Broadcasting Deism

 

Sunday mornings, just after 8, BBC Radio4 broadcasts the religious service. Invariably it is Christian, although a variety of denominations are represented through the year. So far one has not been invited, that Deist trend styling itself Christian Deism.

Deism would not usually meet the remit of this broadcasting slot as it stands as the antithesis of the Abrahamic religions. However, those deists who take their inspiration from the teachings of the human Jesus surely have a claim for consideration.

This is especially so considering the history of Deism, in that it emerged during the Enlightenment within Christianity. The BBC might argue that Christian Deism has barely a presence in Britain which is certainly true.

Nonetheless, there must be a real possibility that within the Churches, and certainly outside them, are many who do not subscribe to Christian creeds literally. They may well subscribe to basic Christian teachings, such as “Love thy neighbour…”, and even consider there to be something that could be called God they are prepared to acknowledge, even honour.

Presently, these people would not describe themselves as Christian Deists in particular, or even Deists in general. For many this would be because they are unaware of the existence of Deism, however it presents itself.

If the BBC is true to itself it should offer these people the opportunity to consider the natural religion of Deism, and Christian Deism especially in this context, as something that might meet their philosophical and/or spiritual needs.

If a full service length broadcast is considered to be not practical at the moment, there are other opportunities the BBC could offer. After 7 on Sunday mornings there’s the “Sunday Programme”, a religious magazine, which might do an item on Deism.

Or there’s “Thought for the Day”, the 3 minute slot on the “Today” programme that could offer a broadcasting space to a Deist. This might be a good starting point as various religions are already represented here and so it wouldn’t need to be specifically Christian Deism, opening it up to potential Deists of all faiths and presently none.

Then there is television where again Deism has not been represented. If the BBC, as part of its remit, is charged with the role of educator, this is an area its religious broadcasting should cover at least once.

Deism is not a proselytising religion seeking converts, looking to the BBC as a medium for propaganda. Deists do believe, though, in offering its ideas for popular consideration so people can make their own minds up. Becoming a Deist is a matter of self-determination, there is no church or sect to be joined.

Britain is often characterised as becoming increasingly secular, even intolerant of religion. Yet many are still prepared to profess very vague religious notions such as, “There must be something behind all this (meaning the world/universe)” and other non-specific inchoate ideas. This does not mean they are Deists, but they might be. Surely, they should be offered the opportunity to consider the possibility for themselves

 

Easter

 

What does Easter mean today? For committed Christians it continues to be their celebration of Jesus’s resurrection, proof of God’s sacrifice of His own son for mankind’s salvation. For those not so committed to the Church it might, at best, be a welcome spring holiday.

Could it be that both are missing the point? Deists do not subscribe to the notion the Jesus was possessed of divinity, being the literal Son of God. It certainly seems, from Gospel writings, that he was not expecting to be raised bodily from the dead.

Indeed, given the option his stated preference in his prayers in Gethsemane was to avoid the whole nasty business. There can be no doubt he was very much aware of the likely consequences of his preaching: the Romans did not take kindly to those advocating alternative kingdoms to their own rule.

However, when it came to the final moment as he hung in agony on the cross, Jesus committed his spirit into the hands of God, he didn’t make an “I’ll be back” pronouncement. This followed on from his experience of absolute despair when he cried aloud his questioning of God, “Why have you forsaken me?”

This question resonates because it manifests itself in the manifold traumas humanity experiences. This is one significance of the crucifixion, the cross can be a symbol of personal agonies, physical and mental, or even of acts of genocide – that oft asked question, “Where is/was God?”

This can lead all too readily, as it has done for so many in Western society at least, to a complete renunciation of God. It seems that no matter how forsaken he felt, Jesus had faith enough to still entrust God with his spirit.

Perhaps Jesus recognised, as deists do, that God is beyond all human comprehension, appreciating the existence of his own life, and the lives of others, is the crucial evidence that God imbues creation with life.

Many deists conclude that God having set the dynamics of creation in motion does not intervene in the universe. When Jesus felt forsaken that was very much a human in distress reaction, not God arbitrarily deciding not to come to His son’s aid.

Nor was it to ensure the completion of some divine grand plan for human salvation through sacrifice. Certainly there is no evidence in the Gospels that Jesus held such a view. It was Paul, persecutor then militant apostle, who developed that concept.

Indeed, Paul insisted if the resurrection had not occurred then there could be no hope of life beyond death. That hope was then invested in the Church giving it its awesome power. For near two thousand years this has given the crucifixion a meaning it never had.

