 It's taken me a couple of decades, but I'm finally starting to make sense of the concept of God. I was raised in an evangelical Christian household, but the ideas never fully made sense to me at the deepest level. When searching for clarity about God, the people I spoke with would appeal to mystery and faith rather than a concept I could rationally grasp. But finally, after investigating for more than 20 years, I have a concept of God that I can understand. The idea is one of the oldest in existence, and it turns baroque theological claims into true and important insights. We can define God as all of existence, or the entirety of the universe, or reality itself. God is the whole thing together. God's parts include all of the objects, their relations, and their rules for interaction. God is the biggest conceivable existent, which is the totality of existence itself. In a word, God is nature, but not nature referring to trees and shrubs and rocks, nature referring to the entire system, the universe, in which we live. With this definition, many theological claims start to make concrete sense. I have a suspicion that this is what Christians mean or meant when talking about God the Father. In this article, I will go through and demonstrate just how powerful the concept of God is when equated with nature or the universe. We'll take a dozen religious claims about God and turn them into something reasonable and profound by translating God into nature, the universe, existence, or reality. Now whether in addition to the universe there is a divine person, we can call God, is a separate question. And whether or not the universe taken altogether is itself a person we can call God, is a different question. I'm not sure the answers, but regardless, it doesn't change the profundity of the truths we can state about the universe. So we'll start with the traditional omniqualities of God. Take the simple example to claim that God is omnipresent, meaning God is everywhere at the same time. Well, if God is a person, it's at least hard to understand how we can be omnipresent. If God is the universe, however, then it suddenly becomes obvious, even necessarily true that God is omnipresent. The universe is everywhere. Existence is everywhere. If something exists, then it's part of reality and therefore part of God. There is no corner of the universe that's somehow not part of the universe. You can't separate yourself from the universe, or to sound theological, you can't separate yourself from God. Not only is this claim true, but it hints at a real relationship between the universe and you. There's some kind of remarkable connection between the whole thing and you as a part of it. Next, take the claim that God is omnipotent or all-powerful. Well, the universe is indeed all-powerful. There's definitely nothing more powerful than it, since it doesn't really make sense to talk about something in the universe that's more powerful than the universe. Everything that acts is acting within the rules of existence, so the system itself is categorically more powerful than any object within the system. To put it into religious terms, everything in existence is playing by God's rules, therefore God is all-powerful. Next, take the claim that God is omniscient, meaning God knows everything. There's no information that God doesn't have. This is a true statement about the universe. There's a sense in which all of the states of existence are known by the universe, though not necessarily implying a conscious state of knowing. Rather, all of the information about the universe is within the universe. You cannot hide information from the universe. You can't trick nature or somehow be somewhere that nature can't see you. Every state that you're in is, in fact, itself, a state of nature. Therefore the universe cannot lack knowledge of your existence in a similar sense that the laws of physics cannot lack knowledge of your existence. If you think about information as being a key part in how the laws of physics operate, like part of the universal function as I theorized in my article about the mind-body relationship, then it makes sense to talk about the universe as knowing present states in order to render future states. Let's now take a biblical quote. God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Well, if God is a person, it's unclear what this means or how it's true. But if God is the universe, then in the most literal sense, God is indeed the Alpha, the Omega, and everything in between. You could call God the Father of everything, which is essentially the same idea as being the Alpha and the Omega. Well, how about the claim that God maintains our existence every minute? Well, this is also true. The universe maintains our metaphysical existence from second to second. We don't choose to continue being. Nature chooses for us. And if nature stopped sustaining our existence, we would cease to be. How about the common claim that humans are made in the image of God, or as it's sometimes phrased, every individual has the spark of the divine? Well, there is again a literal sense in which humans are an image of nature. They are stamped with an impression of the entire universe. If you agree with the story of modern cosmology, then humans are really just little bits of the big bang that have aged a few billion years. So in a real sense, nature created humans. We are inescapably of nature, of God. You are not separate from reality. The universe, reality, existence, it's part of you. You are part of the universe. So when you're looking at a human or really looking at anything for that matter, you're looking at a little bit of nature itself. Thus, if God is the universe, then humans literally look like a part of God. And if existence is divine, then every individual has the spark of the divine. Take the claims that we are all God's creation, or the more poetic, God-formed man from dust. Well, just like the claim that God made