Deism: Various Views of God

From its emergence during the enlightenment of the 18th century Deism was considered to be a belief in a God seperated from creation: a God who lit the blue touch-paper and then retired to a safe distance as the cosmic firework went off with a big bang.

Comtempory Deism, however, does not limit it definition of God this way. Indeed, it is rather loath to define God at all. Reason, as a human facility, is powerful, but it has limits. It allows people to view nature and discern a divine influence behind a comprehesible universe operating according to laws.

Any meaningful concept of God places the divine as being beyond the limits of human comprehension. Christians often refer to God as ineffable but then contradict themselves by claiming to have revealed knowledge as to His nature: God made manifest to Man.

Deists enbrace the idea of God’s ineffability, otherwise it wouldn’t be God, or at least a God little different from humans. This allows for differing ideas in the Deist community as to what is meant by God.

There are Deists for whom nature shows clear indications of design, which suggests to them a designer whose purpose is being expressed through nature and, thereby, their lives.

For others there is a dynamic, co-creative process in the relationship between the universe and God. As an intelligent element of the universe, humanity plays an active, conscious part in that process.

For some, God is a subtle influence on the cosmos, on their lives, while others are content that God is little more than an observer of the universe as it evolves. And there are still those who adhere to the classical Deist position.

Deism does not, cannot, have a creed as it must accommodate all the varied ideas of those who profess themselves to be Deists. Because God is ineffable there can be no final settlement as to which notions are correct. A person must use his or her reason to decide what best fits with their experience.

If Reason is the foundation of Deism, then Experience and Nature are the basis for the formulation of Deist beliefs. And they must remain beliefs as they cannot be verified as incontrovertible truths. The foundation though, laid down through Reason, is, whatever differences there are between Deists there is a common acceptance of there being God.

This does not imply an anthropomorphic view of God, some enhanced humaniod or a cosmic great architect, a concept closer to Freemasonry than Deism. Declaring God to be ineffable is not an attempt to side step definition, but an acceptance of divine being beyond the limitations of human understanding.

God can be regarded as process, a recognition that the universe is an unfolding expression of divine purpose. It is meaningful at least because humanity finds meaning and most would consider their time purposeful.

Deists make no claims to ultimate truth: if this was possible then Deists would be gods. They can, however, employ reason to appreciate the universe is reasonable which at the very least suggests intelligence is not confined to makind.

That there are differences between Deists is positive, keeping open the discussion and exchange of ideas. It also means there can be no orthodoxy and so, no heresy. Deism does not offer salvation or a supernatural order superior to this world. In fact, it is to this world the Deist looks for spiritual inspiration and for the arena in which life is to be lived, knowledge gained.

Epistle on Deism

(1)

No doubt the pious will be vexed
To learn there is no divine, no sacred, text:
Neither Mary nor Mohamed, truth to tell,
Was ever visited by Gabriel,
All annunciations of a divine plan
Are spoken in the voice of Man.
Holy revelation has had its season
And now must step aside for reason
To explore the way beyond theism
Leading on towards deism.
It is the deist’s sacred mission
To cast out the shades of superstition,
Lurking like bodies without bones
Flaccidly haunting their own gravestones:
Such is their spiritual pride
Religions don’t realise when they have died,
Determined, although they’ve passed away,
They are still going to have their say.
But others now tread the path they trod
Seeking the way to God,
For although by many God’s neglected
It doesn’t mean God has been rejected,
Even if, with science applied,
God is all too readily denied.
Astronomers scan the starry skies
And see no realm wherein God lies,
The physicist observes with clarity
The initial cosmic singularity,
While the chemist is rather fond
Of each and every chemical bond
He can write up on precise lists
As forming everything that exists,
And claiming creation’s mystery solved
The biologist shows how all life evolved.
And so the picture seems complete
With religion in headlong retreat
Into theocratic obscurity
Or slaughter to maintain its purity.
Atheists are so pleased with themselves
They dismiss out of hand anyone who delves
Into religious thought; they simply seem
Not to realise unbelievers are the supreme
Thinkers in the known universe,
Having done all they can to disperse
Any lingering doubt
As to their having flushed the truth of God out.
As readily as light bends through a prism,
So thought is shaped by atheism,
To other possibilities they’re blinded,
Convinced God’s only for the weak minded.
And yet, the divine’s not so easily dismissed,
Finding a fresh champion in the deist,
Who sees with science there is no rift
In accepting reason as God’s gift.

