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“God is not subjective. He is objective. Is He both? 🤨🫵”
I saw this question pop up on Threads recently, and it hit me hard. It’s one of those philosophical questions that feels like it should settle the debate, but instead, it just opens everything up. If God is objective—something we can define—why does everyone seem to have such different views of God?
But if God is subjective, does that mean it’s all just in our heads?
This made me ask myself: what is God? For me, faith has always been a tug-of-war between certainty and mystery. Growing up, I was taught that God was an objective truth—a force you could always rely on. But as I questioned it, that certainty unraveled.
Now, I sit with the mystery of what God is, but I feel a lot less pressure to figure it all out.
Deep Spiritual Insight #1: Deconstructing Faith—The Slow Burn
The Beginning of Doubt
My spiritual deconstruction wasn’t a dramatic, one-time event. It was more of a slow burn, unfolding gradually. In my late teens and early twenties, I started asking hard questions about God and Christianity.
Wrestling with Contradictions
It wasn’t an instant rejection. At first, I just had questions about things that didn’t make sense. How could a religion that preached love reject LGBTQ+ people? How could Christianity reconcile homosexuality while claiming to be rooted in acceptance?
Clinging to Faith While Questioning
I tried to reshape my understanding of God. I kept preaching, leading small groups, and even explored ordination. But the more I studied theology, the more cracks I saw. I wanted to offer spiritual guidance, but the version of God I had clung to just wasn’t working anymore.
Exploring New Spiritual Paths
I was initially sceptical about tarot and other practices, but as I deconstructed, I opened up to new paths. Finding my way with tarot became central to my spiritual journey, helping me explore these deep spiritual insights in ways I hadn’t before.
Deep Spiritual Insight #2: Encountering Peter Rollins and Atheism for Lent
Discovering Peter Rollins
Peter Rollins entered my life at a time when I was drowning in doubt. Rollins wasn’t about neat answers, which is exactly what I needed. He asked questions that let me explore my doubts without feeling lost or guilty.
Introduction to Transformative Thinkers
Through Rollins, I was introduced to philosophers like Kant, Hegel, Caputo, Feuerbach, and Tillich. These were the thinkers that shaped much of my understanding of God today. Their ideas were like an intellectual storm that forced me to rethink everything I knew about faith.
The Impact of Atheism for Lent
A pivotal moment came in 2016 when I took Rollins’ Atheism for Lent course. It wasn’t about rejecting faith but interrogating the very idea of God. We explored critiques of God from within and outside Christianity, which challenged me in profound ways.
God as a Mystery
The biggest takeaway? God is a mystery. The God I had grown up with was too small to contain what I was beginning to understand about the divine. It wasn’t a clear answer to what is God, but it made space for deeper exploration.
Deep Spiritual Insight #3: A Pivotal Moment – Rebuilding the Church
A Church Weekend Away
In the midst of my spiritual deconstruction, one moment stands out. It was 2016, and I was still holding onto my Christian identity. During a worship session, I had a vivid visualisation of myself standing in the ruins of a church, trying to rebuild it.
The Realisation
That visualisation was a turning point. I realised I had been trying to reconstruct something that wasn’t meant to be fixed. The God I was praying to wasn’t big enough to contain the mystery I was beginning to see. It was time to let go of that narrow view of God.
Deep Spiritual Insight #4: The Philosophical Shift – What Is God?
Rethinking God’s Objectivity
I grew up believing that God was objective—a being we could know if we had enough faith. But as I delved into philosophy, I realised that God might not be something we can easily grasp.
Kant’s Influence: Appearance vs Reality
Kant’s philosophy was a big influence. He argued we can never know things as they are, only as they appear to us. This made me confront the idea that my version of God was shaped by my experiences and upbringing, limiting the infinite.
Embracing Contradiction with Hegel
Hegel reshaped my understanding, teaching that real growth comes when we hold opposites together—faith and doubt, certainty and uncertainty. I began to see that doubt wasn’t an enemy but part of faith. This became one of my deep spiritual insights.
Feuerbach’s Projection of Human Ideals
Feuerbach argued that when we talk about God, we’re really talking about ourselves—projecting human ideals onto a divine figure. This idea forced me to question whether I was just projecting my hopes onto God.
Liberation Through Questioning
This questioning freed me. I began to explore what God is beyond my old projections, understanding God as a mystery, a concept too vast for simple answers.
