God Does Not Not Exist

Does God exist?

What God are you talking about?

Is it the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present eternal, personal (male) being? Is it the watchmaker God of deism who set the world in motion with sophisticated constants only to sit out the rest of the game? Is it the God of pantheism who is the cosmos?

The point is…

The question of God existing isn’t even specific enough to merit an answer. For the most part, we aren’t even agreeing one what God even is. If God is beyond our imagination or even what we can imagine (as most traditions claim), the categories of existence and non-existence don’t apply. 

Like the rest of our words, ideas, and theologies, they’re like a box of eight Crayola crayons commissioned for capturing a Texas summer sunset. We can approximate. We can imply. We can craft an image sharp enough for a patient mother to marvel at our “art.” But when it comes down to it, we’re children doing our best to capture the ineffable. All of our categories, even limitless ideas, cage the Divine into our digestible, snack-sized theories:

All-powerful

All-knowing

All-present

In the apophatic tradition, God is inexplicable—a mystery at the very core of our relationship with the Divine. In order to keep the mystery alive and electric, the saints would meditate upon three contradictory ideas. The purpose, of course, is to marinate in the impossibility of grasping God. Here is an example I’ll leave you with:

God exists.

God does not exist.

God does not not exist.

God does not not exist.

God does not not exist.

God does not not exist.