ScottT

At the risk of stealing Spong's thunder, I really like the answer he gave in a recent Q&A. The questioner was asking about the trinity, but answer really addresses the nature of god. Specifically, Spong wrote, "The Trinity is a definition not of God, but of the human experience of the divine and is, therefore, an attempt to make rational sense out of that human experience. We experience God as other, beyond anything that our minds can grasp. This is what we mean when we say God is Father – the Ground of all being. We experience God as an inward presence, so deep within us that we cannot name the reality we know is there. That is what we mean when we say God is Spirit, ineffable, life-giving, inward and real. We experience God in the life of others. Sometimes to lesser degrees, sometimes to what seems like a total degree. This is what we mean when we call Jesus “the son,” and why we frame doctrines like “the Incarnation.” Our experience was and is that in Jesus we saw the presence of God flowing through his human life. Is that who God is? No, but that is what our experience of God is and so we claim it. The Trinity is not a definition of God; it is an experience into which we live." That has resonated with me since I first heard him expound it during a workshop I attended some 3 or 4 years ago.

My name is Scott. I am a retired professor of Philosophy (Ethics) and Management. If it's possible to be a "former" Unitarian Universalist, then I am "it," having become disillusioned by the anti-Christian sentiment that proliferates. At one time I was a Humanist "celebrant," but gave that up in the face of Humanist Fundamentalism. So, I continue to seek; I am a fan of Spong (having cited him extensively in my thesis on the Marian Myth), Crossan, Borg, and Levine...where, indeed, would Christianity be if it weren't for the inspired minds such as these?