man and woman, this is literally true. We are a creation of the universe, but not necessarily a creation in the intentional conscious sense. The material building blocks of humans are of the universe. Humans are a particular composition, a structure that's been created, or if you prefer, has emerged, from the universe itself. Again, in a literal sense, the universe has formed man from dust. Now take a claim that I used to hear from evangelicals growing up. God made man and woman, or more generally, things are the way they are because God made them that way. Well, again, this is true and important. Nature has created men and women with different biological and psychological traits. This is a fact of the reality in which we live. So it's foolish and arrogant to pretend otherwise, and it should probably affect the way that we live in the world. Now consider the popular religious conception of submission to God. Well, in this context, it makes a great deal of sense. To submit to God is to submit to reality, to nature, to obey the system and let it operate. To establish God as, quote, sovereign over everything is to admit that reality, the universe, nature itself is king. We have no metaphysical power over the structure of reality. Looking at things from a universal perspective, there's a very real sense in which your life is not your own. It's God's. It's nature's. What happens in your life is not ultimately controlled by you, but by forces greater than yourself outside of yourself. In this sense, I can agree with religious people when they claim that Western culture needs to submit to God. Well, Western culture really does need to acknowledge the existence of objective reality and live in accordance with it. So perhaps when theologians say that humans should live by God's law, they're really saying that humans should not pretend they live in an alternative universe. They should live by the laws of nature and accept reality as it is. This perspective also gives me a comprehensible understanding of Satan. Instead of being a really bad supernatural person, he might be the personification of non-reality, falsehood, or rebellion against reality. Imagine that we constructed a story about God, reality, versus Satan, falsehood, where both God and Satan were people. We could talk about how seductive Satan is, how tempting lies can be, and how deep delusions tend to run in human psychology. We could talk about the fundamental arrogance of Satan, the tendency for humans to vociferously proclaim that they have the truth when they don't. We could tell stories about how listening to Satan leads to unhappiness because in the real world lies and delusions actually end up harming people. So with such stories, I would end up advising the exact same thing as my Christian friends. Stay away from Satan. God is what you need. And we could translate this rationally as stay away from lies and delusions. Truth and reality is what you need. Furthermore, I often heard stories in my youth about the burning hatred that Satan has for God. Well, if you understand God is reality and Satan is non-reality, actually see this story play out in people. Humans that are living in delusion have an extreme hatred for anything true, even for the concept of truth. Similarly, humans that are doing really bad things think they abstain sex ring. They don't want the truth exposed. They have a strong preference for darkness and a fear of the light, so to speak. After hearing stories about God and Satan for so many years and never quite grasping them, it's stunning to me to see them suddenly make sense by simply translating God as reality or existence. This also helps me make sense of the concepts of karma or cosmic justice. Instead of thinking there's somebody personally punishing and rewarding humans for their behavior, we can conceive of the universe as possibly being intrinsically just. Perhaps the laws of physics are also coupled with the laws of morality. So when something bad happens in the world, maybe it sets up a chain of events to correct itself at a future time. Punishment might be built into the structure of the universe rather than something dished out by a person. How about the claim that God will judge you for your sins? Well, that might be another way of saying actions have consequences. Now, whether or not we live in a universe which operates on the principles of justice is an entirely empirical and open question. I'm not saying we do. There's in fact plenty of evidence that seems to suggest otherwise. However, it's another example of the explanatory power of treating God as existence. We can seriously talk about whether God is just without invoking confusing theological concepts. We can even talk about whether God has a sense of humor or God is loving. All of these things are meaningful statements about how the universe operates. Next, let's examine the cultural criticism you might hear from a cranky old person. Western society has forgotten about God. Well, this becomes true and important if we interpret it as Western society has forgotten about reality. Especially in elite society humans seem to have forgotten that the universe has a structure independent of them. They pretend that all of existence is a mere social construction. They are deluded about the reality of things as they are in the world. One could even interpret the fashionable claim that there is no objective truth as there is no universe or in this context there is no God. To quote Psalms, a fool in his heart says there is no God. This is again true and relevant to my own work. A fool says there is no universe. There is no such thing as reality. I've met plenty of fools and I've even interviewed a few on my show. Perhaps part of the reason past thinkers believe that the existence of God was self-evident is because they were treating God as nature or the universe. The existence of the universe is essentially self-evident. In other words, the existence