Is the God I worship the dragon in my garage?

This weekend, I stumbled upon the late atheist scientist Carl Sagan’s metaphor of the dragon in my garage from his book “The Demon-Haunted World.” It goes like this:-

"A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage"

"Show me," you say.  I lead you to my garage.  You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle -- but no dragon.

"Where's the dragon?" you ask.

"Oh, she's right here," I reply, waving vaguely.  "I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon."

You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.

"Good idea," I say, "but this dragon floats in the air."

Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.

"Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless."

You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.

"Good idea, but she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick."  And so on.  I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.

Here is the cruncher in Carl Sagan’s own words:

“Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all?”

To Dr. Sagan, this world has no dragon, no god, no intelligent designer, no personal creator, no fairies, no elves, no globin, no pixie dust and no Santa. The evidence just doesn’t support their existence.

As a Christian, I read the dragon in my garage with an open mind. It is a powerful metaphor for the need to think rationally and critically because extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Personally, I have come up with my own reflection along the lines of this indissoluble dragon in my own garage for the last 30 years. It starts off with “the God I worship” and here is how it goes… 

“The God I worship is not a straightforward being. He is in fact mysterious in his ways. He is less than obvious in his thoughts. He is not to be second-guessed because his words and deeds are not always readily understood.

To be honest, there is just no discernible pattern of what he will do next or how he will do what he will do next.

You can spend hours talking to him and he will spend the same numbers of hours just listening to you. Most times, you can’t expect anything more than that.

Alas, if listening is a undervalued trait amongst humanity because we talk too much, then it has to be an overvalued trait of the God I worship.

Sometimes, I crave for more than that. I crave for more interactions, more mutuality of responses - even an occasional nod or shaking of the divine head, so to speak.

But that is just me and I may have overvalued my needs for absolute certainty and undervalued his overriding sovereignty. And if there is one supernatural trait of this God I worship (among the innumerable), it is his extraordinary patience that is definitely out of this world.

This God I worship listens and he listens and he listens. Sometimes he answers. Sometimes he doesn’t. Most times, you don’t even know? And when he doesn’t answer, he doesn’t explain himself. He is not one to explain his actions or his silence.

The humble petitioner would just have accept that his silence is his answer or take the time to reflect on what he is really saying by his silence or wait upon him to answer even when the wait can take indefinitely longer than one can take.

Oftentimes, the God I worship has designated earthly agents to decipher the mystery of his silence on his behalf. They are earnest participants in this massive decoding exercise called religion.

They are highly revered for the sacred role they perform. They are basically the intermediaries of this grand divine quietude. These agents come in many forms with luminous titles and exacting devotion, but their vicarious answers are always indistinguishable from one another. Their answers are highly predictable in fact.

His silence is a test. His silence is a prerequisite for character-building or faith-strengthening. Others are more direct. They leave no stones unturned in their sleuth-like pursuit of self-revelation.

His silence is because one has prayed amiss. His silence is a response to one’s lack of faith or unconfessed sins. His silence is therefore a timely call for the petitioner to perform a ritualistic exercise of self-confession and self-purging.

Notwithstanding the unanswered petitions, the table is turned on the petitioner to get his/her life right before he/she can ever hope to ask it right.

Still, there are others who are more sensitive to the desperate plea of the petitioner. They rather err on the side of being less presumptuous of this divine hiddenness.

His silence is a call to wait a little longer. His silence is a mystery to be respected and not to be interpreted as a form of discouragement. His silence therefore demonstrates that all things will be made right at the end even when that end oftentimes means the end of the petitioner’s mortal life on earth.

Alas, the God I worship is surely more than meets the eye. He can’t be read like a book because he is not confined within a book -  not even a collection of books housed in a library the size of a universe can ever match the mystery surrounding the God I worship.

And he wouldn’t be so if he is readily comprehensible, held down by our own pet dogmatic interpretation of him, and captured by us in a sermon preached over the pulpit to thousands hungry for some sort of self-comforting certainty.

So, I will always struggle with this dragon in my garage, this insuperable omnipotence, this unseen mystery – silent and still. I have to accept it as part and parcel of my faith amidst the uncertainty, the veiled knowledge.

And whether the God I worship is Carl Sagan's garage dragon or not, one thing I know is that this divine mystery has set eternity in my heart and once appeared as a father, a brother and a friend in my dreams. As a father, he reminded me that I love because he first loved me. As a brother, when he foretold of the troubles I will have, but assured me to take heart for he has overcome the world. And as a friend, when he prodded me on to finish the race and to wait for his return. Those words are like seeds in my dreams, and dragon or not, I will strive to grow them into reality in my life.” Cheerz.

