“There, but for the grace of God”, said a racing driver on the radio tonight, talking about the tragic death of Jules Bianchi, adding, “It could have been any of us”. One of my least favourite sayings ever: but for the grace of god. It’s usually in the context of “there, but for the grace of God go I”, which when you think about it is quite a horrible thing to imagine.
Let’s break it down because it’s quite easy: God allowed someone else to die rather than me. He let me survive but allowed someone else to die. This suggests that God has some kind of influence over the world, which, if true, is quite scary. If God can decide which racing driver lives and dies, he can probably decide on quite a lot of other things too. Did he flip a coin or make a reasoned judgement? Maybe he preferred one team over another?
I realise that the racing driver’s comments were a throwaway line (I hope) and that what he really meant to say was, “it could have been any of us” and not the God rubbish that preceded it. Motor racing is a dangerous activity (I struggle to call it a sport) and when you are driving around at 200 MPH there is a fair chance if you have a prang you will not be in a position to exchange insurance details.
We are brought up to believe that we are under the power of an omnipresent and omniscient supernatural being, the great creator, but at the same time, if we engage our few remaining brain cells, we can quickly come to the conclusion that he is also omnipotent. He is there all the time, he knows everything, he made everything but he cannot do a single bloody thing to affect what is going on in our lives, but let’s be blunt: he can’t do a single bloody thing because he isn’t there.
I am not sure whether the God we are told created us and watches over us is worth getting close to anyway. Stephen Fry was asked what he would like to say to God if he ever met him and the great man replied: “Bone cancer in children: what’s that about?” To the best of my knowledge, God has not got round to replying on that one just yet. I wonder why.
I am not quite so concerned about a motor racing driver coming out with a comment about God as I am about the clerics themselves. I’ve met the odd vicar over the years – some of them very odd indeed – and they have all had far better educational qualifications than me, but when they worship a celestial dictator for whom there is absolutely no evidence he ever existed, beyond stuff which was written at a time when no one knew what was going on, I do struggle. It seems so utterly, blindingly obvious that there cannot possibly be a God that is staggers me that anyone believes there could be.
I do not have the certainty of the devout, so I will remain an agnostic in the sense that if anyone comes up with the slightest shred of evidence that God is anything more than a seriously unpleasant fictional character (read the Old Testament and tell he is the good guy), which places me firmly in the atheist camp.
“But for the grace of God?” How many awful tragedies have you come across in your life, how many unjust premature deaths, how many awful struggles against cancer? A God who is omnipotent isn’t worth having. And I don’t give a shit about Pascal’s wager. If I was confronted with God, I’d have a lot of questions for him before deciding whether I really wanted to go to his heaven. He might have some well dodgy people up there.
