What Is God?

These videos are of the second lecture in the series held on 22nd November 2015

Main lecture

Q & A Session

What sort of a thing is God?

God is often described as a myth, an archetype or a fantasy. Sometimes She is intimately involved in our lives, other times He is distant and disinterested. Is God more than simply ‘false consciousness’, the ‘opiate of the masses’ or the ‘universal neurosis’? Does God interact with the physical world, or is He strictly limited to the world of imagination and dreams? Many religious people are afraid to think about God, worried that the answers won’t be satisfying, afraid of what demands might emerge.

God is not always supposed to make us comfortable, He is sometimes supposed to stretch and challenge us, to rouse us out of complacency, to wake us from our slumbering numbness. We need to think about God. There are also questions about how God relates to the life of the spirit, to our sense of being alive, to emotional health and resilience. Is God related to courage and integrity, to redemption and to hope? This lecture will propose some radical ideas about God, showing that serious theology can be engaging, meaningful, and particularly relevant to modern life.