Other than what is written in the Gospels, some while after the event, and the pronouncements of Paul, there is no indication, certainly not contemporaneous, of such a miraculous event. Although Gospel accounts of the empty tomb and subsequent meetings with the crucified Jesus may not be fanciful.

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that Jesus did not die on the cross. When he committed his spirit to God it could be he slipped in unconsciousness, not unreasonably considering the scourging he’d suffered and then the crucifixion. A spear in the side wouldn’t necessarily elicit a response in such circumstances.

Jesus had been on the cross for six hours which, interminable as it must have felt, was actually a short time as it usually took days for a victim to actually die. It could be that some did die quickly, surely the shock would be enough for this to be possible.

Therefore, the guard being convinced Jesus was dead, broke the legs of the two crucified either side of him to hasten their deaths through asphyxiation. Get the business over with and back to barracks. Jesus then revived. While this may appear unlikely, the ability of human beings to survive great traumas is well attested.

Certainly it seems Jesus was able to convince his disciples of his presence by displaying his wounds. Interestingly, he did not instruct those disciples to go into the world preaching about his death and resurrection, rather repentance and forgiveness, consistent with his pre-crucifixion message.

Jesus then disappears from history. He might well have succumbed to his ordeal or been so badly traumatised as to simply withdraw. There can only be speculation. The importance of all this is that no supernatural element is required for Jesus to have continuing significance, even for deists, as a man, a son of God, as we are all sons and daughters of God.

 

What’s in the Word?

When the word is God, rather a lot. That the universe is of divine creation, that there is God, or Gods, are notions that humanity has nurtured since pre-history. The problem has been, and still affects the world’s religions, is that the concept of the divine has been limited to reflect society at any given moment.

Indeed, ideas about God often seem to lag behind social changes and should be obviously anachronistic to those who continue to espouse them, For example, the Christian Church still refers to God as King of creation: this suffers from the twin difficulties of being anthropomorphic and outdated.

The theist God is very human, all be it on a grander scale. In fact, king is not a bad epithet for a deity that is jealous, ruthless, angry, demanding of praise and fealty, loving the subservient, dispensing favour or punishment according to the divine whim. A despot indeed.

According to religious teaching, God created man in His own image. It would surely be more accurate to reverse that, man creates God in his own image. This is reflected in recent times by feminist theologians who insist on the female nature of God, as if this makes any real difference to such a limited concept.

If God is demonstrably a human creation rather than the other way around, why persist with the notion? Strip away all the cultural and religious accretions and religions have one element in common, God. It seems humans have an a priori knowledge that the universe in which we all exist was created, and continues to be created, by something way beyond our ken.

It is because this ineffable something lies way beyond our very partial understanding that it has become repeatedly dressed up in human attire. The word God allows us to indicate this mysterious something, to consider and speculate about, even have vague intimations of, the divine.

Deists celebrate reason because it enables us to have insights into creation and see in all the wonders science reveals laws and purpose. We know from human experience that creation requires a creator.

From the first primitive log role to the very latest automobile there has been conscious choices made by numerous people down the centuries. Even chance would have contributed, but a fortunate accident would require someone to choose to learn from and incorporate it into the process of development. This is evidence of human being.

On the very much grander scale creation requires a creator, divine being. That our view is limited doesn’t prevent us appreciating the significance of that of which we are a part.

Analogies are always flawed, so accepting this consider: Actors are filmed scene by scene in no particular narrative sequence. Often, they have little or no idea as to the story being made. Indeed, the director in the editing suit cuts the film and makes the story. We are like those actors, only we may never get to see the whole production.

Some deists choose to use the Latin Deus rather than God, considering the word God has too many cultural and religious associations. There are deists who argue they are not religious at all, rather they subscribe to a philosophy not a religion.

So, what’s in the word? An awful lot, it seems, but language is a living not a fixed entity, discarding outmoded meanings and adopting new ones. For the word God deists offer new definitions appropriate for our times, a word that can open thinking to new concepts and understandings that transcend religious boundaries. We might be defined by God, but we cannot define God.

Vision

Horizons describe the limit

And so the partial eye

Needs satellites and telescopes

To peer out beyond the sky,

 

Where, dashed all across the heavens,

A profusion of suns

Pierce an unqualified darkness

Unbounded by horizons.

 

Searching for gods and archangels

(By which blind souls are cursed)

Reveals a realm of asteroids

And comets that flew there first.

 

Receivers finely tuned into

Radio waves broadcast

From the beginning, when barely

The very first moment passed.

 

What then of the observer, where

Should observation begin?

In the depths of deeper space or

Even more deeply within.

