Deism: A Personal View

I started this Deism UK blog having come to the realisation that I am a Deist. Previously I had been a vague sort of none church going Christian, had dabbled a bit with Buddhism and, had I been challenged, would probably have described myself as an agnostic.

Atheism also had its appeal, but I always had an inchoate feeling of there being more to the universe than is dreamt of in any Man’s philosophy (to mangle the bard). My dad, a superb classical musician, insisted there are patterns to things, an organising principle.

Then I discovered a number of American Deist websites and I began to investigate. For the first time I had found a spiritual philosophy that made sense, to me at least. I no longer had to square some supernatural super-being called God with a rational outlook that naturally shied from such a concept.

When, as a Deist, I say that God is ineffable I actually mean it and it’s not an attempt to sidestep the issue. If humanity was truly able to understand God then we would have to be on a par with the divine.

This is a corollary with the atheist position of denying God: it’s insisting that something the human mind cannot conceive of cannot then exist. It really is arrogant in placing the human mind as the epitome of intelligence beyond which there is, and can be, nothing greater.

I might not be able to conceive what God is, but it is the flexible brilliance of the human mind that allows me intimations of divine being. That there is a universe and it is intelligible, not with standing creatures with consciousness enough to appreciate and investigate it, is at the very least suggestive of a greater Prime Cause of all subsequent effects.

Do I offer this as conclusive proof? Of course not! Deism makes no grandiose claims and certainly does not believe itself to be some sort of conduit for divine revelation. The onus is on each individual Deist to work out his or her “theology” (should that be “Deology”?) based on the only reliable scripture there is, the book of Nature.

Deism makes no promises of places in heaven, or threats of damnation to hell. Indeed, it has always seemed odd to me that a supposed omnipotent God requires bribery to secure adherents: “Praise me and I’ll let you through the pearly gates.”

I do not even know whether God is actually aware of my individual existence, but that does not prevent me meditating on what “God” means and my place in creation. I am also thankful to God for my span, however significant or insignificant, in the divine universe.

Deism is a concoction of the human mind, a way of viewing, incorporating a religious sensibility with a rational, scientific outlook. Undoubtedly, at some point in the future, Deism will be superseded by a better way of coming to terms with the wonder of existence. By then, it will have served its purpose of furthering human response to, and understanding of, being in creation.

A Short History of Deism

“Deism” is the Latin form of the Greek “Theism”, with both meaning a belief in one God, contrasting with polytheism (many Gods) and Atheism (no God). However, language is ever changing.

During the latter part of the 17th and into the 18th centuries, science and rationalism began to systematically emerge, challenging prevailing religious notions. This new thinking began to permeate religious ideas, resulting in a radical Christianity.

This new theology (or should that be deology?) subjected the scriptures and creeds to forensic examination, applying scientific rigor to what had traditionally been accepted on faith.

Such critical Christianity rejected concepts such as revelations, miracles and the infallibility of the bible. Requiring a convenient name to differentiate it from conventional Theism, this developing religious view adopted Deism.

Deism quickly became influential amongst leading philosophers, politicians and scientists of the day, spreading through Britain, France, Germany and America. It embraced advances in physics, chemistry and astronomy, and leading figures such as Bacon, Copernicus and Galileo.

It was a logical progression to apply the techniques for the rational study of nature to religion. Indeed, nature became the starting point, the “gospel” Deists drew upon as inspiration for their promotion of God.

God was no longer an anthropomorphic figure rewarding the faithful few and damning the rest to the torments of Hell. Indeed the concept of God became rather less definite, a First Cause in the chain of cause and effect creating, and constantly recreating, the universe.

These early Deists contended the Bible did hold important truths while maintaining it was not divinely inspired and, therefore, beyond error. Bible study became a branch of history.

An early Deist, Lord Herbert of Cherbury in his book “De Veritate” (1624) suggested “Five Articles” for Deism to observe:
i. Belief in the existence of a single supreme God.
ii. Humanity’s duty to revere God.
iii. Link worship with mortality.
iv. God will forgive if sins are repented and abandoned.
v. Good works and evil will receive their due reward or punishment in this life and after.

