Depersonalizing the Supernatural

I just finished watching the old Star Wars series this week with Heidi.  One of the most important elements of the movie is the pervasive "Force" ...which is something like a supernatural energy that permeates the universe.  The force doesn't have its own thoughts or emotions, its just... well... a force.  It's an impersonal power and energy that can be mastered or controlled by those with either good or bad intentions.

It got me thinking.  Every religion and most worldviews maintain some belief in the reality of the supernatural.  There is something beyond chemicals and matter.  There is something beyond atoms and electrons.  There is something beyond our world or something that perhaps permeates into our world.  But what sort of supernatural things are there?  The answer to this question is where the similarities usually end.  Is the supernatural a karmic energy that balances out the injustices of the world?  Is true reality just a hidden supernatural force underneath everything that we have forgotten about?  Is the supernatural a bunch of human-like gods with their own righteous (or sometimes cruel) agendas?

Most people have not given up on the supernatural.  Many seem determined to say there is something out there.  But most seem equally determined to depersonalize the supernatural.  What do I mean by that?  Most explicitly is of course how so many in the last 50 years have been particularly drawn to eastern worldviews and religions whose beliefs center on declaring that the true supernatural reality of the universe is something impersonal.  The supernatural is a force, an energy.  It is not something that has feelings or beliefs.  It is not something that has a will or emotions or self-awareness.  It is an "it," not a "he" or "she."  Even though monistic Hinduism, atheistic Buddhism, even New Age metaphysics all have personal gods way back in their historical roots, the greater emphasis today is the mystical and esoteric truths which focus in on the core belief of an impersonal ultimate supernatural reality.  It's not just that people have been specifically drawn into these beliefs (although many have), but how as a whole our tolerant western culture seems to find eastern visions of impersonal supernatural forces as much more agreeable/open-minded, than say a personal Christian God.  The culture is slowly and methodically leaning toward a more depersonalized vision of the supernatural.

But there are also less obvious ways the supernatural is being steadily depersonalized across the world and even within theistic religions.  We can think about this better if we think about marriage for example.  My marriage is a very personal relationship.  I know my wife.  She knows me.  Taking care of my wife is not like taking care of my car.  If I plan perfectly all my various marital duties and do them exactly on schedule, that does not mean I have a healthy marriage.  That's because my wife is not a machine, she is a person.  I have to deeply understand her, and come along side her, and truly feel things toward her and our marriage that she can sense.  Marriage is something significantly more than duty.  My car doesn't care about what I feel or my motivations; it just cares (in a manner of speaking) about whether I'm doing my due diligence in a timely way.  And so the question is: Is interacting with the supernatural more like how I should interact with my car... or more like how I should interact with my wife?  Even for those religions who believe in a personal God, the unfortunate answer to this question is that people often believe the interaction is more like my car.  

From pagans to Pharisees to everything in between, religious people seem to actually prefer a depersonalized interaction with supernatural reality.  It is about religious duties and practices that really form the center of people's interaction with the supernatural, even if the supernatural is personal.  There are lots of reasons perhaps, but the one that immediately presents itself is that a personal interaction is significantly more difficult to manage, predict and control than interacting with a depersonalized set of duties and requirements.  (Need we mention marriage again!)  If I can reduce my interaction with the supernatural to simply a set of manageable rituals and behaviors that will bend the world (or the afterlife) in my favor, it will be substantially easier for me to control the outcome.  Or so it seems for many.  As you might sense, this propensity to depersonalize our interaction with the Supernatural brings under the umbrella a lot of theistic religion and practice.

There are other reasons we depersonalize the supernatural as well.  It provides a pretty simple account for the existence of suffering and evil in the world.  Forces are not moral agents, only a person can be a moral agent.  So safely putting the supernatural into the impersonal category disallows it from being morally accountable for the existence of moral or existential evil.  Additionally, people prefer depersonalizing the supernatural so that the notion one's own ultimate moral accountability loses its edge.  After all, you can't really offend a force.  You can only offend a person.  Forces are quite a bit safer to manage along those lines as well. 

There are of course objective reasons that would say this trend is not leading us toward an accurate picture of the Supernatural.  But as I hinted at, it's not really a set of objective reasons that are drawing us as a culture away from it anyway.  A husband who treats his wife like a impersonal robot needs more than a lesson or two on the value of healthy love and intimacy.  His heart needs to taste and be captivated by the beauty of true leadership and intimacy.  He needs to see it lived out in front of him in an attractive, healthy, winsome, and joyful way.  So it is with us who love our personal interaction with the ultimate supernatural Reality of the universe!  Our lives need to be a unique display for a world that is growing more favorable toward a robotic or even 'a force' vision of the supernatural.  We all love Star Wars; but I can't imagine anything better than living as a second-tier servant and son under the personal God (as I know him), than even living as a first-tier Jedi that has made the supernatural serve me!

What about you?