I'm sick of God being thought of as a being. Even people who no longer think that God is a big person in the sky still use personal, anthropocentric language of God. "God does this, God is that, God listens to prayer," and on, and on. And it strikes me that while the mystics generally claim that God is a word that points to the --- that cannot be spoken about or named, this --- is so difficult to talk about that 'God' quite quickly re-enters the stage, and, at least in the popular realm, God is again brought back into the 'big person' model.
Most recent theology has headed towards panentheism - all is in God. But this isn't always explained, so I'm going to have a go, starting from human experience.
We often assume that God has a consciousness, just as we do. But why? This is (human)consciousness-centric, and human-style consciousness is surely just a recent thing on the evolutionary stage, something that can be seen in homo sapians and not much else. If God is to be seen to be something existing prior to humans, then surely God should not be primarily modelled off of human experience so directly (can we really escape this completely?).
How does a rabbit think? Or a dog? Certainly animals don't think as humans do (although some may assume they do). They have a different consciousness, a consciousness that isn't (as) self-aware. If a dog were to have a God, then the dog's God certainly wouldn't be assumed to have a human-style consciousness. But if humans have free will, then it also seems that the animals would. Indeed, fruit flies do.
What about a plant? It experiences life, and is somewhat aware of its surroundings. It 'knows' when light is shining on it. It is somehow aware of where water is, and where to send its roots. It probably even experiences the pain of the loss of its parts as something eats it or cuts it down.
And so to the pebble. Now you're probably thinking that it's ridiculous to suggest that a pebble experiences its surroundings. But it most certainly does. It experiences the pull of the earth that we have named gravity. It is aware of the rocks below it that holds it in place.
But lets go more basic, to the electron. Is an electron conscious? Yes. In a way. It is conscious that there is a proton nearby, and that it holds an attraction for this proton, and so feels temporarily attracted to it. It feels the other electrons in orbit around the common nucleus. It experiences the close encounter with another atom that approaches, and develops a relationship with it so it shares its time between nuclei. (And as it jumps in and out of existence, maybe even the electron makes decisions and exercises a limited amount of free will?) So even very small things have a certain kind of consciousness, although that word is probably inappropriate for it. But we lack words to describe an electron's experience.
Now lets get big. The earth has been seen more and more in recent times as a single organism. It has long been worshipped as a goddess, mother earth, and it has recently been called Gaia. The earth can be seen to be a single, complex organism, with an incredible variety and quantity of internal and external relationships. And the earth, Gaia, is often seen to be conscious. She is reacting against the industrial pollution of her atmosphere, getting angry and sending storms. But in that last sentence, I personified the earth, making it a her, and using her as the subject of my sentence, the one doing the acting. As a subject, I granted her agency, and to have agency indicates freedom.
And now the universe. By universe, I'm talking about the biggest 'all' that is. As far as I know, that means I'm talking about something that is about 13 billion years old, and probably almost as many light years across. Brian Swimme in The Universe is a Green Dragon pictures the universe as, well, a green dragon. And here (0:11:25), he talks about the universe as having a purpose, in some ways, consciously choosing to head towards greater richness.
But I don't want to talk about the universe's consciousness. That sounds too anthropocentric to me. So I'm going to compile 4 words into one, in order to try to talk about this. Freedom, consciousness, awareness, and experience. Fre-consc-ware-ience. This is my proposed word that allows us to talk about God in a panentheistic schema, so that God can still be talked about, and yet is not done so in an overly anthropocentric/consciousness-centric way. God is the freconscwareience of the universe.
Something to take from this is that God decides the overall purpose of existence. And God, the freconscwareience of the universe, seems to generally choose to go down paths of greater complexity and greater diversity. I've not worked out much more, but complexity and diversity seem to be favoured. Not always. But often. And so, if I am to work alongside God (and not against the universe's freconscwareience), I should also work towards greater complexity and diversity. In this, I find a great deal of guidance.
This plays out in many ways. I encourage religious diversity, and work on the side of causes that try to protect the diversity of species on earth (opposing extinction). I work to protect freedom of expression, and immerse myself in diverse arts. I appreciate different languages, different cultures, and different customs, and hope that they do not become assimilated into my own, losing their uniqueness and identity. I try to have deep, complex relationships with my friends (although they are sometimes exhausting and so I also seek simplicity). I reject simple schemas, quick-fix promises, and paths that overly limit options. I reject stereotypes, and always try to work out how someone could hold the beliefs that they do, only dismissing someone after a great deal of exploration into their world (if ever). I am suspicious of simple answers, and dislike one-size-fits-all solutions. Cookie-cut houses, offices and shops are not my thing. Findings in science are exciting, and quantum physics often helps to show the complexity of life. But science has also gone beyond a suitable level of complexity: we should stop experiments that could create a black hole (we'd all die), we should stop experiments into robotic-free-will (read most sci-fi to see the tyranny of robot-rule (Asimov, Dune, Battlestar Galatica, etc.)), we should slow down research on genetics, and we should greatly reduce neuroscience research, as the possibilities of mind-reading (removal of privacy) and mind-manipulation (removal of free-will) are too scary. But we shouldn't stop all scientific research (I don't think), as complexity is good. It's just that sometimes we're not ready for it. I encourage people to read more, and to write more - create stories, create theories, invent words. Grappling with ideas and thinking about philosophical and psychological issues tends towards complexity. I encourage people to learn about soil, the most complex and diverse substance on planet earth, and as a bonus it will make you happy.
But in all this, I am merely trying to work in the same direction as God, the universe's freconscwareience.