The influence of 1500 years of Christianity is still clear in Herbert’s “Articles” and over time, as Deist thinking advanced, they were superseded. In fact, the notion that Deism required “Articles” or a creed was eventually dismissed and such terms would come to be used only figuratively, not literally.

Deist thinking was advanced by such as Anthony Collins (1676-1729), Matthew Tindal (1657-1733), FMA de Voltaire (1694-1778) and JJ Rousseau (1712-1778).

Many of the founding fathers of the USA were Deists, including Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. English born Thomas Paine, author of the hugely influential Deist book “The Age of Reason”, was involved in the revolutions of the US and France.

Deists advocated the important principle of separating the church and state, along with religious freedom, which was incorporated in the First Amendment of the Constitution of the USA.

Today, Deism largely does not associate itself with any of the Abrahamic religions and is often very critical of them, while recognising a basic idea in common, advocacy of God.

Really, Deism is no longer a religious movement in any conventional sense. There are no Deist places of worship, no priests, no holy books or scriptures and no hierarchy wielding authority.

Many Deists regard Deism as transcending religion, a philosophy recognising that while there are intimations of the divine, ultimately God is ineffable.

Consciousness of Miracles or the Miracle of Consciousness

Religions make claims as to the intervention of God in the world, when the natural order is contravened: the raising of Lazarus, for example. Such are cited as evidence of divine beneficence.

However, like claims for revelation by God, miracles are, at best, second hand accounts. Sometimes someone will claim to have benefited through miraculous intervention, such as the sole survivor of a crash.

This does not account for the others who died, nor why God would choose to spare this particular person after subjecting them to the terror of the event. Religious sects often persuade the gullible to rely on faith, invoking miracle cures rather than seeking medical intervention, often with disastrous results.

Deism makes no such claims, recognising that God is beyond human comprehension and may or may not be aware of individual existences. Evidence for God is necessarily circumstantial, the basic order in nature, which functions according to identifiable laws.

It is claimed, especially by Chaos Theorists, such order is only apparent, while at the sub-atomic level order breaks down and randomness is the rule. There is though an emerging strain of scientific thinking suggesting such randomness is illusory, as there are patterns even at this level. It is only because they are so complex they presently lie beyond human understanding.

Nature is also the source of miracles for those who crave them. The theory of evolution gives a perfectly good account of how life has become variously manifested. What it does not do is explain how inorganic matter became living organic matter, or why.

Not only did organic matter emerge, it eventually achieved consciousness so that, in its highest expression Man, matter became conscious of its own existence. By extension, the universe becomes evermore aware of itself as humans probe its secrets.

This is not to suggest some bearded celestial figure in a long white gown reached down and, in an act of divine prestidigitation, conjured life from non-life, just like that! An anthropomorphic God is not being proposed here.

In the universe there is no effect without a preceding cause: that there was a big bang (or whatever) as a first effect requires a primary cause, behind or beyond or outside the universe, responsible for the apparent designs immanent within creation.

Such is God, a simple word for a concept so profound it is really ineffable. What is certain is that consciousness is a natural aspect of the universe, perhaps a product of increasingly complex structures. Maybe animists had apriori intuition of all matter being imbued with spirit (consciousness) which becomes manifest in higher organisms.

Deists concur with materialist scientists (indeed, Deism is a materialist religion as it draws on nature as its source of “divine revelation”) that consciousness is an emerging property, a latent process inherent in the big bang.

Having accepted consciousness as an emergent property some Deists believe it cannot continue when the material host, the brain, ceases to function. In other words, there is no consciousness beyond death.

Consciousness remains a sacred gift and those who have been conscious have been truly blessed. There are, though, Deists who argue that a God who could arrange a universe might also have some purpose in maintaining emergent consciousnesses in some manner beyond the scope of our present understanding.

It is the case that we do not know and there is likely to be a great deal that we know little or nothing about. It is an arrogance to assert we comprehend enough about the universe to make absolute, categorical statements that are beyond contradiction.