 

For all the light the stars shine through

That darkness, clever man

Can’t make instruments to measure

What lies beyond human ken.

 

 

No matter how far out or back

Searches the partial mind,

Observers must forever be

Aware they’re partially blind.

 

Dave Alton

(2015)

 

 

Matchbox God

Matchbox God is a poem reflecting on what essentially is a panendeist philosophy. Panendeism is a branch of deism identifying God with being the sum total of all creation, but also greater than that, transcending creation.

As a partial component of creation we can appreciate that of which we are merely a part. What we cannot do is fathom the whole, even less so what transcends the whole. We comprehend the being of God, but not what God is.

God must always be elusive, beyond us, ineffable, otherwise that would not be God.

Matchbox God

There’s a modest looking matchbox
Neither very deep nor wide,
And yet it is remarkable
As God can be found inside.

Once the drawer has been pushed open
Folk look in, look up and glare,
Crying, “Even if we’re faithful
We can see God’s not in there.”

Although never readily seen
God’s not easily dismissed,
Being all that there is and more than
What does and does not exist.

The sum of every particle
And all the space in between,
Whatever was or will be, God
Becomes, is now or has been.

As the primary catalyst,
The cosmic key that unlocks
The door to creation, God is
Also inside that matchbox.

Dave Alton

Which God?

It has been suggested that deism is an expression of atheism. This is correct in that it denies theistic conceptions of God and the religions proceeding from them. Whatever their differences, all three Abrahamic faiths essentially subscribe to an anthropomorphic deity exhibiting all too human emotions such as jealousy, anger and forgiveness.

Knowledge of such a God is claimed via revelation and scriptures asserted to be the divine word or, at the very least, divinely inspired. A supernatural element if also employed to a greater or lesser extent.

Deists deny that any such detailed knowledge of God is possible. Holy books are the works of man and as such lack any real consistency, indeed are often contradictory, hardly the mark of the divine word.

Revelation has a particular problem. Even if it’s true, God puts in a personal appearance with Moses for example, it is only Moses that has the first hand experience. For everyone else the experience is second or third hand, needing to be taken on trust. Even if Moses is an honest fellow, no matter how convincing he is, it is still not a revelation for those to whom he relates his experience.

Deism requires none of this, indeed it is each individual’s personal experience and reflection upon the universe alone that can lead to the conclusion of there being God. That creation is amenable to rational study through there being identifiable laws makes it reasonable to accept there was/is a creator.

That there is something, a universe, rather nothing poses a problem if there is no creator: nothing emerges from nothing, no effect without a cause, no movement without a moving force. The prime cause, the prime mover is what deists refer to as God.

And God must be of a very different order of being as to be the instigator without having to be instigated. So, although humanity can have intimations of God, whatever that simple word refers to is beyond the partial understanding of human beings.

This is not a new concept or one unique to deists. In Hindu philosophy there is Brahman, an unchanging reality that’s in, behind and beyond the universe that cannot be defined.

Similarly, in Taoism it’s said that however the Tao is understood or defined, that is not Tao, which is outside the human capacity to comprehend.

That there are lesser deities spawned turning these philosophies into versions of theistic religion is a demonstration of a human need for the anthropomorphic: however, Micky Mouse being a fictional human creation does not invalidate the reality of mice.

God, as a word, does carry millennia of anthropomorphic associations which is why many deists have adopted the Latin Deus for their discourse to avoid theistic implications.

Deism does not proselytize for the very good reason, mentioned above, that it is for individuals to arrive at their own conclusions. People can be pointed in the direction of deism, but they must engage with it and become deists because they decide to.

So, while deism is not synonymous with atheism in its broader sense, not is it religious like theistic faiths. Many deists would regard themselves as not being religious at all, that deism is a philosophy not a religion. It certainly has none of the religious trappings such theocratic hierarchies, articles of faith, holy books or such like.

If there is a deist gospel it is written on the earth and in the stars and is not bound by the hand of man. The works of Deus are literally everywhere, and we are one of them.

Death

Perhaps the weakest argument deployed by the Church for becoming a Christian is the promise of eternal life for the faithful. This immediately begs a question as to a partial God only favouring those souls acknowledging Him.

The alternative Christian view is an even greater concern as to the nature of God, that everyone has eternal life, but only the favoured few will be welcomed into heaven. For the rest, the vast majority, it is everlasting damnation in hell.

Such are the traditional claims of the Church in its many denominations, with perhaps variations on those themes. Today, the promise of eternal life still figures in church services, but as to what that means is not clarified so much.

