The God of Abraham
WE are made to believe that God became unnecessary through the advent of science, that the world became too harsh of a place, the universe too vast and empty and cold, as we hallowed the depths of both ocean and heaven. Such is not the case however. We find in the very first civilization, Sumer, the pessimistic Wheel of Life perception of how the universe functions, simply, that everything was born only to toil and die: “The creatures cause pain by being born, and live by inflicting pain, and in pain they mostly die” (Lewis). The seasons spoke of monotony, not diversity, endless patterns that brought distinct but equal troubles at each passing. Throughout the literature and lives of Sumerians, and every other ancient culture, life is most important when spent in conquest and riches. Even passionate love is something of a secondary notion, supplementing the most important substances—fame and glory—because in this mindset what one leaves behind is the only thing that really defines them, the only proof they ever existed at all. (If that doesn’t sound forbiddingly modern, I don’t know what does.) We find in the Epic of Gilgamesh—possibly the oldest written word dating from around 2600 BCE—the pursuit fully of these things material.
Though they had a rich pantheon of extremely anthropomorphized gods (as all pantheism goes), Cahill says we should take the Sumerians' piety with the same weight we do when a politician makes allusions to the Creator. They were an incredibly practical and secular people, for civilization wouldn’t have irrupted without such spirits, but their gods did little for them, being mostly bickering or wicked or half-hearted and, like humans, always looking out for their own interests. A pantheon like theirs was only a natural articulation of the ancients’ fear and misery of the monotony of this life, the turmoil and struggle, only to die in the end. This pain was not abated by their beliefs, only made more acute. Lewis describes a term that may fit this sad state as Numinous (that which inspired unspeakable awe or dread).
My point here was not to give a history of civilization or pantheism, but to show that the pointlessness that infuses the beliefs of most naturalists is not, as they claim, just realism that came along with science: this feeling was always there, this pessimistic outlook as real and painful for the ancients as the moderns.
The above is what makes what happens next absolutely and marvelously miraculous. A wealthy (and practical) Semitic Sumerian hears a voice, a deity who separates himself from the confusing god-buffet of his day, calling Abram by name, and telling him to leave Ur for the desert. Something’s going to happen. For the first and last time, a god begins to define his own attributes and thus establishes a personal and beneficent relationship with a human through his own initiative. This god will later identify himself to Moses as YHWH (Ex 3:14) which means “I AM WHO I AM” or “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE” or simply “I AM” (there are no vowels in original Hebrew. Since Jews have not uttered the Name from early on in their monotheistic history, the actual pronunciation is unknown; Cahill says the only way he knows to say it sounds like a breath, which is beautifully descriptive of the God who is Spirit or Breath or found in the “still small voice,” who will not be represented by idols).
We can’t underestimate the significance of this event: the “hostile immensity” of the universe rapped up in the ominous Wheel of Life began to unravel as linear history, based upon God’s self-disclosure, and became real and useful for the first time. Without this dictum, history and even life has no significance since it’s bound to return to the same place of nonexistence. Now progress can be made. Science and our entire Western world rest on this very moment—when a god became God. And today it's fashionable to disparage man in his earliest stages. We speak of ancients as ignorant, using a silly idea of spirituality and God to give them strength. Well, C.S. Lewis says to those who suffer from such hubris: “To them we owe language, the family, clothing, the use of fire, the domestication of animals, the wheel, the ship, poetry, and agriculture.” Not so stupid, were they? Lewis’s point is this: that it is truly a miracle that God became God to us in the milieu of such hopelessness; it was a truly novel occurrence, something that went profoundly against the literally “timeless culture of Sumer” (Cahill). This would be the start of something new, something explosive.
Read a deeper and more eloquent treatment of this subject in The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels by Thomas Cahill.
Though they had a rich pantheon of extremely anthropomorphized gods (as all pantheism goes), Cahill says we should take the Sumerians' piety with the same weight we do when a politician makes allusions to the Creator. They were an incredibly practical and secular people, for civilization wouldn’t have irrupted without such spirits, but their gods did little for them, being mostly bickering or wicked or half-hearted and, like humans, always looking out for their own interests. A pantheon like theirs was only a natural articulation of the ancients’ fear and misery of the monotony of this life, the turmoil and struggle, only to die in the end. This pain was not abated by their beliefs, only made more acute. Lewis describes a term that may fit this sad state as Numinous (that which inspired unspeakable awe or dread).
My point here was not to give a history of civilization or pantheism, but to show that the pointlessness that infuses the beliefs of most naturalists is not, as they claim, just realism that came along with science: this feeling was always there, this pessimistic outlook as real and painful for the ancients as the moderns.
The above is what makes what happens next absolutely and marvelously miraculous. A wealthy (and practical) Semitic Sumerian hears a voice, a deity who separates himself from the confusing god-buffet of his day, calling Abram by name, and telling him to leave Ur for the desert. Something’s going to happen. For the first and last time, a god begins to define his own attributes and thus establishes a personal and beneficent relationship with a human through his own initiative. This god will later identify himself to Moses as YHWH (Ex 3:14) which means “I AM WHO I AM” or “I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE” or simply “I AM” (there are no vowels in original Hebrew. Since Jews have not uttered the Name from early on in their monotheistic history, the actual pronunciation is unknown; Cahill says the only way he knows to say it sounds like a breath, which is beautifully descriptive of the God who is Spirit or Breath or found in the “still small voice,” who will not be represented by idols).
We can’t underestimate the significance of this event: the “hostile immensity” of the universe rapped up in the ominous Wheel of Life began to unravel as linear history, based upon God’s self-disclosure, and became real and useful for the first time. Without this dictum, history and even life has no significance since it’s bound to return to the same place of nonexistence. Now progress can be made. Science and our entire Western world rest on this very moment—when a god became God. And today it's fashionable to disparage man in his earliest stages. We speak of ancients as ignorant, using a silly idea of spirituality and God to give them strength. Well, C.S. Lewis says to those who suffer from such hubris: “To them we owe language, the family, clothing, the use of fire, the domestication of animals, the wheel, the ship, poetry, and agriculture.” Not so stupid, were they? Lewis’s point is this: that it is truly a miracle that God became God to us in the milieu of such hopelessness; it was a truly novel occurrence, something that went profoundly against the literally “timeless culture of Sumer” (Cahill). This would be the start of something new, something explosive.
Read a deeper and more eloquent treatment of this subject in The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels by Thomas Cahill.
