The Quickest Way to Become God

Many years ago, shortly after discerning out of seminary, I took a position teaching high school theology on the founding faculty of a brand new Catholic high school – Notre Dame Prep in Scottsdale.

The first theology faculty at Notre Dame Prep consisted of two priests from a religious order whose name escapes me at the moment, and me. Over the summer following that first year their order reassigned the two priests to California, which left me as the last man standing on the theology faculty at NDP. That also meant that, by default, I became the new Department Head of Theology.

Setting aside the question of whether I possessed the skill set and professional seasoning to take on such a responsibility at that point in my career, it turned out that the fastest way to get promoted to department head was to eliminate – in an entirely non-murderous sense – the competition. Once there was no one else to take the job, the position was all mine.

Which leads me to my point: the quickest way for Man – by which I mean all human beings – to become the Supreme Being is to eliminate the competition, and it seems pretty clear that somewhere in recent centuries we figured that out.

I should note here that that term, “The Supreme Being,” has no place in Catholic theology as a reference to Almighty God. It is, in fact, a term that came out of the Enlightenment, and was, in fact, part of the Enlightenment reimagining of God. The term reduces God to the status of the wisest, highest, most powerful being, the being above and beyond all other beings, yet still one being among many.

Calling God The Supreme Being means that the difference between God and any other being is a difference of degree – as highest to lower – rather than a difference of kind. Catholic theology, on the other hand, has always recognized that God does not have or receive being, but that God is being itself, and the source of all being, and so exists in a mode so radically and eternally different from ours as to make our existence at best a shadow of an analogy to God’s existence.

This means that thinking of God as The Supreme Being is not only inconsistent with Catholic theology, but deeply contradictory to it.

Unsurprisingly, the idea of God as a larger-than-life, superhuman version of our own existence, which lies behind the title Supreme Being, has serious repercussions.

One of the cultural realities that has become an issue more prevalent and pressing in recent years is the plain fact that, although the majority of Westerners (the citizens of Europe and North America, broadly speaking) continue to believe in some kind of higher power, what has taken root in our Western culture is what some have termed “practical atheism,” meaning that, although relatively few citizens would profess themselves to be hardcore atheists, a growing number of us live, choose, and act as though God does not exist.

There are, of course, diehard atheists, but the majority seem to be either agnostic - generally falling into either the “I don’t know,” or “I don’t care,” category where the existence of God is concerned - or something akin to Deists.

Deists, you will recall, are those believers, most popular and influential during the Enlightenment and subsequent centuries, who profess belief in a God, but in a God who created the universe, set everything in motion, and then just got up and walked away, leaving everything (and everyone) he had created to its own devices.

Instead of Our Father Who art in Heaven, the Deists essentially give us God, the divine deadbeat dad. He isn’t around. He doesn’t care. He’s not coming back.

Regardless of what brand of belief, or lack thereof, our cultural counterparts subscribe to, in a sense it doesn’t matter - the end result is the same. The practical atheists live their lives, make their decisions, arrange their priorities, and govern their behavior with no meaningful reference to God, or His law, or His will. This amounts to conducting our affairs as though we are the highest and final authority on all matters.

Practically speaking, God’s alleged absence presses a question on us: If God is M.I.A., whether by non-existence or absenteeism, who is going to run the show? The answer, of course, is Man. There are no other viable candidates. As wonderful as amoebas, ants, and aardvarks are, they are simply incapable of managing the affairs, setting the standards, and ultimately directing the project of Man.

In short, with God out of the picture, Man becomes the Supreme Being, which means that Man will now be the ultimate reference point for the life, culture, rights, and morality of Man. This offers modern man the same tantalizing temptation Satan offered our first parents: the opportunity to become a law unto ourselves, the opportunity to become gods.

That realization ought to cause us deep concern. If we become the highest standard and final authority for human affairs it should be immediately obvious that we are headed for trouble. Big trouble.

Realize what this would mean: with man as the so-called Supreme Being, the wisdom of fallen man would be the highest wisdom; the moral standards of fallen man would be the highest moral standards; the mercy of fallen man would be the deepest mercy; and the truth as conceived by fallen man would be the only truth.

There is no question that this serves as a powerful, if often subconscious, incentive to atheism, whether as an intentional philosophical commitment, or simply a way of life.

Furthermore, if Lord Acton’s observation that, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” is true, then nothing could be worse, or worse for us, as mere men, than to be given absolute power, whether real or imagined. To have our will and wisdom deified and made supreme is to invite disaster on a society-wide scale.

Once we realize that this idea – that God is absent and we are left to rule in His stead – is, in fact, already widespread, and has already been at work for centuries, some of the insanity we see around us begins to make sense. Most of the errors of our time, anthropological, social, sexual, political, philosophical, are the pet projects of a ruling class of little “G” gods, who have long been busy about the project of attempting to remake reality, and redefine Man, with no meaningful reference to the one true God.

This is something worth thinking and praying seriously about. It is the reality of the times in which we live, and the culture which we are called to evangelize. Which means we Catholics, entrusted with the luminous Catholic teaching about God and Man, are the bearers of a great secret: God is not absent, and Man is not God.

This is the best possible news for the multitudes threatened or harmed by the self-made gods in places of power. It is the worst news possible for those who wish to wield god-like power over their fellow men, and so, predictably, they have shown themselves aggressive opponents of any attempts to reintroduce God into modern society. They know perfectly well that if the true king returns that spells the end of the usurpers’ power.

That being said, the question of how to repropose the great truth of the God who loves us, saves us, and is always with us is a matter for real discernment, and courageous collaboration, on the part of Christians everywhere.

After all, it is by God’s will that we were born in this time, and so, by the grace of God, we must play the part He has given us to play.

In Christ,

Steve

p.s. With this theme in mind, here is a little amateur poem I wrote on this topic a few years back. Enjoy!

In Absentia Dei (In the Absence of God)

What shabby little gods we make,

So slow to give, so quick to take,

So short of sight, so weak of will,

We stress and strive and strain until

We must concede futility,

Or else deny reality.

What kind of gods might mere men be?

One glance will do, at history:

War and lies and selfishness,

A strength that cannot build or bless

More than a cramped and dim domain,

Nor hear your prayers, nor heal your pain.

And just what is it that we rule,

Poor tiny god, poor grasping fool?

We did not cause ourselves to be,

Nor heart to beat, nor eye to see,

We long to be omnipotent,

But quickly find our strength is spent.

A god who rules a world so small

Can hardly be a god at all,

But nonetheless we struggle on,

As though it’s we who hung the dawn,

Still playing at our little game,

Still reveling in sin and shame.

Afraid to face reality,

And haunted by eternity,

We turn and run, and stumbling, fall,

And when we cannot run, we crawl.

And here our reign as gods must end,

For we are on our knees again.