Recent surveys suggest about 30% of the British populace still believes in God. This will be the theistic God of the Abrahamic faiths as deist views are barely known or considered presently in Britain.

Interestingly, it appears over 50% still subscribe to a belief in an afterlife, even if that cannot be asserted any more forcefully than being a “feeling”. This could almost be a re-emergence of pre-Christian pagan views as the influence of the Church declines.

Someone who would be considered by the Church to be a pagan was the stoic Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. He had this to say about death,
“The person who fears death either fears the total loss of all consciousness or the onset of new sensations. But, if you have no consciousness you will not feel any pain, and if you acquire new sensations, you will just be a different kind of living creature and so will not cease to live.”*

What Aurelius alludes to, but does not make explicit, is that we don’t know what, if anything, happens after death. Whichever way it is beyond our control; either way there are positive benefits.

Deists assert the existence of God, but not the anthropomorphic deity of the Abrahamic faiths. Indeed, many deists insist that God as the ultimate creator is far beyond human comprehension and may well not be particularly aware of, or concerned with, human existence.

Religions have traditionally promoted mankind into a privileged position as being cast in God’s image. Whereas it seems Man has rather expressed a deep seated religious instinct by casting God in human form.

Ideas about an afterlife have tended to reflect the society engendering them, as have the attributes of the prevailing deity. This does not mean that such notions can be dismissed as mere social constructs. Rather they have been ways to express the ineffable.

Some deists, Thomas Paine for example, favour the notion of there being an afterlife. What form this takes is unknown and perhaps unknowable in this life, but if God has imbued the universe with the possibility of life and consciousness, then trust God to have taken care of whatever might come next.

However, others such as Anthony Flew, the almost life long atheist who became a deist in the final years of his life, insist that while there is God this does not imply an afterlife. The finite nature of life being just another aspect of a creation that is in constant flux.

Deism does not make any promises on behalf of God, only that the order and discernable laws governing the universe are reasonably suggestive of something that is referred to as being God.

The significance or otherwise of individual humans or humanity as a whole lies beyond our determining, apart from significance we can impart to ourselves by living this life as well as we can, rather than worrying about a next one.

As Marcus Aurelius wrote,
“Death brought Alexander the Great and his stable-boy together; for they were either received by the same life-giving principles of the universe, or they were both scattered equally among the atoms.”**
So,
“Why not just sit in tranquillity and wait for the end, whether it’s extinction or transformation?”***

Source
“The Spiritual Teachings of Marcus Aurelius.” Edited by Mark Forstater. Hodder and Stoughton, 2000.
* Page 129
** Page136
*** Page 135

Deism and Science

For all the progress science has made it may well be there is a vast amount that is not, and may never be, known. It seems highly presumptuous to believe that humanity has the capacity to know everything, which does not mean that should inhibit science from working towards such an ultimate goal.

Science is not antithetical to deism if only because it strays beyond its remit when employed to deny something it is not equipped to comment on. In a recent interview in the Radio Times magazine, professor Brian Cox observed that while not being in any sense religious, neither is he atheist or agnostic.

The only time he considers religion at all is when he’s asked about it. However, he does not accept the view of Richard Dawkins that religion and science are fundamentally incompatible.

He would have to take issue with creationists insisting on the age of the earth being a mere 6,000 years old, but such thinking is really a form of biblical literalism. Religion can be rather more profound than that.

Cox gives the example of the 17th century mathematician Gottfried Leibniz who insisted nothing comes into existence without a cause. This notion, Cox says, is logical; indeed, to posit an eternal presence as being the ultimate cause is itself logical.

While the laws of nature explain how the universe came about and developed, this does not preclude such an eternal presence as being the first cause or source of all. If the eternal multiverse proves to be correct Cox thinks that could raise interesting theological questions.

None of this is to claim professor Cox as a deist, indeed in the article Cox says of religion, “I almost don’t have an opinion on it.” The point is that deism is not in contravention of the principles of science.

Indeed, deism embraces science as giving tremendous insights into how the creator’s creation works. It does not require deists to hold as matters of faith anything that runs contrary to scientific understanding.

And like science, good science, deism is not dogmatic, always open to new insights. The universe is the deist gospel, and unlike most supposedly holy scripture, the possibility of new readings and interpretations is welcomed.

Source: Radio Times, 4-10 October, 2014.

Way of Deism

For anyone seeking truth, or something approximate to it, finding the way is not easy. If the first steps entail walking away from established religious tradition a sense of being bereft can become pervasive.

This often leads to a spiritual tourism where various religious alternatives are tried and found wanting. Their similarity to the established religious traditions they claim to eschew becomes apparent: formal or informal hierarchies, leaders who may or may not be charismatic and/or divinely inspired, some creed to be adhered to, an insistence their way is the only true way.