of existence. And it probably reflects on some psychological or moral problem to deny that existence exists. Now take the crotchety old person's condemnation of his teenage son's behavior. Don't rebel against God. It's actually sound advice if the old man is saying don't rebel against nature. Rebelling against reality is vain and counterproductive. You might not like nature, but you'd better grow up and get over it. Nature is a particular way and it won't change just because you don't like it. Instead of rebellion against God, I think it would be amazing to live in a society that worshiped God. In other words, a society in which truth and reality are sacred. Lying, for example, would be seen as seriously immoral. But at present, western culture seems completely tolerant of lies and celebrates a myriad of human delusions. Now consider the wisdom of the proverb that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's wise if we interpret it as the fear of nature is the beginning of wisdom. As somebody who's experienced chronic illness for about a decade, I can tell you this is true. All the pain, suffering, disease, and death comes from nature. Your mental state, happy or sad, sane or insane, is an output of nature and at any moment it can change. Everything can be taken away from you and this fact is outside of your control. Nature has the ability to eternally torture you or ruin your life in ways currently inconceivable to you. Next, consider the common practice of thanking God before a meal or for your success in life or for avoiding some tragedy. My old evangelical community thanked God with the belief that they were thanking a cosmically powerful person who was responsible for their well-being. But there's another way to understand giving thanks to God. In a literal sense, the universe has provided you with your meal. The universe was the ultimate cause of your professional success. The universe forces external to you where the reason that some particular tragedy was avoided, the reason that the cancer cleared up. If you have talents, wealth or physical looks, the universe gave them to you. And as the saying goes, since the universe gives you everything, it can take everything away from you. A related phenomenon is religious people giving glory to God when they perform things at a high level. Say we're talking about music. Rather than merely celebrate some particular human's musical creation, it makes sense to celebrate the whole structure that gives rise to the existence of music in the first place. It's extraordinary that we live in a universe in which sound exists. Relatively speaking, the musician isn't actually doing that much. He's not creating music ex nihilo. He's creating music within the system provided to him. In this context, giving glory to God makes sense to me. These high performers often say things like there is a higher power working through me. Again, in this context, that's true. When somebody accomplishes something, it's actually some part of the entire universe operating. The actions of individual humans are just a small part of its operation. Now consider a few biblical quotes. This one is of God speaking. My people are fools. They do not know me. They are senseless children. They have no understanding. Imagine the universe talking. It could truthfully say that, first of all, humans are my people as humans are constructed out of the universe itself. But it could also say that humans are senseless children who have no understanding of reality. That is also true. This is a quote from Corinthians. God makes foolish the wisdom of the world. Yes, definitely. The universe makes foolish the wisdom of the world. Intellectuals for all of history have been fundamentally mistaken about everything and the present moment is no exception. The more you learn about the universe, the more you learn that humans know approximately nothing and the greatest fools are those who profess to understand while being in a state of ignorance. In theological discussions, whether God is personal or impersonal seems to be a big deal. Of course, it depends on what we mean by these terms, but in this framework, I think God is both personal and impersonal. There's a sense in which God is the most personal thing in existence. I mean, to the extent there are people in the universe, then God is personal. It's necessarily part of God's potential to be personal since there are people. God is the stuff out of which people are built, including yourself. So what could be more personal than that? And to the extent that consciousness is part of the universe, then at least part of God is conscious too. But in this context, God is also bigger than a person. He's a person and everything else too, including the laws of physics. Mechanical forces keeping everything in operation. Even rocks and planets are a tiny part of God. One of the difficulties I've had with thinking of God as a cosmic person is that he seems like he'd still be part of a larger system. He'd be bound by the laws of logic, for example. It just seems weird to me to think of a solely personal God that operates in a system which is still larger and more powerful than he is. So instead of God being a person acting in a system, it makes sense to talk about God as the system itself. Nothing is outside of it. Nothing is larger than it or more powerful than it. Nothing is higher than God if God is the structure for all of existence. That being said, we can also talk as if he has a kind of personality. We can meaningfully say, God wants you to have children. In reality, nature pushes organisms towards procreation. You could talk about nature having a purpose as new states and structures are continually coming into existence. The universe is constructed in such a way to generate living things that have the capacity to love. Wow, that is remarkable. It's staggering and absurd when you really think about it. Whether or not you attribute