(2)

Deist considerations commence
With nature, reason and experience:
Nature is the only divine word
That can be freely heard
By all with ears to hear,
Its order and animus are clear
For those with eyes to see
And all so finely tuned there must be
Some immanent design:
Without the winemaker there is no wine.
Rather than being some random cosmic blunder
Creation inspires due awe and wonder,
Such as to suggest something so demanding
Isn’t all revealed to human understanding.
Although the notion is so immense
That the universe at all makes sense,
Its entirety can only be confined
Within a universal mind,
Which must transcend it
To have conceived and constantly amend it
Through processes that keep moving the border
Between chaos and order.
Divine dynamism courses
Through the dialectic of unceasing, contending forces,
Shaping and reshaping,
Until an ape’s no longer aping
All of its kind that’s gone before,
But strikes out anew, becoming so much more.
This scion of divine creation,
Blessed with such a febrile imagination,
Creates vast pantheons to explain
The parching sun and flooding rain,
And by appeasement, hopes gods are sated,
That nature might be moderated.
Eventually Man became inclined
To have the many gods combined,
So it came to pass there was only one,
Then clever Man said, perhaps there’s none.
Yet, such a partial way of seeing
Promotes Man as the supreme being.
The universe is ceded by default
To sons of Adam who led the revolt
And succeeded where Lucifer failed,
Toppling God, His head impaled
On the spike of learning.
But those who are a little more discerning
And perhaps uneasy with such a human conceit
Consider this victory counterfeit,
That the god-slayers’ arrogant exhilaration
Is for slaying a little god, of their own creation,
As God being God cannot be confined
By any notion Man has designed.
Religions arise! Religions decline!
Each has an inkling of the divine.
No matter how great Man’s knowledge has grown,
Never will everything by Man be known.
Look at a flower on a sunny day
And know something divine’s passed through this way.

Blessing

My dad was dying. 85 years had become his allotted time and though he’d been increasingly frail for over the last couple of years, his final decline had been rapid. Now he lay in a single room off a main ward, blessedly unconscious.

Actually, he’d already survived longer than the medical staff had expected, despite receiving no artificial aid to sustain him. The nurses tended to his few remaining needs such as monitoring vital signs and turning him from time to time.

Which is how I came to be in the hospital chapel. When the outcome became inevitable the family decided he must not die alone. So while his wife, my mother, sat with him through the day, the all-nighters were shared between my brother, my wife and me. It was my turn to make the best of the recliner and keep him quiet company.

In the early hours of the morning two nurses came to tend to him and, with the room being rather cramped, asked if I would leave them for 15 minutes or so. Wandering silent and light-dimmed corridors did not appeal, so a sign to the conveniently nearby chapel was welcome.

Going through the first door admitted me to an ante-room: ahead doors to the offices of the chaplains, a Muslim prayer room with a one pair of shoes outside to the left, the Christian chapel off to the right. So, right it was.

There was no praying to be done, no miracle invoked; as a deist, even in distressing circumstances, reason prevails. The loss of fathers, however tragic it feels, is inevitable, part of the dynamic of creation. Begging God or railing against divine callousness is both foolish and self-serving.

So, for quarter of an hour or so I sat quietly contemplating my dad, his life and my part in it. Football in the park as a kid, teenage rows over growing my hair long, hard for a policeman to have a hippie son, shared interests in science and the arts.

He was an accomplished pianist, mastering the classics, yet equally at ease rendering sing-along numbers on the electronic organ. Being ham fisted when let loose on a keyboard I had, in my own way, continued his creative bent through words: we were able to appreciate what each other could do in our respective mediums.

