The assumption that any faith commitment requires the belief in an anthropomorphic god, a creator in the simplest sense, or an afterlife which includes the continuity of personal consciousness is naive at best, and more likely simply in bad faith.
This is one of the fundamental flaws of Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian” and other polemic works on religion. However, these polemicists can be forgiven this far; not only do the overwhelming majority of people of faith think of their own divinity in this way, even those who do not may often act as if they held these beliefs. This does not acquit Lord Russell and others of the error, but it may be a starting point for conversation.
God is a necessary being in any possible universe that contains rational beings. (I won’t argue the point here; the arguments for, and good arguments against, this position are well known.) God is as much a feature of the universe as the Pythagorean Theorem or the gravitational constant. He is the origin of the universe as the logically necessary precondition of universal being. I state these claims not because I am expecting anyone to agree, but merely to make my own position clear.
Though I hold these positions, I still pray and celebrate the Eucharist. I pray for the souls of the dead and for the well being for the living. I believe in the real presence and the efficacy of the sacraments. These are not, I think, contradictory positions. To think they are is to engage in yet another form of literalism and to misunderstand the role of myth and liturgy. These prayers and rituals are causal agents of change in the universe but not in a simplistic or straightforward way. They change me, and I change the world. To suggest that this is impossible is blasphemy against the Human Spirit.
So do not presume to know the inner by the outer. Do not judge without inquiring. And pray, not because you are weak and cannot change the world without the aid of some external god, but because you are the mighty presence of God in a universe of wonders.