this fact to a defined person or not, you could talk about God as having a will or a plan. When something happens, it was God's will. In other words, everything that happens is a kind of unfolding of the entire universe towards a future state with all parts relating to one another. Any event is merely a step towards some future state or a part of God's plan. Now don't get me wrong. It might be possible that the entire universe is a person. Perhaps God is all of existence and if you put all of existence together, you get a person. That would be remarkable indeed and I don't want to rule it out. I just have a hard time making complete sense of it. So this article won't make a claim either way. Even if the universe is ultimately unified into a person, it doesn't change the various true things that we can say about it. This way of understanding God can also apply to lesser gods. Say we're talking about Greek or Roman gods. Suddenly, they make sense if they're understood as real abstract forces and patterns in the universe rather than supernatural people. The God of love, for example, the real force of love in the world can be spoken about as if she had a personality. The God of wine makes people do silly things. The God of war has his own destructive personality. There's even a way of talking about the interplay between the God of wine and the God of war as if the two gods speak to each other. As I'm sure there's a real connection in the universe between alcohol, violence, and war. We can suddenly make sense of the Greeks saying things like the gods might strike you with madness. Well, that's another way of saying the universe, the many many forces outside of your control might strike you with madness. These gods should be feared. They are powerful and immortal. Humans can't kill them. So with this context you can see how clever it is to build stories about the gods and their personalities, relationships among themselves, various marriages and children and partners, and about the relationship between the gods and human mortals. It makes sense to say that the gods don't care about the affairs of humans. A contemporary mind might say something like the laws of nature don't care about the affairs of humans. Now these lesser gods are different from the big god. Lesser gods are specific forces and patterns in reality. They themselves are different to the big god. The totality of reality itself. This also helps me make sense of the debate between monotheists and polytheists. Well, are there multiple gods or just one? I think there's a sense in which both monotheism and polytheism could be true. Polytheism makes sense when it's understood in the Greek god example. There are many powerful and immortal forces that control what happens on earth. Monotheism makes sense when talking about the biggest possible picture. We don't need to posit the existence of multiple existences. We can just say if something exists, it's part of the totality of existence, and therefore there's only one universe, one reality, or one god. Are these beliefs pantheism? What about panintheism? Honestly, I don't know. I haven't studied theology and I'm not really sure of the nuances between pantheism and panintheism. I don't really care how my ideas are labeled, but for what I could tell, they're kind of similar to both. Pantheism is the idea that everything is divine or of God. Panintheism is the idea that everything is within God, but not everything is divine, and God might be bigger than the universe. To me, since I don't have a theological dog in the fight, it seems more of a semantic distinction. There's an obvious sense in which I'm saying the universe is God, which sounds like pantheism, but it depends on what we mean by the universe. If we restrict the universe to four-dimensional spacetime, then I would be a panentheist because I believe existence is much, much bigger than four-dimensional space. The universe studied by physics might only be just a tiny part of God. If, however, we treat the universe as all of existence in every form, then, yeah, I would be a pantheist since there couldn't be anything outside of existence in the biggest picture. If all parts of existence are in God, then they are still of God, as something in existence is part of existence from what I can tell. Regardless, I'll let the theologians handle the taxonomy. The picture I've just painted requires no faith to appreciate. It comes with no religious dogma. It's just philosophy. It's by no means an exhaustive list of religious claims that make sense when you translate God to existence. Nearly every time I encounter claims about God, I can make sense of them in this context. Regardless of whether there's a divine person in addition to everything else, we can really say remarkable things about the universe. You are part of the entire universe and the universe is a part of you. You are made up of the universe. If nature were a painter, you would be a small part of its painting. And as my evangelical community was fond of saying, God can fill a hole in your heart. In other words, reality, the truth, can seriously fulfill you. If you don't have it, it's what you're missing. Life without truth is aimless and fuzzy. This is a true statement about human psychology. People really are restless when they don't have any grasp of reality. The universe provides everything for you. It is sustaining you at this very moment. It's been churning through various states for billions of years with unbelievably powerful forces working together, and it's finally reached the point of producing you at this very moment. It's responsible for all of your positive and negative qualities. To the extent that you learn, it's always teaching you a lesson. To the extent that you're conscious, the universe is conscious. To the extent that you love or are loved, then the universe loves. These truths seem profound to me. I believe this is the beginning of a rational theology.