Deep Spiritual Insight #5: God as Super Being, Hyper Being, and Event
God as Super Being
Rollins introduced me to the idea of God as a “super being”—the best version of ourselves, projected onto a divine figure. It’s the God many grow up with.
God as Hyper Being: Beyond Comprehension
Rollins then challenged this view, introducing God as “hyper being”—something beyond language and comprehension. The mystics, like Eckhart, described God as something we’re immersed in but cannot fully understand.
God as Event: Žižek’s Radical View
Žižek, one of the thinkers I encountered in the Atheism for Lent course, saw God not as a being but an “event”—the call to love, justice, and transformation. This aligned with how I began experiencing God—not as a distant being, but a force in moments of love and creativity.
Deep Spiritual Insight #6: Rebuilding Spirituality—Tarot and the Subjective God
A New Way to Experience the Divine
Despite all the philosophy, I still felt something was missing. I wasn’t experiencing the divine. Then I found tarot, and it became a key part of my spiritual practice.
At first, I was sceptical about tarot, but it became my tool for exploring what God is and experiencing the mystery of the divine. Tarot offered me a way to explore the deep spiritual insights I was uncovering.
Bridging Philosophy and Experience
Tarot bridged the gap between intellectual and experiential spirituality. Each reading was a reflection of the deeper questions I was asking about life, love, and God. Finding my way with tarot wasn’t about replacing God; it was about sitting with the questions.
Deep Spiritual Insight #7: God Beyond Labels—Ground of Being and Ultimate Concern
God as the Ground of Being
Paul Tillich’s idea of God as the Ground of Being offered a new framework for understanding. Tillich taught that God wasn’t an object we could define but the very essence from which all being arises. This concept resonates deeply with me.
For Tillich, God is not something external that we can grasp, but the foundation of existence itself. This reframed my entire perspective on what God is. It’s not about labelling or categorising God but experiencing the divine through love, justice, and connection.
Living Out Our Ultimate Concern
Tillich’s teaching that our ultimate concerns reflect the divine shifted my thinking. It made me realise that faith wasn’t about getting the right answers but aligning my life with what truly mattered. This became one of the most transformative deep spiritual insights for me—living my life through love, justice, and connection.
Deep Spiritual Insight #8: Embracing Mystery and the Denaming of God
Meister Eckhart and the Denaming of God
Eckhart taught that every time we name God, we limit the divine. This idea helped me embrace the mystery of what God is. The divine isn’t something that can be confined to our definitions or ideas.
Tarot and the Mystery of the Divine
Tarot became a way to explore God without needing to label or define it. For me, tarot was about finding my way with the divine, living in the questions, and sitting with the unknown.
Deep Spiritual Insight #9: God as Event—Zizek and the Call to Justice
Revisiting Žižek’s God as Event
Žižek’s idea of God as event, first introduced in the Atheism for Lent course, helped me understand God as a call to action. Rather than viewing God as a being, Žižek framed God as a force or event that calls us toward love, justice, and authentic living.
Tarot as a Tool for Transformation
As I began to view God as an event, tarot became a tool for transformation. Each reading became an event in itself—an opportunity for reflection, insight, and the call to live more authentically.
Deep Spiritual Insight #10: Faith in Practice—Orthopraxy Over Orthodoxy
Orthopraxy vs. Orthodoxy
One of the biggest shifts in my journey was realising that faith isn’t about having the “right” beliefs, but about how we live those beliefs. Tarot became a guide for me, offering reflection on how I was navigating the world.
Tarot as a Guide for Living
With tarot, I wasn’t just seeking answers about the future or divine. It became a tool for reflecting on how I was living and how I could align my actions with love and justice. This shift from orthodoxy (right belief) to orthopraxy (right practice) became a defining moment for me.
Deep Spiritual Insight #11: God as Both Objective and Subjective
Reconciling Objectivity and Subjectivity
So where does that leave me now? After years of deconstruction, I’ve become comfortable with the idea that God is both objective and subjective. There is something bigger than us we might call God, but our experience of it will always be filtered through our own perspectives.
Embracing the Mystery of What God Is
I no longer need to figure out what God is in exact terms. What matters most is how I live and how I offer spiritual guidance to others as they seek to find their way with tarot.
Ready to explore your own spiritual journey? Book a tarot reading with me and let’s dive into what your cards are saying.