So, let consciousness be celebrated and employed to discover as much as possible about universe, drawing on it as an inspiration for further understanding of the divine source of creation. That understanding may always be deficient, but at the very least a Deist can say/pray for the one certain miracle:

Thank you, Deus, for being.

Observations of a Deist

It is easy to be an atheist these days. Celebrity scientists team up with popular comedians on TV programmes ranging from presentations of cosmology and nature to panel shows. The intelligently designed message, implicit or explicit, is that God is for intellectual losers.

There are even programmes dealing with religious matters in which the presenter is quick to deny any personal belief, treating the subject as anthropology. A recent Radio 4 broadcast about Jainism began with the presenter declaring she, of course, didn’t hold any religious beliefs.

Conversely, members of revealed religions continue to be socially significant. While many church congregations continue to be small if not declining it seems cathedrals services are attracting increasing numbers. And there is no denying the impact of Islam on Britain.

“Thought for Today”, Radio 4 again, features speakers from all three Abrahamic faiths with a bias towards Christianity. There are occasional contributions from Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists, reflecting the variety of religious traditions in Britain today. No invitation for a Deist contribution as yet.

So, atheism or belief? Perhaps a hedging of bets by embracing agnosticism is the really smart move. This appears to be the position of many people who forswear any religious affiliation and yet are not fully prepared to commit to a complete rejection of God.

The religious impulse is common throughout humanity; even non-believers recognise its force, otherwise why are humanist and secular societies so insistent denial?

What cannot be denied are the insights and advances of science. Revealed religions are often found wanting when some scientific breakthrough contradicts a traditional viewpoint based, so it’s claimed, on a divine diktat.

However, what science is revealing expands religious understanding. For a Deist, unencumbered by either scepticism or faith, a fundamental principle has been established: nothing occurs without prior cause.

That there is a universe signifies a universal creator. Some Deists invoke intelligent design, but this has the debilitating drawback of association with creationism. Perhaps intelligent creation might be a better concept. Creation is continuous and intelligence is an aspect of that creation, an obvious manifestation of it in humanity.

The universe is self aware: although it can appear that humans are in some way observers of creation we are as much a part of it as the earth on which we stand and the stars we look out upon. Therefore, if we turn an eye towards the universe it means the universe is looking at itself.

The objection usually raised against a First Cause is, doesn’t logic demand that also had a cause? This question presumes the creation can comprehend its creator. Laws established for the functioning of the universe have no logical necessity to apply beyond, or before, the universe.

The universe is a miraculous conception and for all the advances of science, how much is not yet understood, how much will remain outside our understanding? Every new discovery opens up whole new vistas for inquiry not previously dreamed of.

Deists refer to the First Cause as God or Deus, but do not presume to claim any profound understanding of what that means. God is an inference as, analogously, dark matter and energy, though unobservable, were inferred through their effects on what could be measured.

Therefore, it is possible to combine humanity’s basic religious impulse with an appreciation of scientific insight without sacrificing intelligent credibility. Look at nature, creation, and witness the divine expressed in material reality.

Perhaps we should not be so arrogant as to think we virtually know it all, or at least enough to dismiss a spiritual appreciation of creation. Clever jokes and sneering contempt cannot deny the Deist view there is something greater than we, for all our learning, can comprehend.

Deist Declaration of Independence

By his own admission, David Pyle was imbued with “Deistic Revolutionary Passion” when he wrote “The Declaration of Deist Interdependence” on 4th July, 2003. It was, after all less than two years after the group of revealed religionists perpetrated what’s come to be infamously known as 9/11.

However, his opening gambit remains pertinent. “…in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for an individual to dissolve the religious bonds which have strangled their understanding of God…”

Too often faith, or appeals to faith, determines the actions and beliefs of those adhering to a revealed religion. After all, they claim, they are obeying the will, or actual word, of God as recorded in their sacred text.

Really? Even if God assumed human form to speak his word directly to Moses (or prophet of choice), that would be a revelation for Moses alone. Even if he passed the message on absolutely accurately it would still be second hand. The listener(s) then must have total belief in the messenger in the first instance, rather than in God.

Pyle went on to write that the individual needs to, “…assume responsibility for the exploration of the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God…” This requires the individual to seek first hand experience and knowledge, not relying on scriptures or taking anyone’s word to be God’s word.