Now it was for me to compose his last piece, a threnody to be spoken at his funeral. Though not quite yet: time to resume my vigil. Before I left the chapel I paused and voiced to myself, “Let my dad have a blessing.” I say ‘to myself’ as not believing in angels or the supernatural who else was there to speak to?

I returned to the recliner and spent a fitful, but uneventful remainder of that night. The next few days followed what became a pattern with no discernable change in my dad’s condition, much to the amazement of both doctors and nurses.

A week later I had again dozed through the over-nighter and then made my way down to the hospital entrance around seven. My wife, who’d driven in, met me there where we exchanged a few words and the car keys so I could drive home for a proper sleep. My mum would be in later.

Around ten o clock I was wakened by my mobile, my wife identified on-screen. Of course I knew before I answered, her tear strained voice merely giving confirmation. A deep breath, a cold water wash and then to my mum’s.

It’s around 15 miles from her house to the hospital, a very long journey although we had a clear run. My wife met us at the door to the room where he lay and we left my mum to be with him awhile. Back to the chapel.

Sacred spaces seem to encourage hushed conversation interspersed with silence: so it was with us. We sat for a few moments; then my wife quietly described the circumstances of my dad’s passing.

As had been the case for over a week, there had been little discernable change, so she’d talked to him, moistened his parched lips with small sponges of water and read. There’d been a knock at the door and, for the first time, in came one of the hospital chaplains. It seems he’d been visiting a patient on the main ward and simply decided to call into the room as he passed.

My wife briefly described the circumstances and he sympathised: then, just as he was leaving he pronounced a blessing. As she turned to relay this to my dad, he died.

At his funeral service I recounted the event, prefacing it with, “Make of this what you will.” My asking for a blessing and its delivery just as he died can be explained away as coincidence or my looking for a significance that really isn’t there. A mathematician will be able to demonstrate the probability involved isn’t as dramatic as it might appear.

My dad, though he didn’t know it, was a deist. He rarely attended church and then usually for an occasion and did not discuss religion much. However, he had a keen interest in science, avidly watching programmes dealing with even the most esoteric aspects of quantum mechanics or the vastness of the universe.

He recognised that religions were the product of human manufacture, fashioned to suit the circumstances of the time. However, he was consistent in insisting there was a pattern, a reason behind creation. Call it God, call it whatever you like, it makes no difference.

Perhaps it was his musical accomplishment leading him to this conclusion: a page of black dots set on parallel lines became exquisite music through his playing. But he was the interpreter, music required a composer and that there were elements of creation organised as composers gave reason to think a greater scheme lay within and beyond it all.

As for that blessing, I cannot dismiss it as mere chance. I do not know, cannot even speculate what mechanism might exist for such a thing to happen. There again, it is human arrogance that supposes everything worth knowing is now largely known to us. Being a deist I have intimations of divinity, but recognise how little I know of it.

Deism and Jesus

Deism is a natural religion in that it draws its principles and ideas from experience of nature and human reasoning. Emerging during the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century from a Christian milieu, Deism subsequently declined, giving way to atheism on one side and Unitarianism, which incorporated many of its notions, on the other.

However, modern Deism does not favour any particular culture: indeed it is open for people from all cultures to contribute to its development. All religions, whatever their claims to divine revelation, are man-made. They are shaped by and reflect the material and spiritual needs of the cultures that spawn them.

Problematically, too many religions promote themselves as the exclusive conduit whereby God and humans interact. Therefore, each regards all other religions as false with often disastrous consequences such as persecution and violence, in stark contradiction of the creeds supposedly being propagated.

Deism has no such difficulties because it makes no claims for divine revelation, rather it denies their validity. God, for Deists, is truly ineffable, so while they are able to speak about the divine they do not pretend to speak with or for the divine.

