Years later, he told me that when he pictured God in his mind’s eye as a child, he imagined “Santa Claus without the suit.” As he got older, the personification and behavioral decrees fell away. Slowly, God became a word for the way the universe works, something like Einstein’s God of Spinoza. By college he called this physics. He had no epiphany, no rebellion, no crisis of faith. His belief faded as he learned more. For him, the true ritual transition to manhood wasn’t giving the speech before the class but being allowed to decide what he really believed.
