Can God live without man?

I attended a lecture by a very acclaimed apologist, Ravi Zacharias in Brooklyn on the topic of pleasure. Some people are wondering what an apologist does and what apologetics is. The word is quite misleading but my lay definition for an apologist is someone who goes around making a convincing didactic presentation about what he/ she believes and by way of rational thought encourage others to a point of belief. Often the apologist doesn't talk and talk till one believes but rather sows the seeds in hopes of making one do some thinking that will hopefully lead to belief. Woooh! So yeah that is my long-winded definition of who an apologist is.

Funny how I have given you that long introduction and the blog is not even about apologetics. So after the lecture on pleasure I bought a book by Dr Zacharias titled “Can man live without God?” and had it signed by Dr. Zacharias. I started reading the book and would carry it with me on the train and wherever else I would get the opportunity to read. One Saturday evening at around 8:30 pm I was on my way home after a meeting in the city when I was stumped by a question a fellow passenger on the beloved number 6 train asked. I was just about a week into the book at this point and the question was unexpected.

I boarded the train on 51st and Lexington and was heading down to Brooklyn Bridge where I would catch my lovely, dainty J train (the J train deserves a blog on its own). I sat down and this Caucasian man in what I will guess to be in his mid forties sat next to me. We passed two stops without event but on the way to the next stop he glanced over at the book I had in my hand. I closed it and lay it resting on my right knee with my right hand over it. The way it laid displayed the title and he could clearly read it.

Studying it momentarily, he proceeded to read the title loudly as most people who want to start shit would do. "Can man live without God, my question is, can God live without man, that's what I’d like to know?" His tone was cynical and he looked at me expectantly. The question went through me and I didn't know what to say. I had no prepared answer for him and I didn't know whether he was going for a gotcha moment or really wanted to know what I thought. All I remember is that his expression coupled with the question left me wanton for words.

I gave him a nervous smile and found it hard to form any words. The only clever thing I could say was "hmm that is an interesting question". I started scrambling for something intelligent to say but I could find nada. Talk about a blond moment (just an expression no hate mail please). I kept nodding continuously staring into nothingness with a reflective look and he as if to drill the nail in further said, " That's something I have wanted to know since I was a child".

The air was tense and the next stop on the train seemed to be taking years to come. I knew an attempt to change the subject would have been weak and would have portrayed me as not knowing what I believe, an opinion I would normally not care about but in the moment I felt meant everything. I nodded silently and endlessly as I hoped the next stop would come quickly and with it a miracle that will change the subject. In answer to my silent prayer then next stop came and you can imagine my joy when the troublesome man got up to exit the train at that stop.

My initial temptation was to heave a big sigh and dismiss him as yet another lost one who needs salvation but I did not, I could not. I was troubled and thought about the question all the way to my stop and after. I am not sure even now whether my discomfort was as a result of a failure to find an answer for him or rather that I had never thought about the question before and hence hadn’t prepared an answer for it. My pride was beginning to get in the way of clear thinking.

Thinking about the question revealed a possible description of the question as one representative of the eternal chicken and egg story. Was this man perhaps trying to score points with an ancient seemingly unanswerable question of the chicken and egg and who came first? I knew that to treat the question seriously was to take the man seriously and discard every desire to let my pride dismiss the question as useless because as useless as it was it had struck a chord in my spirit.

I will share a few things and at the end throw the question to you to chew on. Can God live without man? I couldn’t help but realize that the very question made me uncomfortable so I had to figure out exactly which part of the question was causing my woes. The word “live” surfaced. I realized more and more that it somehow didn’t belong in the question. The word begs me to think of God as having to live like me with a need to breathe and such just like me. Now if the word had been “exist” then a whole different can of worms would have been opened. Then the issue under discussion would have been more about God being a figment of human imagination or a fantastic human creation whose being derives from or depends on human life.

The word “without” implies a need, one that makes the idea of an autonomous all sufficient deity improbable. If my logic follows correctly then the question if inverted, Can God only live with man, Will yield the same answer (logical people help me out) I suppose my problem is with the question bringing a supernatural deity to the levels of mere mortality. Maybe to some it is easier to believe that man needs to create an idea about an ultimate being for various reasons, an idea that can only live if man lives (The life span of the imagined deity is equal to the life span of the man who imagined it). However, to some others many experiences have made the existence of an ultimate deity all too real to the point that any insinuation of his non-existence will be down right offensive.

My breakthrough moment was in realizing that the question was actually a round about way of asking what I believe about an autonomous deity. So I want to know from you, if you were asked the question, “Can God live without man?” what will your answer be?