Who is this God of which I speak?

I received a book in the post recently that has a commentary on Romans; a book of the Bible that I studied about 18 months ago. One of the verses in the first chapter says something along the lines of "they know God exists but reject that knowledge." It's interesting that I've also been reading another book by a guy, Tim Keller, who recently released his book "The Reason for God; Belief in an age of skepticism." He spends the first half of the book answering common objections to Christianity, and the second half of the book on the offensive, showing how Christianity is the set of beliefs that makes the most sense. I have a few things to say on one of his chapters, chapter 9 'The Knowledge of God.'

It all, and always, boils down to morality. In the past 200 years the foundational assumption of God has been steadily removed from society and state as a whole, leaving an unfounded moral principle that avoids God. The fact is, morality is based on a higher set of principles that can then be filtered down to application in society. I am, of course, referring to human rights. Laws of the road only have as much to do with God as to say anyone who drives badly probably shouldn't have a fish on the back of their car. Human rights assumes the dignity of all beings, and it appears to have been most fully recognised, although I can't say that with absolute certainty, in Western culture, where "freedom" of speech, religion, etc. equal rights, and discouragement of segragation is, on the whole, established and held to. The trouble with it is that this freedom, especially of religion, says that there is a clear need to keep your faith in whatever it is we can't see in your private home and don't bring it to work thank-you-very-much, when, as a driving force of one's life, it is practically impossible to do.

So, then, the comments on Tony Blair's decision to start going back to church on a more committed basis after his term as PM makes us wonder where he was getting his ideas from before that. Maybe there is an element where we, as the English, think ourselves better than the US because they like to have their religion stated next to their name. It makes me wonder why, if our human rights realisations are good and right, why we would then try and make them universal when there are a number of cultures where even murder is socially acceptable if it's used to save face. What is our trouble with morality, on the one hand, and God, on the other, that makes us avoid so much of communication between the two, when the only explanation for either of them is the other one. For reasons sake the two ideas (morality and God) support each other.

Where am I going with this?

The underlying problem with morality is that it exists, but if God does not exist it actually shouldn't. I am talking more of a moral awareness (of right and wrong, good and evil, ugly and beautiful - just to throw another idea in the mix) than of a set of legal standards. The simple fact is that we have shelves and shelves of books outlining laws for this that and the other, but we don't know where it comes from. It's as if a decision is made and it agrees with everyone, but if anyone were asked why, they wouldn't have the slightest idea what just happened.

At this point I have been talking about God as the idea (a greater more substantial force that at least started this whole life thing, even if he didn't sit there and decide what colour a fox would be, and how many stomachs a cow should have.) The reasoning, however, cannot end there.

I wonder. If there were one question I were to ask the world, it would be this.

How would you describe the God that you do or don't believe in?

Answer? That's up to you.