Dr Brainerd Prince
Not long ago, theology or the study of God was considered to be the queen of all sciences. But a few centuries later, today, it is not considered sophisticated or even appropriate to talk about God both within the academy as well as in the public space. Three giants took upon themselves the task of finding scientific explanations for religion and to prove that God did not exist. For Marx the economist, religion and God were the creation of the bourgeois and the ruling class which was then used to keep the low classes in perpetual subjugation. He famously said, ‘Religion is the opiate of the masses.’ For Freud the psychologist, God was an illusion and was created by man to satisfy his need for a powerful father figure. For Durkheim the sociologist, religion fulfilled a social function of holding the society together cohesively. Religion is an expression of society itself and the perception of the social life which is a greater power at play, and this social life is given a supernatural face and called God and religion. Effectively, all three reduced God and religion to economic power, psychological illusions and sociological functions respectively and thus solidified the ‘death of God’ that Nietzsche had inaugurated. Hence, if you pull up today’s headlines in any of the mainline dailies, you will hardly find the word ‘God’ mentioned in any of them today. But this was not always the case. There was a time when the sacred canopy enveloped our world and everything in it. All human activities were seen through the lens of the spiritual, the sacred, and the lens of God.
In this exploratory meditation I want to argue that even in this secularized public space of our present-day world,even though we have gotten rid of God, God continues to be present even if only in a functional sense. In this exploration of the existence of the Functional God, I put forward four functional roles that ‘God’ plays in our world. However, the term ‘God' is a semantically dense category, meaning, it is loaded with layers of meanings that are attributed to it by various religious traditions. Different traditions have different sets of categories and theologies that discourse about God. In our plural world, to use the English word ‘God’ is problematic, as that would be identified with the Judeo-Christian world view. If we use the term ‘Bhagwan’ or ‘Parmeshwar’, then one will be seen as belonging to one of the many Indic South Asian Hindu traditions and if one says ‘Allah’, then definitely that vocabulary belongs to the Islamic world. Therefore, there is a conflict even with the choice of terms used while talking about God.
Whose God? And to which God are we referring? These are legitimate questions that one has to satisfactorily answer even before we can venture into any form of God talk. But this conflict is not only primarily amongst religious traditions that use various terms for the transcendent. There are several dominant non-religious traditions that also have similar ideas of transcendence even if they do not use the term God explicitly. These are liberal, secular and humanist traditions that while defining themselves as the binary opposite of religion yet continue to have notions of transcendence. Some of the common secular gods are the good (to agathon) that modern society celebrates such as human rights, democracy or even capitalism. While they have replaced the traditional ‘God’, these continue to play the same role as God.
But instead of looking through either a religious or a secular lens, I want to offer a different approach to our exploration today. I want to begin with exploring the different functions that ‘God’ plays in our modern societies, in other words, this is an endeavor to articulate and paint a picture of what I am calling the Functional God. The main argument I am advancing here is that irrespective of how religious or secular our society is, we all have a variety of functional Gods that play specific and significant roles in our everyday lives. Perhaps once we have established this reality of the presence of the Functional God, then we can strive to move beyond this everyday Functional God to something more metaphysical, transcendent, and perhaps even ontological.
What do I mean by a Functional God? What I mean is, to raise the question in simple terms – in our everyday social life, what functions and roles does the category ‘God’ play? From reflecting on my own usage and also having witnessed the usage of people around me from an everyday perspective, I propose that there are four types of functions that the term ‘God’ plays in our contemporary society.
Firstly, when we humans are faced with insurmountable problems, be it tragedies, sorrows, hardships, or sufferings, which are beyond our control, it is then we find that out of nowhere a cry of ‘God save me’ comes from within us. At moments when we feel that we have no recourse and there is nothing or no one to turn to, or when no internal resources and nothing we possess will resolve our problems, it is then that we find ourselves turning to something greater than us for help, for encouragement, for comfort, and for rescue. There is a Rescue God in reach of each one of us when we are faced with insurmountable problems and crises beyond our control. The Rescue God has many faces. Some may call out to ‘Ram’ and others to ‘Jesus’ or ‘Allah’ while those belonging to secular traditions might turn to money or a powerful network of friends, while some could even turn to addictive substances – anything or anyone that would rescue us from the deep crises in one’s life. The functional Rescue God plays a huge role in all our lives every time we are faced with insurmountable crises.