Everyone is born into a religious culture, even atheists: a militant British born* non-believer is as much a product of Christendom as the most faithful Trinitarian. That different conclusions have been drawn does not invalidate the fact that the society of which they are a part was fashioned by Christianity.

Had the same two people been born in Saudi Arabia, then one would be a devout Muslim, the other a culturally Muslim atheist. Repeat for any significant historical religion. Atheists stop believing in God, or are brought up by their families not to, but they still observe the religiously generated mores of their societies.

So what can a “Christian” Deist make of the Jesus tradition. The narrative is broadly known and has been interpreted and reinterpreted over the two thousand years of its telling. It has been the spiritual support of fascist regimes and the inspiration of liberation theology; and that’s just the Roman Catholic branch.

It seems Jesus was part of a radical movement led initially by John the Baptist aimed at establishing the Kingdom of God on earth exclusively for the Jews. Jesus is quoted as instructing disciples, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles…go rather to the house of Israel.” (Matthew 10:5-7)

However, in coming into contact with Gentiles of various stripes he discovered they had the same hopes and ambitions as Jews. Subsequently, he revised his teaching to include all who agreed to love God and their neighbour.

He also rejected violence as a way of securing God’s Kingdom in favour of repentance and forgiveness. Jesus was bent on wholesale reform of Judaism and that brought him into direct conflict with the authorities.

Over the next four centuries much of what Jesus strove for was subverted by the religion developed in his name. He became deified and, by an arithmetical sleight of hand, one facet of the Trinity making up one God.

Actually, much of the narrative predates Jesus: the miraculous birth, the raising the dead, the death and resurrection, the sharing of bread and wine (or beer in ancient Egypt). These and other elements can be found in pre-existing religious traditions throughout the world.

It appears the Gospel authors, somewhat after the event, made use of such narrative memes to construct the story of Jesus. It was this that enabled Christianity to arise as it was based on established religious foundations.

So, what of Jesus? He can be interpreted as a “Deist” as he taught that which he discovered through his own reason and experience. And this is what he claimed others should do. “Everyone will be taught by God..” (John 6:45) & “Whoever is willing to do what God wants will know whether what I teach comes from God or whether I speak on my own authority.” (John 7:17)

The implication is clear, Jesus was to be judged through people’s own experience and reasoning, not against some spurious claim to mysterious authority as most religions stipulate: reason, not faith.

In the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas there is the following:
“Jesus said, ‘If your leaders say to you, ‘Look, the kingdom is in heaven,’ then the birds of heaven will precede you. If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.
“When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty, and you are poverty.” (Logia 3, The Gospel of Thomas. Translated by Marvin Meyer, Harper, 1992)

There are those who style themselves Christian Deists who draw deeply from this tradition. Even those whose Christianity remains largely cultural can find inspiration in knowing they aren’t rejecting a tradition wholesale, but moving it forward and allowing that tradition to be a creative element of their Deism.

However, there is no special linkage between Deism and Christianity or any other religion. Modern Deism draws on the one common element of all religions, that there is a God. What that means is an open question to which any answers or speculations cannot run counter to scientific thinking

Deism is inspired by the natural, not the supernatural.

 

* This refers to those who come from a culturally Christian background. It is appreciated their are British citizens from a wide variety of religious backgrounds.

Materialism, Idealism and the Universal Dialectic

In simple terms philosophy traditionally split into two basic camps, accepting that each has a wide variety of tents, which are materialism and idealism. Idealism posits the notion that all phenomena are ultimately mental constructs, while materialism reduces the very same phenomena to matter and its properties.

Idealism begs the question as to what is the source of the consciousness giving form to the world. If it is not material in origin then there must be a positive absence giving rise to the thoughts constructing the phenomenal world.

However, materialism fares little better as an explanation: despite appearances, matter is not the fundamental source of the physical realm. Science has demonstrated clearly that energy is required for mater to come into existence, while a vacuum-potentiality is required for energy to emerge.

