Faith without Dogma

I believe the Unitarian Universalist faith may be stronger than many dogma-specific faiths. A dogma-specific faith is tied to a weighty theology whose images and ideas were born in other ages and other lands. A dogma-specific faith is tied to a network of abstractions and theories, dizzying in their complexity. What does it mean to believe in the Trinity? What does it mean to believe in karma? Do the complex explanations of theology bring us closer to God?

On the other hand, what does it mean to have faith, when no specific creed is applied? What shape does ether take when it is not confined to any vessel?

For me, faith means faith in God. But the reason I can take refuge in God is because in my mind God is a concept without shape or definition. God is akin to life-force or the infinite or the substrate of all the universe. God is the strong force, the force that binds atoms together instead of letting them spin off into space.

The Unitarian Universalist faith allows the individual to seek and find truth on individual terms, based on an individual experience of the divine. We are able to seek the mysteries of the spirit without trying to confine them to the limits of human mental concepts.

I suppose this is the same as any religion that has a mystical arm. All mystics admit the indecipherable nature of the divine. It's just that as Unitarians, we have less theology to let go of when we reach that place.

Comments

Robin Edgar said…
Um. . . Who says, "All mystics admit the indecipherable nature of the divine."??? I

Not Eye. . .
February 14, 2006
Louis Merlin said…
I guess if God is the weak force, her ideas of good and bad are probably different than our own, probably having something to do with perfectly balanced differential equations or fractal geometry...
February 15, 2006
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