The Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner was once asked in a radio interview why some people didn’t experience God. His response: ‘I don’t believe you; I just don’t accept that. You have had, perhaps, no experience of God under this precise code-word God, but you have had or have now an experience of God—and I am convinced that this is true of every person.’
Many scholars, especially those in the hard sciences and social sciences, are declared atheists. Yet these same people can be the most tireless questioners, bringing a sense of wonder to the physical and human worlds. And there is a universal truth here: no scholar has ever said, “ah, that’s it. We’ve answered all the questions. We’ve figured it all out. Let’s go home.” Underneath the attitude of the scholar is fundamentally the posture of wonder, the experience of desire.
That’s one thing I mean when I use the word “God.”