The result often is the experience of such schismatic sects reinforces a rejection of religion, with the adoption of an unsatisfactory agnostic or even atheistic position. However, a feeling that there is something more remains.

Careful consideration, and a determination not to be bound by previous experiences, can then lead to a rational examination of what can be personally observed. A starting point is questioning notion that the creation of the universe, unlike everything that is within it, had no cause of its own.

If there was an initial cause that brought the universe into being it was unique, different to all subsequent causation by not being the result of some previous effect. Otherwise it would, by definition, not be the First Cause.

Also, the order perceived in the universe, that it operates according to discernable laws and had to be precisely as it is for life to emerge and evolve into humans is surely not accidental.

There is nothing in the universe that isn’t the result of a chain of creation that continues to develop. It is hardly a step to then come to the conclusion that creation has a creator.

Such a creator is not the anthropomorphic Deity of the Abrahamic religions. The universe does not demonstrate geometric perfection or evidence of constant omnipotent correction.

It appears creation may well have been a singular act with little or no subsequent interference by the Creator. If there are continuing divine influences they must be according to the Creator’s purpose and not the result of human imprecations.

The universe is manifestly not perfect, but that may not be the point, rather that its being is in itself significant. Also, if perfection had been achieved the universe would surely have reached stasis as any further developments would have led to imperfection. The lack of perfection makes the universe a dynamic, continually developing process.

Perhaps, the Creator wants or needs creation to be perceived and understood, at least to some extent, and that is a role humanity presently plays. Indeed, we are active consciously in shaping our small corner of creation and in that sense we are the Creator’s agents.

Maybe humanity’s purpose to develop consciousness of creation and to employ this gift as part of the on-going dynamic development: through us at least we can be sure the universe is aware of its own existence. Might divine providence be channelled to us in this way?

Deism is more than a rational speculation about the existence of God. It is an understanding that we are of creation as much as any other feature, part of the whole. Nature itself is the Word of God and we have the ability to learn, understand and interpret that language.

The universe is an objective reality and while our reactions to it may be subjective they can be filtered through reason to reach conclusions in accordance with that objective reality. If there is an element of faith in deist belief in God it is not a faith in contradiction with objective reality.

Deism is not a licence to believe in just anything, it is demanding of the individual to use reason so as to draw conclusions verified by being in concert with those arrived at by fellow deists.

This is not to preclude differences; they will arise according to various interpretations of observations of nature. As the ultimate nature of God/Creator/First Cause/Whatever is beyond human fathoming perhaps the one shared conclusion deists can agree on is that Deus is not beyond reason.

Design

There are deists who invoke the concept of Intelligent Design (ID) as an indication there is God behind/within/beyond the universe. This poses a significant difficulty; the association of ID with creationism.

Deism, if it is anything, is a natural religion or philosophy based on the use of reason to discern there being God or Deus*. Science is the source of human insight and understanding the deist embraces, dismissing supernatural and superstitious “explanations” of the world.

Does that mean, therefore, that Intelligent Design must be abandoned as implying some anthropomorphic super being meticulously drawing up plans for the universe?

Perhaps a better way of describing the deist position would be to replace Intelligent with Natural, Natural Design (ND). After all, even the most insistent atheist biologist promotes Natural Selection as the vector for evolution.

Selection implies choosing – this feature not that – attributes carried forward, enabling a simple life form to eventually evolve into the complexity that is a human being. This does not require some deity to act as arbiter. Selection is a natural choosing.

Similarly, there is no need for there to be a celestial design studio in which a CAD (Creator Assisted Design) system is employed. Natural Design is universally intrinsic, enabling cause and effect to act as divine purpose.

Why divine purpose? God denotes for deists something so far beyond human comprehension there can only be vague intimations. As First Cause, for example, all subsequent cause and effect are an expression of it, a furtherance of its purpose, and so divine purpose in that sense.

The universe is not a random place; even at sub-atomic level the apparent chaos has its patterns. Design is not perfect, but that is the nature of design, it is how development takes place. Should design ever become perfect then development would cease, it not being possible to design beyond perfection.

That the universe is dynamic is due to it always being less than perfect, allowing Natural Design to manifest in great variety. That it does so according to discernable laws deists attribute to the law maker, God or Deus or whatever word is preferred to indicate what is beyond human definition.

Natural Design is fundamental to creation without being compromised by association with creationism.

* Some deists adopt the Latin Deus to differentiate between their concept of a natural God and the traditional supernatural God.