talking about.

I learned to shut up when people talked about God. Then I began to listen to everyone else and strongly suspected that the rest of these jokers were bluffing as well.

If the Man Himself just passed any one of them the sugar he’d keep right on babbling about his buddy the Lord while filling his coffee cup, blowing smoke in the creator’s face.

An actual rational thought pattern was beginning to develop within me, and I decided that this personal higher power thing was a lot of bunk.

If Joe B. says there is a God, and Sue says there’s no such animal, they can’t both be right. That’s ridiculous. It didn’t seem to bother anyone else though.

No, it wasn’t the carbon monoxide from too many s moke-filled rooms or delirium tremors. They really think about God the same way everyone else does—sans logic.

Either God exists or He doesn’t. That’s it, folks. He can’t exist for me and not exist for you. Sure we can all have our own private concepts of God, but we can’t all be right.

The way I see it now is that God created us in His image. It’s not for us to return the favor. The light-bulb can’t paint a revisionist image of Thomas Edison.

Average college students simply can’t or won’t think logically about God either. There are many reasons why. Maybe they won’t like what He’s got to say for one.

The world’s all-time best-seller might have a few answers worth looking into. If not, I’m sure each of us is smart enough to figure God out by ourselves. We all seem to be in agreement so far don’t we? It’s good to have your own opinion isn’t it? But what is it based on?