A Neurosurgeon’s Journey

In 2008, neurosurgeon Dr. Eben Alexander contracted a rare form of bacterial meningitis that shut down parts of his brain, put him in a coma and nearly killed him. During this time, he says, he saw heaven. He wrote a book about his experience. Interesting this is that his vision of God as not as male or female but God was pretty much formless, but with a very amazing and peaceful

 

presence.

Alexander was a skeptical Christian before this and is a church goer now, but has an interesting critique of religion. He says that when we believe we have a superior understanding of God than anyone else, we are missing the point. God is all love and all goodness and none of us really has a grasp of the power and magnitude of God. Hearing him says this reminded me of Thomas Aquinas who stopped writing, lecturing, and preaching after an experience of God calling all his previous work, straw.

It has been interesting that Alexander has become a disturbing presence to many people. Many in the science community have, in their own wisdom, been able to disprove the existence of God. This ‘God talk,’ to them, is disturbing. If they have empirically disproven something then who does he think he is by suggesting they might be wrong?

He is not met with much better acceptance by the religious community as well. After all, theological types make their living and write and read books as to why they are right and others are wrong. This idea what my particular set of beliefs may not correspond with a real idea of God is just wrong. Or so they say.

We have a problem with God, or perhaps better said, we have a problem with our conceptualizations of God. We often like to limit God to our own understanding. We often do this with the Bible. We limit the Bible to our understanding of it. We like to fit God into the view of God we have.

Interestingly enough this is also the case with many people who are not people of faith. They cannot comprehend of the notion of a God, and so they nix the entire idea. People who broach the subject of faith are sometimes met with ridicule. Sometimes. Having said this, I have found many non-believers are more civil with believers than believers are with non-believers. But that is a whole different story.

Is Alexander correct? I don’t know. I’m not even going to venture a guess. It does remind me, however, that any approaches to talking about God need to be taken with a great sense of humility.