God is a Symbol of Something True Jack Call

The central claim of this book is that everything is fundamentally all right, in spite or because of the fact that there are important things that one cares about deeply, over which one has no control. This is a way of understanding religion that rejects the false dilemma of choosing either literalistic theism or scientism. It involves thinking through, non-dogmatically, the following controversial claims: The Biblical account of God’s personality is a symbol of the personal significance, for each of us, of the ways in which we are helpless and yet safe. We should hope that life is just as fresh and astonishing at the end as at the beginning. We should not hope to be resurrected on Judgment Day. The meaningfulness of life depends on the fact that we are in control of some important things but not in control of others. We are in control of whether or not we act morally; we are not in control of our own salvation. Salvation is the realization that everything really is fundamentally all right.