So, it can be said that both idealism and materialism arise from some sort of super-nothingness. Idealism suggests an infinite consciousness manifesting as if vacuous matter was the source of its own being. Materialism, meanwhile, is a 19th century concept reflecting definite ideas about a hard reality that has been subsequently dissolved by modern physics.

As “nothingness” lies at the heart of both idealism and materialism it is reasonable to begin with that as the underlying ground of reality. Indeed, a “fecund void” becomes the source of everything, the prerequisite of both mind and matter, and consistent with the understanding of quantum physics.

Why does nothing, that is “nothing-with-potential”, bring something into being? Because if it didn’t, that potential would, by definition, be non-existence which for obvious reasons can’t exist: the circularity of this argument is unavoidable because undifferentiated potential cannot come into being if nothing exists, yet as the source of all existence, neither is it non-being.

What there is, is a state of continuous becoming, the infinite is the source of the finite, indeed, exists through the finite. This is the universal dialectic, the objective realised through the subjective. The world is not an illusion, a mental construct, nor is it a hard unchanging reality, but a constantly arising limited expression of limitless potentiality.

Crucially, the two dialectical poles of infinite and finite are aspects of a single reality that can only be perceived as a dualism. There is no ultimate reality transcending the mundane: the mundane and the transcendent are both elements of a single reality, the universal dialectic.

The universal dialectic is an expression of the principle of creativity, of how existence becomes, how nature works. As unity appears as duality there arises a contradiction in nature, producing complimentary opposites interacting with each other, ceaselessly producing new syntheses.

This results in progressive creation, a naturalistic teleology of which evolution is an example. All things possess within them pairings of opposites and exist in a milieu of contending opposites. These are the creative forces acting and reacting, to shape and change, within the universal context of one reality.

There is a strand of deism, panendeism (a word coined by Larry Copling in 2000, literally meaning, “all in God”), that considers the universe to be an element of God, but not all of God. This obviously corresponds with the finite being one with the infinite, but patently not all the infinite.

By way of analogy, an organism is an assemblage of semi-autonomous individual cells and is a semi-autonomous individual in its own right. As an organism it amounts to rather more than just being the sum total of its cells. Similarly, God is every particle of the universe, while simultaneously transcending it.

While an individual cell might be “aware” of being part of something larger, it cannot comprehend the organism of which it is a component. Similarly, an organism, man for instance, can appreciate being a finite expression of infinite potential, part of its self-realisation, but remains incapable of truly apprehending it.

Deists, and panendeists, refer to this as God, or Deus; or some other word with non-religious connotations could be coined if preferred. It serves as the X in a cosmic equation to which there is no final solution, the answer constantly recurring, otherwise the potential would not be infinite.

For a deist/panendeist infinite potential arising out of nothingness is the divine process. This is not to introduce a supreme being as the manufacturer of that potential. Indeed, deists understand only too well that the concept of God is fraught with cultural accretions and difficulties. That is why God in deism is ineffable; definitely not to be thought of anthropomorphically.

Deism/panendeism is a human construct for contemplating and celebrating the awe inspiring nature of reality, and the reality of nature. Universal dialectic gives some inkling as to how whatever is came about and that it is transitory. Materialists and idealists do not have to shed cherished conceits, though they might appreciate they hold to only half the story.

Words, like all aspects of reality are finite and though, therefore, they are of the infinite they cannot encompass it. So the word “God” is bound to be inadequate, acceptable to some as an indication, a way of talking about something that’s beyond any language. Those for whom “God” is anathema find other verbal signs to point towards an ever receding concept that can never quite be grasped.

(Source: “Dialectical Monism” by Naturyl, http://naturyl.humanists.net/diamon.html )

Marcus Aurelius and Deism

It could be anachronistic to claim a Roman emperor of the 2nd century as a deist, although there are traits in ancient Greek thought at least analogous to deism. The test is whether or not a writer in antiquity has anything to contribute to modern thinking in general and, in this case, deism in particular.

Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher of the stoic school. His surviving writings, what have come to be known as his meditations were addressed, in true philosophical style, to himself. This is important as he was exploring his own thinking in relation to stoicism and not concerned with winning either arguments or converts.