Postscript: Carl Sagan once said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” The truth is still out there for the atheists and theists. Ontology is still a probing question for now rather than a resolute (or provisional) answer led only by science. Theology is still a means to constructing a coherent reality rather than just another self-assuring, outmoded superstition. And God’s confectionery is busy churning out apple pies for those who are still searching for the truth of all things, the reality of all matter, and the theological framework for the ontology of all beings. God is not the dragon in my garage. He is the fired-up curiosity in my heart. He is the enabler of apple pies. Cheerz.

Youth shunning religion

This morning's news is about "youth shunning God." Those that say they have no religious affiliation has increased from 17% (2010) to 18.5% (2015). One youth, 23, left Buddhism, joined the Christian faith, and then ended up with atheism. She said, "I think it is highly improbable that any god exists. There is no evidence of it."

The Catholic Church said that "traditional religions have also been slow to engage young people and help them appreciate their faith." Reverend Father Jude David believes that without religion "Singapore would certainly lose a part of her soul or spirit."

Lesson? Yes, just one. Is reason replacing God? A political science undergraduate, 21, said, "I don't think I need divine guidance to make a right or wrong decision. Reason alone can guide such decision-making."

Well, I can't say he is wrong about that. I always believe that atheists can arrive at the same decision about morality as a believer could. Mind you, the golden rule is not the sole domain of believers only. In fact, at times, being a believer for 30 years, my lamentation is that atheists demonstrate more compassion and understanding than believers.

While atheists struggle with a godless morality, the believer struggles with a morality that seems to me to be rather godless. I guess that is why Jonathan Swift said, "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

There is just something polarizing about a common belief existing in the majority that makes its devotees more self righteous than those who stand as minority simply looking for hope, understanding and acceptance.

It is reported that some young people identify more with liberal ideologies because they find religion "variously limiting, irrational, oppressive, unreasonable, and unscientific." And the papers went on to cite the "high profile incidents such as the City Harvest cases, where church leaders were found guilty of misusing around $50 million in church funds."

Well, I can't say that I am not personally disillusioned by that too. Alas, most times, people are not looking for a righteous heart in a fallen world. But they are earnestly looking for a broken and repentant heart in a hopeful world. So, after all said, has reason then replaced God?

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I have not spent 30 years of my life still holding on to my faith on a wing of a prayer and some feel-good jibing in my soul. It may be true that you can reason your way to morality, but I believe you cannot always be moral just being reasonable. What is reasonable to you may not be reasonable to another person (or a group of them).

You see, when the late Syrian dictator Colonel Gaddafi was found, he turned to his captors and pleaded to the effect that he could not understand why they were so bent on overthrowing him since he has been providing for the country. In other words, he did not think his actions/policies (which were beyond description if you read about his cruelty) were unreasonable.

The problem with a postmodern society is that it is unreasonable to claim that your reason is more reasonable than another. In the end, with a society based only on reason, we end up no doubt being courteous, tolerant and even inventive.

But what is missing is a sense of awe, that is, a flourishing and inspiring metanarrative that goes beyond what reason can offer. You see, reason only shows you one side of this incredibly multifaceted world. You will be shortchanging yourself by putting all your "curiosity" eggs in one "epistemological" basket.

I think Salmon Rushdie puts it well when he said that "the idea of God is both a repository for our awestruck wonderment at life and an answer to the great question of existence."

The truth is, we will never know everything. Knowledge (and the bounds of reason) are limited. And we can't understand God with knowledge/reason alone. I feel that knowing the omnipotent is experiential and only the earnest years will add up. Our youth is preparatory or seminary of what awaits us when we have journeyed through life long enough to appreciate the limitation of reason and the wonderment of that which reason cannot comprehend. Where reason has tired, awe gently holds us by the hand and takes over.

And God can be found in the awe-consuming natural world that He has created. He can't be directly known but He can be intimately intuited. That is why the French philosopher Simon Weil wrote: "If I light an electric torch at night out of doors, I don't judge its power by looking at the bulbs, but by seeing how many objects it lights up. The brightness of a source of light is appreciated by the illumination it projects upon non-luminous objects. The value of a religious or, more generally, a spiritual way of life is appreciated by the amount of illumination thrown upon the things of this world."

Let me end with what R. Buckminster Fuller has to say: "Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering." And for the youth out there, reason herself staggers at the infinity and depths of His mysteries. Cheerz.

Faith is the darnest thing.

“If God were small enough to be understood, he wouldn’t be big enough to be worshipped.” (Evelyn Underhill).

Then, remain small enough Lord. That’s my prayer. Remain small enough for me to know you. Small enough for me to feel you. Small enough for me to hold you. Small enough for me to see you. I want to put away the sense of faith once in a while and see you with my own eyes. I want to see you through my organic vision, not through spiritual sight.

