“Reality with a Personality”
The central issue here is not whether Jesus did or did not physically rise from
the dead, which supposedly “proves” the truth of the Christian religion if you
agree, and disproves it if you disagree. No scientific proof is ever likely to be
possible. Besides, our endless attempts to prove a supernatural event are
misguided from the start, because neither Christ nor Jesus is outside of our
natural reality in the first place.
It will really help you, Christian or not, if you can begin to see Jesus—and
Christ—as coming out of Reality, naming it, giving it a face, not appearing to
Reality from another world. There is no group to join here, no need to sign on
the dotted line, only a generous moment of recognition that the Inner and the
Outer are one and the same. Our inner meaning and Christ’s outer meaning, if
you will. They mirror one another: Human anthropology matches a divine
theology. How is that for one Great Ecosystem? If one’s theology (view of God)
does not significantly change one’s anthropology (view of humanity), it is
largely what we call a “head trip.”
Resurrection is also grace taken to its logical and full conclusion. If reality
begins in grace, it of course must continue “grace upon grace” (John 1:16b) and
“from this fullness we have all received” (1:16a). In such a field, we now might
have the courage to join Jesus in imagining that “I and the Father are one” (John
10:30) too. That is what I mean by theology changing anthropology. If death
and resurrection are just about Jesus, and not about history, the world will
continue to lose interest in our story line.
The evolutionary theologian Michael Dowd loves to say that God might bestbe seen as “Reality with a personality.”*4 Through God, the world around us—
everything that is—seems to be in dialogue with us, whether we enjoy it or not,
whether we trust it or not. I hope that is as helpful to you as it is to me. Even
when our lives feel meaningless, we can still trust and be confident that
Someone is talking, and that Someone is also listening when we talk. To be
outside of that constant interface is probably what it means to not believe.
Every time you choose love or positively connect with someone or something,
you are in touch with the Divine Personality. You do not even need to call it
“God”—God does not seem to care at all. It is equally important to say that to