It seems, on the surface, that belief in god is ‘radical’ in the sense that it is belief in ‘something beyond’ all we directly see and apprehend. The ‘miraculousness’ of the phenomenal world is often cited as evidence of the existence of a ‘being beyond unity’.

There is something interesting here, a kind of confusion, because when you think about it, there is a real way in which the world without god is far more mysterious and miraculous than a world created by god. We consider the incredible beauty, complexity and intimacy we see and express to be evidence of a higher order of being, and it may well be thus, but consider how astonishing it is to think that some set of forces, in the abeyance of a unifying and purposeful intelligence could assemble a Bengal tiger as an expression of their character and directedness over time.

Or more astonishing still, the human being; an animal with the capacity not only for thought but for wonder, not only for mathematics, but for adoration… even of beings it can neither locate nor apprehend. What force or ensemble of forces, in abeyance of all that is holy, emerges in expression as a human person upon this living planet?