Paul Tillich believed that God was not bound by time or space and that God transcended reality as we understand it. He believed that God was not another being along with other beings. He said that God was a separate ontological category and that human beings could not “know” God except through faith. He claimed we can never grasp God through ordinary means and because of this faith would always be accompanied by doubt.
Annie Dillard said in The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, “Whatever we say about God is a lie for we can only know creaturely attributes which do not apply to God.”
I don’t know if there is a god or not, but after reading people like Tillich and Dillard, I have come to believe that if there is a god, that god would be unfathomable and mysterious, and if anyone does have a true spiritual experience, it could only be talked about in metaphorical terms.
These people who talk about their god as if “he” is literally some kind of daddy figure in the sky who tells them things and wants things… I don’t sense any faith or spirituality from them. I think true faith and spirituality would be more humble than that. It seems to me that those who tell us what their god expects of us or how worthy we are—of flowers and cake for instance—are attempting to claim an authority they don’t really have, and I think they’re driven by ego, not faith.
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