In the spirit of the US Declaration of Independence he goes on to assert, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men have an equal chance at understanding God, and are endowed by the Creator with the ability to Reason through the concepts of life, liberty, and the pursuit of Truth.”

Reason is the rock on which the “church” of Deism is constructed. And Reason demands each person thinks for them self. Certainly, there will be sharing of ideas, arguments made and countered; through such a dialectical process is understanding achieved. But, each individual must come to an understanding, as there is no dogmatic truth to be won.

Pyle goes on to make a number of condemnatory statements about revealed religions that contain the essence of Deism’s rejection of them, while tending towards hyperbole.

He asserts that revealed religions are responsible for the bloodiest wars that have afflicted Mankind and, “the murder of more men, women and innocent children than any other force in the history of humanity.”

It is certainly true religions have played no small part in the cause and prosecution of wars and murder through history, but so have political ambition and naked avarice. Indeed, when the religious habit is stripped away these are usually the actual motivations behind so-called wars of religion.

If Deists are to be true to their profession of Reason then the difference between appearance and actuality must be considered. The First and Second World Wars are, to date, the bloodiest in history, at least in sheer numbers of casualties. Although prelates blessed the troops, and prayed for their victory, on all sides, religion was not the cause of those conflicts.

Pyle quite rightly identifies religions as the active repressors of Reason over thousands of years. This, though, reflects the gradual evolution of human thought over millennia and doesn’t take into account the beginnings of the university system, for example, that began as religious institutions.

Deism itself is an example of such evolution, emerging in the eighteenth century from traditional Christianity when its ideology became subject to the sceptical scrutiny of Reason. However much religions try to suppress it, Reason eventually becomes the force through which it is transcended.

The advocate of the new has a tendency towards exaggeration when castigating the old and Pyle succumbed to this weakness when he wrote, “…Revealed Religion is the enemy of the Purpose of God, and fights against the progression of humanity by destroying the ability to Reason in its adherents.”

This rather begs the question as to what God’s purpose is and is it possible for it to be discerned by humanity? Unless mankind is elevated to being equal with God it is likely that purpose must remain beyond comprehension. Much has been learned about the universe, but on human terms, not God’s.

Also, whatever the intentions of authorities, religious or secular, to inhibit the application of Reason they will be frustrated: the human spirit emerges counterpoised to self-serving power bases. Indeed, they may even be the catalyst for movements, such as Deism, that will depose them.

Much is presently been made in the media about the findings in the last national census showing a considerable fall in the numbers claiming even nominal adherence to religious institutions. Humanist groups are crowing over the apparent inexorable progress of atheism.

However, it is the decline various denominations of Revealed Religions that is so marked and as yet, in Britain, the profile of Deism is presently so limited as to be virtually unknown generally.

Mass media only presents a straight dichotomy: atheism or the Church, with the former being the predominant ideology of the publicly clever. The suspicion is the census has actually identified a demographic that has not chosen one preference over another, but rather rarely, if at all, thinks seriously about it.

A similar trend can bed seen in politics with a growing number of the electorate that is so disillusioned as to identify with no political party or trend. Just as this does not mean, though, they are not interested in politics, so it may well be religiously. People will not be told what to think.

Which is where Deism comes in. No creed, no dogma, no articles of faith, or faithlessness for that matter. Reason is the instrument to be wielded by each person on his or her own behalf, with experience being the touchstone of judgement and nature the subject of consideration.

For Deists it is because creation can be the subject of Reason that the assertion of God’s existence is reasonable. Otherwise, why is it possible to make sense of anything? What constitutes God is beyond our limited comprehension: most certainly not the fickle, somewhat limited, super-being – now punishing, now saving – of Revealed Religions.

In the final statement of his Declaration David Pyle goes on to say, “We declare that we are the true spiritual home of all who seek to understand God through the use of Reason, and who oppose the domination of thought imposed by Religions of Faith.”

All those who find themselves alienated from their religion while not of the atheist camp either could do well to consider they may be Deists and have not yet realised it. David Pyle has progressed in his Deism from his early days as represented by his Declaration of Interdependence to a more considered, reasonable position.

