'The Geering version', Listener, November 5, 1994

Lloyd Geering is accepted as one of New Zealand's foremost thinkers about ultimate questions. In Tomorrow's God, he draws on his wide reading to set out, in the light of modern knowledge and thought, his conception of God. He comes to some startling conclusions.

Early in the book he writes: "Traditionally our forebears believed that it was God who created us and our world, and that he did so for a meaningful purpose. A basic theme of this book is that we humans are slowly coming to realise that what each of us inhabits is a world of meaning which we ourselves have constructed." In fact, we made God, rather than he creating us. "God" should now be interpreted as a symbolic word for all that the human mind conceives as being of ultimate importance.

Geering says that as language evolved in the childhood of our race, people began to ask questions concerning origins, meaning, behaviour and destiny. Words and sentences developed into stories that became meaningful myths. These, in turn, formed the basis of religious systems. They envisaged another world, an invisible realm that overlaid and gave meaning to this one.

The monotheistic religions taught that we were confronted by a supreme being onto whom we could project our hopes, fears and needs. This being had chosen to reveal to us something of himself, and required our co-operation.

In the cold light of modern thought, where science has pushed back the frontiers of time, space and self-understanding, the ancient myths are no longer tenable. Nevertheless, Geering believes we cannot easily discard some concept of God that, for many, remains the symbolic expression of our ultimate values. Since nothing exists outside this world, those values that, until now, we have attributed to God, we must consciously create for ourselves. We can no longer depend on the symbols, myths, values and structures for living that satisfied our ancestors.

Where must we now look for those essential values and meanings if we want ordered and meaningful life to continue? Geering believes that we should focus our deepest concerns on the planet we inhabit. This will require us to subordinate our own personal needs to the preservation and cherishing of our polluted, over-populated, exploited mother Earth. He cites Goldsmith's Gaia principle with approval. Somewhere in that direction must "tomorrow's God" be found.

Tomorrow's God is a masterpiece of thoughtful and humane scholarship, and there is much in it that is enlightening. Yet questions remain. Are the great faiths indeed in the process of dissolution? History seems to suggest that they change and transmute as the world changes, because they meet deep existential human needs. They are like those trick birthday candles that appear to have been blown out, but continue to re-ignite. They correspond in some measure to that reality that lies deeper than conventional logic or science can account for.

Environmental issues are of vital importance, but humans, hemmed within our brief life span, have other and more intimate needs for meaning, support and direction. Few doubt that old religious doctrinal formulations and organisational structures must be radically transformed – but abandoned?

There is a clear dividing line between those who see God as a product of our own immature imaginings and those who believe in some form of revelation – that the being behind creation has acted purposively, and revealed something of himself (herself? – all our words are inadequate) through nature, histroy and human experience. For Jews, he speaks through the Torah; Muslims hear his words in the Qu'ran; for Christians, Jesus Christ is "the Word made flesh, the human face of God". They are unlikely to agree with Geering when he writes, almost patronisingly, that he sees Jesus "as an attractive Jewish teacher who showed some originality, rather than as a divine figure".

In such vast matters, there is no proof, only faith. We have, to our cost, learnt of the dangers of consciously creating our own symbols, value systems and moral orders that, in turn, become our idols. We can, however, honour the integrity of the author, who so clearly sets before us the alternatives and, in doing so, widens our horizons, and challenges our assumptions.