I can do without faith on those occasions when I am struggling with it. And I struggle with it most when I feel you are hidden, silent or distant. If faith is the substance of things hope for or the evidence of things not seen, then I want to stop hoping and start seeing – in the flesh. I want to see you in all your splendor and glory. I want to see you running the universe. I want to see you interceding for us. I want to stand by your side as you work and not be a bother.

Even at the risk of going blind, I want to see you. Even at the risk of my fragile mortality, I want to see you. For how can even threatened death stand in the way of that infernal desire? How can mortality remain so in the face of immortality?

I therefore plead with you to drop your invisibility. To uncover yourself. To be my burning bush. To be my pillar of fire. I do not want faith to get in the way of us. I don’t need that middleman. It often plays with my mind. It sometimes keeps me in suspended anticipation, on tenterhooks. It leaves things unsaid what I think needs to be said. Faith is the darnest thing.

With faith, I am confident and confused all at the same time, found yet lost, free yet bound. I believe and doubt. I am hopeful and hopeless. I am strong and weak. Faith has kept you an inscrutable mystery from me. It has darkened my glass - half-filled but never full. Faith is the great teaser, the toyer of emotions, the metaphysical Gordian knot.

With faith, I see but an image of you, and a shifty one at that. It is like a hunch, a flash, a whisker, a wisp, a whisper, but never the full picture. It’s like me holding just a few pieces of the puzzle and faith has deliberately kept the rest – locked up somewhere I will never find. And with those limited pieces, no matter how I arrange them in desperation, it will never capture the whole you - but just a fragmented you.

I want to see more Lord. I want to feel more. I want to touch more of you. I am not satisfied with just believing or keep believing. I am not satisfied with what people tell me about you – or their mystical encounters (which are wholly and suspiciously exclusive). Even reading what they wrote about you in the long forgotten past doesn’t come close with one brief encounter with you in the flesh. At times, I just want to put aside faith, hope and everything that stands in my way of you. I want to open my eyes and run to you. I want to go rogue, break all protocols, formality and rules. I want to dive into your arms. I want to get lost in your embrace.

It’s actually a simple request. It’s actually a simple plea from a redeemed son to his doting father. For why should I ever settle for a shadow of you when you are much more than that? Why should I settle for anything less, or anything so unnecessarily encrypted?

Honestly, I can do without the prosperity as promised or the blessings forevermore or the mansion prepared for me. I can do without the peace that surpasses all understanding or the joy that becomes my strength or the eternal hope that awaits. I can trade all that as my inheritance in a blink of an eye just so that I can see you. It would be worth everything in this world and the world to come for me. To see you face-to-face would not only be life-transforming, it would be life-surpassing. My joy would then be complete, truly.

So if smallness retires or suspends faith for that brief moment in time, but compromises nothing else, neither your sovereignty nor your omnipotence, then remain small enough Lord. This is my earnest plea. This is my simple prayer. This is my invocation for all time.

But alas, I know at some point in time, I must let go and let you be God. I cannot impose. I cannot demand. I cannot throw a fit like a child throws tantrums.  How dare I? If anything, I am small enough to know that I am small enough. And in my smallness, you nevertheless reached out to me in your own perplexingly incomprehensible way. Maybe I have to accept that I cannot wish for one without losing the other. Maybe to know you is enough. And that’s good enough.

In the meantime, I will just have to submit to faith. To give in to that theodicy’s teaser, that toyer of emotions, that spirit whisperer, that shape-shifter. I guess it somehow bridges the gap however imperfectly – for now at least. And whatever I don’t know, I will just have to accept that I don’t know. And what I don’t know I don’t know is best left to the one who knows all - for now at least.

In other words, I have to accept faith by faith. I have to let faith complete its work in me. This is the journey I have chosen. It’s a fate I have taken. It’s no doubt a long road ahead. I will just have to finish it, persevere. There’s no other way this side of heaven. The compromise is to accept the glass half filled, see through it darkly. Perfect understanding will just have to wait when the perfect comes. I guess faith will make sure of that. That’s my hope, I hope. Cheerz.

What my in-laws taught me in London...

This week (early June 2015), I am in London. I will be travelling around UK for 2 week at least. I am travelling with my family and my in-laws. The aim of this "temporary migration" of a nerdy Singaporean to a far away land of mittens and body overall is because my brother in law (30 years old married with a son) is doing his PhD in Christian ethics and politics. He is no doubt the brainy one here. His father is a pastor (for at least 30 years) and in tow is his wife, a devout believer. In fact we just celebrated their 41st anniversary on Monday, 1 June 2015 (at Four Seasons Peking Duck restaurant at Chinatown, London).

My point of this post? Well, it has been an eye-opening trip so far and the family bonding is the fire that sets my heart alight amidst the chilly windy weather of London. And on one of the nights, after dinner, we had an engaging discussion (if not slightly heated) about my faith. But here is a little backdrop to set the stage.