Yet at the core of his Declaration is the recognition that religion will continue to be a significant factor and through Deism it can find expression at a time when Revealed Religions either become dangerously fundamentalist or gently decline into inconsequence.

The full text of David Pyle’s Declaration of Interdependence can be found at
http://www.celestiallands.org

Deism and Poetry

Valley of Fire
(Nevada)
By
Dave Alton

To stand in the desert for a first time
Is to stand at the very beginning
Of creation, and at the very end.
Another world orbiting a different,
Bigger sun, a sense life is otherwise,
Invisible creatures with difficult
Intelligences and all seeing eyes.
Time is sculptor here, fashioning absurd
Abstracts from huge blocks of fiery sandstone,
Wielding wind as hammer, rain as chisel.
A cunning hand that long since gave up skin
And tendons, muscle and bone, precisely
Etched pictograms for snake, for long-horned sheep,
For spiral and labyrinth, and for Man,
Drawn out through black skimmed vertical flat screens
Of varnished canyons. Who now can translate
Such a strange, distant vocabulary,
Which might be magic or coarse graffiti,
Or menu of giants who once dwelt there
Before disbelief forced their extinction?
But, having stood and witnessed sudden gusts
Lift powdered earth whirling up into air,
Stood there in an absolute fog of sand,
Stood and peeked through squinted eyes while the land
Was re-arranged, the obvious declines,
A requirement for transliteration
Becomes an impertinence. Let rocks speak
For themselves, as do the wings of the bird
Of prey circling, its eloquent shadow
Echoing along the desiccated
Riverbed flooded to overflowing
With vibrant, infernal dust. It’s just those
Dependent on metalled ways who’re deafened
And blinded by desert’s shrill brilliance.

This poem expresses Deistic sensibilities in relation to creation, recreation and creator. Of itself it indicates the being of a poet. This is not some chance formation of words, but the product of mind operating within identifiable laws of language.

Much more can be reasonably inferred: that consciousness and intelligence exist, that there is a greater medium, poetry, of which this is a particular expression, that these are undeniable features of the universe.

The poem itself cannot be proved to be objectively true even though some of its detail is available for general scrutiny. It is a singular, subjective view of a moment in all the vastness of time. Whether the poem is good, indifferent or bad cannot be scientifically established.

However, neither is the poem an attack on science or scientific methodology. Indeed, the weathering referred to is most certainly open to scientific scrutiny and explanation. The scene is a product of evolution, formed through the action of weather and climate.

Creatures living there can do so because adaptation makes it possible; natural selection is the dynamic, favouring one feature over another, as a poet chooses this word and not that.

The pictograms etched into rock faces are mysterious because not only are the artists long gone, the people to which they belonged have also vanished. Their signs and symbols defy interpretation; are they sacred or profane or idle doodles?

Reason demands, though, not only can the existence of those folk not be denied, but also they are a part of a greater singularity, human being. What a vastly complex individual is human being and only a tiny, tiny aspect of the universe.

Although the possibility of the sacred is mentioned in the poem there is no explicit reference to God. For the Deist poetry expresses the abstraction for which the word God stands.

If a poem is its own universe, then the poet is its creator. Should there be some minute expression of the poet’s consciousness deep within the poem that became self-conscious, how much might it come to understand the entirety?

From the structure in which that conscious fragment existed it could reasonably deduce the existence of a poet without being able to comprehend what such a figure is.

Surely the multifaceted variety of poetry would be beyond its comprehension, as would the abstract overarching concept of The Poet. And even the individual poet is so much more than the poetry.

Analogies are always weak and ultimately flawed and that constructed here is no exception. This merely demonstrates the difficulty of writing or speaking of the ineffable.

Read a poem: better still, look around at creation and, employing reason, ask, is this all merely the product of purposeless chance or are there patterns suggestive of something greater?

Just because beneath that fascinatingly weathered rock resplendent with ancient pictograms there lurks a rattlesnake is no a denial of God. Rather, the existence of all and more is at the very least suggestive of the divine, whatever that might mean.

