Does God exist?

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This question is a bit silly. It’s just the question of whether you’re an atheist or not. In order to make it more interesting I’m going to instead dissect the meaning of one of the words in the question and apply that dissection to the question.

What does it mean for something to be real? Unfortunately, this question boils down to belief as well, though not in something as personal as God, but rather in the philosophical constructs of monism and dualism.

But there’s a different semantic sense to get at. Monism and dualism concern existence, not reality, and the question asked about God’s reality.

Now, people use words differently, but it’s more possible to get on the same page regarding the underlying meaning of a word than it is to get on the same page regarding the existence of God, or even monism vs. dualism. The way we do that is for one person to just give their terminology and if the other person objects, well work it out then. Arguing semantics isn’t my favorite thing to do, but it’s better than a lot of the alternatives, at least we can find purchase if we want to. (God save me from arguing over why we’re arguing, what I call a meta-argument)

So what does it mean for something to be real? In my understanding, realness refers to an object’s independence of mind. In other words, if you can still see something even after you believe it’s not there, it’s real. I did a lot of mysticism to come up with this definition. A lot.

The reason I needed this definition is because I was talking to and communicating with a lot of things that told me that they were independent, separate entities apart from my mind and I wanted to know if those claims were true or not and what was their nature, and how might I think about an agency that wasn’t actually tied down to a physical body.

And I realized that in many cases, it was my willingness to believe in them that made them seem real, as soon as my willingness to believe in them passed, they went away too. Then I realized that this was true about a lot of things in life, not just non-physical entities. Many people hold beliefs in things that disappear the second they stop giving them energy. These things aren’t real. And the way you make something real is to make it so you don’t have to keep powering it so that it keeps going.

Does this boil down to materialism? No, it doesn’t. Math is real, it stays real whether there’s a mind to ‘power’ it or not. The counterpart to real is imaginary, the quality of something that issues forth from the mind. Note that both real and imaginary have their counterparts in mathematics, and insights gleaned from math are very useful in mysticism. Complex numbers have both real and imaginary parts. Imaginary numbers have coefficients that can be real, rational, or even trancendental.

Mysticism mixes up the real with the imaginary so thoroughly that it becomes difficult to tell the two apart. But the mind has a subconscious defense mechanism that keeps mysticism from making you crazy, and one of the signs of psychosis is the erosion of these mechanisms.

Anyway, let’s contrast reality with existence. While the counterpart to reality is imaginary, existence’s counterpart is stasis. For something to exist, it has to interact with other things. If it’s not interacting, it’s in stasis, and so not existing. Things exist on planes, and imagination is a plane. So things can exist in your imagination that are nevertheless not real, because it will go away the second you stop thinking about it. Things also might be real, but nevertheless aren’t existing on a particular plane. Harry Potter is real, but he doesn’t exist on the material plane.

When I do mysticism, I’m exploring things in my life that I think are real, by painting them onto an imaginative canvas and watching them play out. The end result is a real insight, something that makes sense of some kind of chaos I’ve been perceiving but not understanding. But the forms exist only as long as I think about them, and when I integrate the mystic journey I went on the night before the next day, I consider the reality of the things that had felt so solid. Mysticism doesn’t really work unless you suspend disbelief and it’s a skill that you can work on.

In a mystical experience, once something stops moving, it winks out of existence. The mental canvas requires constant movement, scenes can change with lightning speed and you can’t really hold on to any of it otherwise the whole thing stops.

So now that we have our terminology, let’s apply it to the question. Is God real? Does He exist? Well He’s certainly real to some people, including me. I don’t have to give God mental energy in order for Him to continue to impact my life. He’s ever-present, has been ever since I discovered Him. And God certainly exists on many, many planes, and it’s a matter of perspective as to whether He exists on your preferred one. Remember the counterpart to existence is stasis, and if God isn’t actually interacting with you, that means He doesn’t exist in that moment to you.

Now that we’ve answered the question you actually asked, let’s answer the question you wanted to be answered. Is God objective? Objectivity is the quality of a thing that allows it to be perceived by many people. In my world, you have to get comfortable with think of qualities as being continuums. God isn’t fully subjective, nor is He fully objective either. He’s objective to the subset of people that believe in Him, and subjective to the people that don’t. He’s on the plane, but not in one extreme or the other.

Were you looking for a hard and fast answer? Sorry, that’s not the way God works.