Secondly, probably following the first, another functional God is evoked when the crisis is resolved or the conflict subsides. When we experience respite and rest, particularly in an unexpected manner, then from the depths of our soul there is an outpouring of gratitude. Often involuntarily the phrase ‘thank God’ or ‘thank goodness’ comes out! Gratitude and thanksgiving accompanied by praise to a higher power arises naturally from within us when we are saved from a crisis or rescued from suffering. Some would say ‘praise Jesus’, ‘praise Allah’, ‘praise Ram’ or ‘praise Krishna’, while many of our secular friends would praise their friends who helped them or praise their resources or institutions that got them out of their problems. Based on the function of gratitude and praise, let us call this the Celebratory God. When the mourning has indeed turned into joy, the grief and the sorrows have been washed away, the storms have been stilled and there is a sense of rejuvenation and resilience, then our souls respond back with praise and thanksgiving to the Celebratory God. So, functionally, when humans receive the unexpected, overcome the mountain, they know that the hand of God was there and hence, the Celebratory God is evoked and praised.
However, all is not always well. The Rescue God does not always show up. The molehill has indeed become a mountain and now it is tumbling upon us. ‘My God, My God, why have you forsaken me!’ is the new soul cry. Thirdly, let’s call this functional God as the ‘Cursed God’. It is interesting that with regard to this function of ‘God’ in our society, both religionists and the seculars, nearly all, including self-proclaimed atheists, are ready to do some ‘God bashing’ when things do not go our way. The ‘footprints on the sand’ is not always our first reaction when things go south. When an economy or society faces a huge problem, then one looks for a scapegoat, someone who will bear the guilt of the entire society and through the act of scapegoating, society experiences catharsis and healing. Often, God is the scapegoat in our narratives. The Hindu traditions even have a god of death, Yamraj, as well as Shiva the destroyer, and in the Judeo-Christian traditions we find the figure of the ‘angel of death’. I am not talking about Satan, Asuras or demons here; but of the divine who plays the function of destruction. And hence, the Cursed God has a legitimate role in our lives. Not only is devotion directed to the Celebratory God, but anger and resentment is also directed to the Cursed God.
Finally, in our everyday world we also have an Anticipatory God – a God of dreams and visions, a God who grants boons. When we dream of something beyond our grasp; when we dream of setting up a new business or endeavor; when we buy a new house or a new car, we have religious rituals to secure and protect them. A God who will not just safeguard, but also flourish what we have. For the seculars, you will find it very interesting when I tell you, insurance policies often play the role of the Anticipatory God. Buying an insurance, securing our future, ensuring that our assets are protected; all these are sacred acts for the secular. While this has become a common feature of our urban life, it is not different from the many rituals, pujas and prayers that faith communities do to protect their possessions and dreams from the evil eye. When we have big dreams, which are beyond one’s grasp, then from within the soul, unanticipated, comes a cry to the Anticipatory God,‘O God, give me success!’
Thus, we can see that functionally speaking, there are four types of Gods that play significant roles in our everyday human experience. In that sense, although it is not sophisticated and is perhaps even politically incorrect to talk about God, yet we cannot really get rid of God if we are being honest with ourselves. We all serve a host of Functional Gods. Someone who functions as a rescuer, someone who is worthy of celebration, someone who receives our curses and someone who functions as a fulfiller of dreams. Now, for those belonging to faith traditions, these Functional Gods take on the names of the deities – it could be Jesus, Allah, Krishna, Rama and many others. While for those who belong to secular traditions the Functional Gods represent networks of people, abstract ideas of the good, or simply any form of power, possession, or wealth that has significance.
If these Functional Gods are an integral part of our life and the life of our communities, and is the unseen guest in all of our life’s events, lurking just behind our shoulders, then is it too much of a stretch to imagine a non-functional God? If the Functional God is a reality, then can we use the Functional God as a stepping stone to reach a God, who is beyond our world and yet is involved in our world? Is there a legitimate way to talk about God today that moves the conversation beyond the Functional God? Perhaps there is!