If there were a barometer to measure one's level of belief, with doubt at one end and belief at the other, then I would be the pendulum that swings towards the side of doubt. As a student of faith, my report card would show marginal passes at best (even red overall at times). Belief is a strange creature of mental deliberation for me. I can never take it hook, line and sinker. I have a mind that cannot take yes for an answer or no for a question (that is, "yes, I am 100% sure" and "No, I am not 100% unsure?") The problem with me is that I am not 100% sure. Neither am I 100% unsure. Both statements find me stumped.

For this reason, many will label me as wishy-washy or half-past-six believer, or a backbencher. I can't really blame them. But for me, belief and faith are personal, and annoyingly subjective even. Just as no two fingerprints are alike, no two consciousness are the same. My consciousness speaks for myself and the consciousness of others speak for themselves. And speaking for myself, I can identify with the many doubting Thomases who struggle with faith as often as they struggle with understanding their body's quirks after forty.

So, that night after dinner, being solemnly arraigned, I was asked, "Personally, do you really believe?" I guess it was an expected (and fair) question since the only thing my wife could remember about her childhood is Sunday school, prayer after meals, biblical heroes of old, church choir and getting to church 30 minutes earlier. Her family had totally immersed her in the Christian culture and tradition. And questions like that is always answered in the positive, and most definitively.

It is also an important question. "Do you believe?" is a question that is unassuming in its form and essential in its substance. You see, we all live our whole life riding on the coattails of one belief after another - although we often fall short of being faithful to or consistent with them in thoughts and deeds. Paradoxically, having no belief is in fact a powerful belief no less (nihilism and fatalism come to mind). So, having the right belief is like a moral compass in life. It takes us from the lost to the found, the wanderings to the destination. 

So "Do I believe?" was the enticing appetizer for the night and mental indigestion was my strange company. Suddenly, the usually eloquent me (mostly talking poppycock) was tongue-tied. I was groping. I blurted out, "I keep an open mind." That was all I could say. It was not a yes (I believe) or a no (I do not believe) but a yes-and-no (Neither I believe nor disbelieve). Suddenly, I lost my center and I couldn't completely understand why I would withhold a definitive stand (so as to make an endearing impression with my in-laws).

Maybe the rustic and warmth setting have romanticized my sentiment into a spineless jello and I wanted to be tactlessly honest with dastardly consequences. The night was then spent trying to cement me into a definitive position. It was definitely not an entrapment. It was a clarification. But stubbornly, I resisted their earnest attempts for reasons I am still hopelessly befuddled. But this post is not about me; god knows this restless mind of mine will never settle down in the near future. I am an incorrigible over-thinker.

This post is actually about my brother-in-law, Nat, and my father-in-law, Dad. Nat, a PhD candidate, knew his faith well. He does not just study it as an academic course, he tries his earnest best to live, uphold, protect, advance, and savor it. It is simple faith from a thinking man. Unlike many whom I have unfortunately come to know, Nat will say it as it is and mince words only if he was in the presence of pristine royalty. Other than that (what are the odds of that happening right?), he puts it in the best way he knows how and it was good enough for me.

He no doubt wanted me to take a position because without a position, whereforth do I set off from? And without an end in mind, where then should I start with the first step? So, Nat changed tack. He proposed probability - "Do you believe more than you disbelieve?" Like feeding an old man without teeth, Nat fed me the empathy of a bowl of porridge. It was more digestible, more palatable. And I answered that in the affirmative - "Yes, I believe more than disbelieve." But that was not all.

Nat knew my struggles and spelt it out in a way that risk himself being labeled a doubting Thomas himself. He said - and I paraphrase for effect from my subjective standpoint - "I understand where you are coming from. But I admit my ignorance here too. I do not have the answers about gratuitous suffering and all. Faith is a mystery revealed in Christ. It will always remain a mystery. But it is not a mystery that repels faith. It in fact embraces it. It is a mystery that deepens understanding and not muddles it. It is a reasonable mystery but not always an agreeable one. So, it is not unreasonable not to be 100% sure at times. For me, I know for whom my Savior died for and I rest in that blessed assurance amidst the understanding I know not."

That was what I heard in my heart from Nat and it went in some ways to stabilize my restless existential palpitations.

Then came my dad. He was relatively silent throughout. He elected to counsel via silence. He asked the same questions no doubt but he asked it with the heart to understand and not with the mind to win an argument. His silence ministered to me more than what words could ever do. And if applied wisdom ever practiced favoritism, then it would be silence above words, understanding above arguments, and pleading ignorance above showboating knowledge.

Dad spoke to me and his words unspoken stayed with me throughout the night right through the morning. It was in the morning-after that the clouds began to clear for me and it cleared just enough for me to catch a glimpse of the meaning of faith, the humility of acknowledged ignorance and the power of selfless love. Cheerz.