Deism and Religious Observance

“Common folk have no great need for the services of religious officials.”* So wrote Ibn Khaldun, the 14th century Islamic scholar who was blessed with this insight despite his own spiritual tradition.

The three Abrahamic religions have always insisted on religious observance: praising God and asking for His favour, protection and forgiveness of sins. Failure to do so is to invite eternal damnation, or the opprobrium of the religious authorities at least.

Synagogue, church and mosque have been presented as the portals through which the faithful pass from the profane world to the sacred. Even amidst the venal temptations of everyday life there is the imperative to pray. God must have His veneration.

Not that Sabbath day observances have always been piously adhered to. It seems that in medieval times services might well last all day, but while the priest was intoning at the front of the church, market trading and gaming occupied the back.

That the Church, backed by the state, resorted to compulsion suggests many “common folk” were perhaps not as keen as they might have been on regular Sunday attendance. In more recent times non-attendance has become the norm.

Not that this is a new phenomenon. With the move from the rural to urban communities following industrialisation in the nineteenth century so there appears to have been a waning of the Church’s hold over “common folk”.

Friedrich Engels, in his “The Condition of the Working Class in England” noted the absence of religious influences in many working class communities. Where religion did exercise a measure of authority it was revivalist non-conformist chapels, many of which were destined to become the designer dwellings of today.

The recent national census in Britain has revealed a falling off in the number of people claiming even nominal religious affiliation and it is more likely the shopping mall rather then the pew draws people to it on a Sunday.

The victory of Mammon and the vanquishing of God? Actually, it is just a more open and honest expression of what was going on anyway in the medieval churches. It also a demonstration of how correctness of Ibn Khaldun’s observation.

Khaldun was not being pejorative in his use of the word “common” in this context and it is, in any case, a translation. This is “common folk” in the sense of the generality of people as opposed to a specific group such as a priestly caste. He recognised that unless coerced by fear of the wrath of God, religious authorities, the state or a combination of all three, people are not so keen on formalised religious observance.

For Deists this is positive. God, as the ineffable originator of all creation, surely does not require to be repeatedly reminded of this by a miniscule element of that creation. People have been blessed with intellect and reason with which to grasp some understanding of the universe, appreciating the divine nature of it.

Humanity has evolved a moral sensibility and while how that is expressed is culturally determined, the concepts of Right and Wrong seem fundamental. Therefore, it is for people to work out their moral code and the facility of conscience supports external social enforcement.

This is creation working through human beings; so God is the ultimate source of the process by which what is considered morally acceptable is determined, not the enforcer. Morality, like all of creation, is not fixed, but changes and evolves: what was once a sin becomes acceptable through conscious human choice. “God’s will” expresses itself through our will.

For the universe to be as it is its dynamism has to be objective. If certain parts could be privileged and granted favours then the universe would be very different. If God could be appealed to and grant special dispensations then a faithful person might well be able to step from a very tall building in the sure knowledge angels would gently bear him safely to the ground.

This would remove any requirement for personal responsibility; all that would be needed for a near perfect existence would be faith and piety. It does not require a great deal of experience to realise this is not how creation works, there are laws operating, which means the faithful plummet from great heights as readily and as quickly, as the faithless.

That there are such identifiable laws, rather than a chaos of random chance, leads Deists to their assertion of there being a prime cause, God or Deus or what you will. There is no need for religious officials to bring the “common folk” into pious observance for the divine creation to continue on its way.

Indeed, the universe produced the human species, which will have its time then creation will move on without us. That God does not require our image can be seen from the absolutely minute amount of time of our existence.

This does not mean religious observance is totally vacuous. People will gather to ask profound questions, speculate on meaning (or the absence of meaning), share the appreciation of the wonder of creation, consider what is meant by such a word as “God”. They may also do all of this individually through meditation.

Will God be listening? Is God even aware of our presence? Could God actually be cognisant of every last particle in the universe? No one knows and Deists certainly don’t claim to know, but that does not prevent us from being aware of the divine nature of creation, of God.

*”The Muqaddimah” by Ibn Khaldun, 14th century Islamic scholar.