Hi dhouseholder.
And what would our answer be? What form of God does GLoT promote? (You are going to have to indulge me on my Texo-centricism, I know little of UGLE's customs.)
Well, there isn't an official exact answer in most jurisdictions. Neither yours nor mine, anyway, although (see below) there is in some others. It's deliberately left unwritten, thereby leaving us some flexibility to exercise our judgment case by case.
However, broadly speaking, I'm sure that what every regular GL really intends is that the petitioner must believe in some conception of God which is at least approximately equivalent to God as He is understood in the Judeo-Christian paradigm. This is because freemasonry began as Christian, and was then expanded to include other religions which could sufficiently agree with the original Christian membership on a few key points so that the rituals and symbolisms could still mean the same to all of us. I'm hesitant about offering a definition, since I'm unsure both of the masonic propriety of doing so and of my own theological competence to make the attempt, but it means something like this: a Being in the sense of having conscious personality with some plan or purpose for Man, not merely (say) a mechanistic synonym for existence; Supreme in the sense of being omnipotent and ultimately responsible for the universe around us and whatever lies beyond, not merely (say) a first among equals subject to the consent of other deities.
So, what if I pointed to my cat, said he was God, stated that my soul was immortal, and told you that my latest issue of Fancy Feline was the divine word of my cat God? Now you might not recommend me because I was being absurd, but could you not say that I had not fulfilled, to the letter, the requirements of the petition?
No, because the letter of the GLoTX petition requires that "you seriously declare" your belief. I would vote no to your petition on the ground that I could not believe that you were declaring seriously.
No offence to your cat, whom I've not met but I assume is a very nice cat, but no, your cat is not God and it's obviously absurd to claim that he is. Even if you want to claim to be an Osirian and a worshipper of Bast (the ancient Egyptian cat goddess), then I'd say Bast isn't a Supreme Being in that religion, and anyway your cat isn't That cat (in spite of the apparent opinion of most cats that they are).
What if I was a great theologian and held the same beliefs?
I would have to assume that you had suddenly ceased to be a great theologian and were having some sort of mental seizure. I'd call an amblance to take you to the funny-farm, and pray for your recovery.
I see it as if one were adventurous enough to delve into uncharted religion, then I would only assume that one would come to a full understanding of what is or is not their definition of God, or if one did exist.
I'm not so sure about that. People have attempted to do that all through history, and universally convincing answers have proved elusive. But to whatever extent appeared necessary to satisfy myself about a particular Candidate's eligibility, I'd try to follow his thinking so far as my ability allows, and hope that an answer one way or the other would become apparent before I lost track.
What if my definition of God and yours and his were all different? Would that just be a field judgment on your part as the investigator?
Yes, exactly. And of course, in the vast majority of cases, the answer is easily evident.
If I were faced with a sticky marginal case where I didn't feel able to come to any conclusion, then I'd call the GL and ask them to come and talk to the petitioner and help us decide. I've never been faced with such a case myself, but I've heard of cases where a Lodge had to refer to the GL for advice.
I think it is bad form to ask The Cat Priest from above example the workings of his paradigm.
I'd rather not have to do it either, but with the spread of wacky cults these days I think we'll have to get more used to doing it.
Interesting. Have you received any Wiccans? How have they answered? Have you received any other uncommon answers? I am quite interested.
I've not personally seen any Wiccan petitioners, although I've discussed the issues on the 'net with several Wiccans. Wiccans aren't as common here as in the US, and when Wiccans over here do get interested in joining something like masonry, then they have a strong tendency to apply to the co-masonic (mixed-sex) bodies rather than to regular masonry. (Incidentally, the historical reason for this tendency is that several of the founders of modern Wicca were already co-masons before they got involved in Wicca, and that in turn is probably why there's some overlap between some details of freemasonry and some details of Wiccan practice - they borrowed some terminology and structures from the rituals they already knew.)
However, as an example where I felt no choice but to ask further questions, I once interviewed a petitioner who described himself as a Spinozist and who stated up front that he was unsure whether or not his beliefs qualified him and he needed clarification. Now that's a tough one! Whether Spinoza (a 17th-century Dutch philosopher, originally Jewish but expelled from Judaism for heresy) believed in God in any meaningful way was a controversial question in his own lifetime and has been so ever since; he certainly claimed that he did, and wrote books explaining his theological position, but his definition of God was pretty abstract and amounted to little more than a summation of all that existed in nature ... but he had a slightly mystical perception of nature, not purely materialist, so there was some degree of meaning to his use of the word "God", although exactly how much meaning is the difficult question. I'd lean towards the view that Spinoza himself wouldn't be eligible for freemasonry, on the cautious ground that his conception of the Supreme Being was too insubstantial to count. Faced with this "Spinozist" petitioner, I asked a little more about what he believed, and was able to come to the conclusion that he wasn't a hard-line Spinozist, he appeared to have a somewhat more identifiable and concrete belief in the divine than Spinoza himself ... so after some thought, I signed his petition. But it was marginal, I think he only just barely qualified. (Incidentally, it's worked out quite well and that Candidate is now JW.)
I wonder if any regular GLs DO specify a Supreme Being.
Yes. This applies wherever the Scandinavian Rite is used, which is all of Sweden, Norway and Iceland, plus parts of Germany, Denmark and Finland. The Scandinavian Rite uses explicitly Christian rituals. Therefore the entire GLs in Sweden, Norway and Iceland, plus the relevant Lodges in Germany, Denmark and Finland, are restricted to Christians only. And these are all regular (and recognised) GLs.
The Scandinavian rituals are very different from the rituals used anywhere else, and are also very different from what we did elsewhere even back in the 18th century when freemasonry everywhere was explicitly Christian, it's a unique system of their own invention. When the rest of the world opened freemasonry to men of other faiths, the Scandinavians refused to follow suit and stayed Christian-only. They do, however, accept non-Christian visitors who are members of other regular GLs.
Being Christian-only didn't used to be a problem in Sweden, Norway and Iceland, because virtually the entire population was Christian until pretty recently, but it's becoming more of an issue now. There could have been a serious issue in Germany and Denmark, but in those countries it only applies to some of the Lodges so non-Christians can join in the other Lodges.
I hope my tone above does not sound offensive or derisive. I habitually argue reductio ad absurdum, and I tend to come off as passionate.
Me too, in respect of both
reductio ad absurdum and sounding passionate, so no offence taken :biggrin:.
T & F,
Huw
