God as Consciousness

Regardless of the endless, unanswerable questions about the purported existence or demise of God, and the truth of the answer to this seemingly fundamental question, there still remains the real riddle: What/Who is this thing/being called "God"? Why does this concept have all but universal acceptance in human cultures? How can the philosophical or abstract 'God of Nature' also be a 'Personal God'? How is one to distinguish one from the other?How could the concept of God be entertained seriously by some of the greatest minds of humanity? How can their pious conclusions be so varied, yet, at least in the case of J. S. Bach, be accepted almost universally as an expression of—*something*? If not God, what?

An answer that appeared to me to resolve these sorts of questions is that God, in the most general sense, is another name for consciousness (or, more precisely, *self*-consciousness). Whether this might be construed as *consciousness itself* ( the world and the mind apprehending it) or simply, a name for the *portal of consciousness*  (the Enabling Force that permits self-awareness) is difficult to determine, even now.

This confusion, which might be expected with such intangible abstractions, has given rise to the two main schools of thought about the nature of God. Those who hold that 'God' is the *content* on consciousness , are saying, practically by definition, that God 'is Nature'. Those who see consciousness as a numinous mystery with portentous consequences, are again saying,  practically by definition, that God is a 'Personal God'.

Although these two ways of looking at the nature of God seem to diametrically opposed, they would seem to be merely two different aspects of resolving *what* is being identified when one tries to objectify consciousness or self-awareness by naming it.

Why would one want or need to give consciousness or self-awareness another,  even more abstruse, name (or Name)?

Considering the evident antiquity of the concept of God, or Gods, the answer to this must be found in the twilight before the dawn of history.

Whether of not the naming of consciousness by early humans was a 'conscious decision' or not is highly debatable, but considering the consequences of the rise of self-consciousness, I believe there can be no doubt that early humans understood its significance. Indeed, early humans would have understood the phase-change happening in their midst far better than anyone since.

To be suddenly aware---literally---that there were profound, yet indescribable, differences between yourself and many of your fellows is difficult to describe, even now. Whether this took many generations or only a few, the 'dawning of awareness' must have been experienced by those in whom consciousness was emergent as 'suddenly,' even as we are often repeatedly aware as we regain consciousness that, just a moment ago, we were 'asleep' by comparison. It is equally certain that the change from 'being asleep' to being 'awake' must have happened at different rates among different, particularly isolated, groups, as mutation rates would have varied quasi-randomly. The condition of being self-conscious must have profoundly forever sundered the first self-conscious humans from their less-self-conscious precursors. (This can easily be appreciated by those who have contemplated the differences between modern humans and Neanderthals, even though there seems to be ample evidence of interbreeding.)

The emergence of human self-consciousness must have been accompanied by a preoccupation with the nature of self-awareness. There can be little doubt that this must have been of great pragmatic interest among First Aware Peoples, because it touched upon every aspect of their intra- and inter-tribal encounters.

This event, and I think it was an event, which, like the harnessing of fire, must have happened time and again in different places and times, but at one point in history 'took fire,' caught on, and from there on was indispensable for all prehuman tribes to survive.

This also must have created great anxiety of a sort previously unknown, as previously unthought-of existential questions suddenly became a central fact of life. This great angst must have created a collective need to identify and control consciousness itself, as the hall of mirrors of self-awareness  would have been at least as terrifying as any external danger. Indeed, it may well be this that is alluded to in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, who were cast out of their comfort zone, Eden, as a consequence of partaking of the Apple of [Self]-Knowledge.

So, the concept, and the name(s) of 'God,' or a panoply of Gods, might first have been a way of identifying ones consciousness, a sort of password to enter the new club of humanity, while keeping out the dross of pre-conscious (less fit and thus less attractive) hominids. At a time when genetics itself did not preclude cross-breeding between pre-conscious and self-conscious hominids, the God-concept would have become the means by which the sapient could exclude their pre-conscious potential breeding partners from entering, and swimming in, the newly forming human gene pool.

It is easy to imagine that this landscape of changing degrees of   consciousness caused a period of great strife and bloodshed, wherein the new humans sought to differentiate themselves from their recent forebears, killing those who would or could not embrace the new modality of awareness. As these varied groups of hominids occupied more or less the same ecological niche, identical in every way except for having different recursive levels of awareness, the fight for supremacy must have been deadly. This is easy to believe, in that similar struggles over doctrinal issues have been singularly brutal throughout human history.

Thus, humans entered the historical period having long before murdered all closely related hominids, a burden that could well have been the origin of the persistent concept of Original Sin.

Self-consciousness might have caused newly conscious societies to exercise control over what must have been perceived as a potentially anarchic influence. Although self-consciousness is a sine qua non of being human, it is also fertile ground for cultivating alternative thoughts about how to live life, who should have what, and so forth. By asserting a hold over access to the Gods, a priestly class would have been seen as beneficial for retarding the anxiety-producing side-effects of being *too* self-conscious. Ultimate submission to the authority of religion, then as now, would have diminished the angst of standing, naked, before an unfeeling Universe, stripped of the comforts of a pre-conscious Eden.

These apparent contradictions have remained with us throughout history. Understanding 'God' as consciousness (or Gods as aspects of reality and personality) makes some sense of what otherwise seems to be utterly devoid of objective meaning. Religion, theology, theogony (genealogy of the Gods), and personal revelation can all be seen more clearly as an expression of and a means to cope with humanity's uneasy relationship with itself and its self-awareness.

Whether 'God,' as understood until now, has had survival value, in the relatively short term of human history, is debatable. But whether 'God', as now generally understood, will have survival value in the longer term seems very dubious at this point.

The God-concept has been used to exclude not only the nearly human from humanity but has consigned Nature Herself to a subordinate role in human affairs. But now, Nature, increasingly spurned by a secular world,  has been rising to reassert Her primacy in the affairs of humans and all other living beings. Even as Nature's workings have become more visible in light of the infant sciences, so has the wreckage on Nature's biosphere become more obvious, besmirched by many heavy, human footprints.

So, humanity must again undergo a revolution of consciousness, this time inverting the God-concept. Even as God or self-awareness, has heretofore been exclusive, now it must become all-inclusive. Our Jealous God, must, at long last, become a Loving God, who shall again embrace Nature's fecundity, and together, give birth and nurture to a renewed Eden.