The following is a response to a letter from someone who asked Bishop John Shelby Spong who he prayed to.:
I suppose that it is almost universal for human beings, who have the ability to embrace the vastness of the universe and to ask questions about life's meaning, to yearn for a protective, supernatural heavenly parent figure, who watches over us and is the source of that meaning. That sense probably comes from our childhoods when parents seemed invincible and able to fix anything or to manage any crisis.
The problem with that yearning for God to play that role as you point out is twofold. First, it does not work. Tsunamis do roll over the world with no sense of the trauma it inflicts on its victims and with no one protecting even little children. People die in warfare despite the fervent prayers of both the military personnel and their parents. Second, this yearning keeps us in a delusional state of perpetual childhood where we can pretend that we do not have to take care of ourselves. Delusions can be pleasant but they are not life giving.
The interesting issue you raise is that you assume that if there is no supernatural parent figure deity in the sky then there is no reason to pray and no purpose in life. If there is no life after death, the purpose for God disappears. In these ideas you are suggesting that if your definition of God is not true, there is no God!
Let me seek to unravel some of that by quoting a Greek philosopher, Xenophanes, who said, "If horses had gods, they would look like horses." Have you taken time to examine how much your image of God looks like a very big, all powerful human being? I doubt if it will ever be otherwise for human beings cannot think outside their human experience. A horse cannot ever know what it means to be human. A human being cannot ever know what it means to be God. Yet human beings constantly tell other human beings who God is and how God acts. Therefore, step number one is to admit that you do not know.
That does not mean that horses cannot experience human beings in their lives or that human beings cannot experience that which we call God in our lives. It does mean that the desire to be deluded does give rise to delusion. But is the human brain the ultimate reality? Or is there a sense of otherness? Of transcendence? Of the fullness of life? Of the power of love? Of the Ground of Being? Can consciousness be expanded? Boundaries broken? Humanity know transformation? Is this a God moment? Are these the imprints of the holy 'other' coming into our limited understanding?
We have no God language so words become terribly inept in making sense out of this experience. That is why almost every religious pilgrimage winds up in mysticism. Prayer is the conscious attempt to enter the transcendent moment. It is not an adult letter addressed to a divine Santa Claus.
That is what I mean by prayer. Does it work? That is not for me to say. Does love surround those for whom you are concerned? Does love assist healing? Expand life? Is love the presence of God within us loosed by one to surround another? Do plants grow better if we talk to them? Is the universe a living, throbbing, mystical God-infused place? Is God a being among many or the ground of all that is? Was Jesus perceived as an incarnation of an external supernatural God or was he so whole, so at one, that people saw the source of life and love and, therefore, God flowing through him?
Those are the questions I would raise. God is real to me but not definable, only "experiencible." However, that is what gives every moment of life both its depth and its ultimate meaning. Life is a tremendous and wonderful adventure that touches eternity time after time. The idea that something you call meaningless now would become meaningful by being extended beyond death is a strange idea to me. I believe in life after death because I touch eternity and meaning now. That is enough for me.
-- John Shelby Spong
