Pandeism:

An Anthology of Natural Spirituality  

The Character of God

“God is the map whereby we locate the setting of our life. That God is the water in which we launch our life raft. That God is the real thing from which and toward which we receive our being and identify ourselves. It follows that the kind of God at work in your life will determine the shape and quality and risk at the center of your existence. It matters who God is.”

~ Walter Brueggeman, Sermons

Raised in the post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism of the 1970’s in the United States, I was never plagued with trying to reconcile God’s goodness with biblical accounts. Thankfully, sola scriptura was not our bag. The low-hanging fruit of the flood and hell would have put an end to my faith in a good God during early childhood. Whenever bible stories implied that God was not good or fair or loving, I simply didn’t believe them. For me, the character of God was Aquinas’ perfect highest good. I assumed that the character of my God was the character of all Gods. I was wrong.

If Pandeism were true, then God’s character would be amoral reflecting the amoral universe that God both created and is. If we believe in God, then I think that Walter Brueggemann was on the mark: I don’t want to locate my life in or receive my being from or identify myself with the amorality that Pandeism infers to be God. I don’t want amorality at the center of my existence. If there were an amoral Pandeist and/or Creator God, then I would embrace morality and oppose God whenever necessary.