Article in Stretton Focus, January 2013
My title for this piece comes from the opening words of the bible. It is of course a statement of faith and not a statement of fact. There was nobody there to observe God being there ‘in the beginning’ and anyway, what would they have seen if they had been there? Any record of the beginning of creation has to be speculation. Religion does this in the form of a story or myth, telling how the heavens and the earth and everything else, including ourselves, were created. Science has its own story, speculating on some event which it calls the ‘big bang’. So it seems that, as human beings, we have a need to know about beginnings and endings. It’s not that simple because we can always ask “what was there before the beginning, and what will be there after the ending?” – and that kind of questioning can go on ad infinitum.
Religion has come up with the idea of God, who is said to be both the beginning and the end. This is a useful idea because it completes the circle (or should that be ‘squares the circle’?) If the beginning is the end, that does away with the need for either, and provides a way in for the word ‘eternal.’
So while the scientists will continue to look for their ‘big bang’, religions should be looking into the mystery of God and asking questions like “who is God and what does the word ‘God’ mean?” God could be understood as the force or power (or spirit?) holding the universe in being. And since we are ourselves ‘in being’, we can be aware of some connection. But if there is neither beginning nor end, there is only NOW, which is eternal. And so it is in the ‘here and now’ that we should be able to discover our relationship with the Ground of All Being that we call God. And if religions were encouraging us to do this, instead of squabbling with one another (and with themselves) about who’s got the right answers – the world would heave a sigh of relief!
Donald Horsfield