Deists draw their inspiration from observing nature and applying reason to their experience. Aurelius wrote, “Go straight on where nature leads you, both Universal Nature, through what happens to you, and your own nature in terms of how you should act.”*

Clearly he saw a larger universal principle manifested in the individual, which can hardly be contentious as a person must be entirely a product of the universe. Working from that he concluded,
“All things are linked with one another, and this oneness is sacred; there is nothing that is not interconnected with everything else.”

This is the essence of the sacred, a principle recognised and ritualised by religion. Take the Christian Eucharist, for example, whatever grandiose claims are made for it by various denominational practitioners; it is essentially the (Christian) community coming together to symbolically share in the divine. Similar examples can be identified in other religions.

Secularists also gather together to share a sense of their community; it is a human trait reflecting at least a tacit recognition of the ultimate oneness of everything. After all, creation is referred to as a universe: even the theoretical positing of a multiverse is actually an unspecified number of universes.

Aurelius recognised a higher power immanent in creation. “Universal Reason, which governs everything, knows its own characteristics, and what it creates, and the material on which it works.”

That the universe is a reasonable place, that is, it is susceptible to reason, operating according to discernable laws must, at the very least indicate the concept of Universal Reason as being of itself reasonable. However, this is not to suggest an anthropomorphic god in another guise.

When he wrote, “Universal Nature felt an impulse to create the universe. And now everything that comes into being follows as a natural consequence.” he was expressing an attitude, a way of looking at creation, not defining a precise methodology.

Even when he seemed to be referring to the Gods Aurelius kept man’s way of relating to the universe in mind. “Those who live with the gods… constantly follow the dictates of their spirit, the same spirit that Zeus has given to each one of us as a guardian and guide. And this spirit is our mind and reason.”

Whether or not he literally believed in Zeus and the gods is at best a moot point. It has to be remembered the prevailing religious context in which he was writing. He certainly identified “mind and reason” as the guardian and guide for a person.

There is, of course, a great deal more to the writings of Marcus Aurelius than is hinted at here. As a stoic he mused on a wide variety of topics as they related to how humans could, and perhaps should, live their lives. Or at least, how he should live his own life.

Were there contradictions? Certainly! He wrote, “Hatred, war, disorder, illness, and slavery, will wipe out these sacred principles of yours.” Here is the recognition that even cherished ideas are compromised by life. After all, he was an emperor pursuing the ideal of the simple life of moderation.

For a deist there is much to contemplate in his writings, always remembering he was addressing himself and not prescribing for others. Aurelius is part of the human tradition of looking at the universe and drawing reasonable conclusions that are not, cannot, be definitive. And a good thing to, otherwise inquiry would have to cease at that point.

A common criticism of religion by secularists is that any belief in god is merely hanging on to a comforter in what is actually a universe unaware of human presence, let alone caring for it.

There is an argument such thinking ignores, the fact that as humans are an integral feature of the universe and are aware of it, then it is actually aware of itself in general and humans in particular. Sentience must be a characteristic of the universe otherwise human beings, or any life form, could not exist presuming developing awareness is a feature of life.

Not that this should be taken to mean the Divine or Universal Nature or Providence, another term Aurelius used in this context, is a benign super-human being. Man’s concerns are subjective and often projected, by way of religion, on to a god who has singled humanity out for special treatment.

Aurelius did not subscribe to such a partial view as the following illustrates graphically. “ ‘When a mother kisses her child,’ said Epictetus, ‘she should whisper to herself, “Tomorrow you might be dead.”’
‘Ominous words.’ They told him.
‘No word is ominous,’ said Epictetus, ‘which expresses a work of Nature; if this is the truth, it is also ominous to speak of the gathering of the corn.’”

These are not words of easy comfort, but a recognition that Universal Nature does not work to please humanity. People celebrate what they enjoy, such as harvest festivals marking the beneficent gathering of corn. However, death is as much a part of that Nature as life.
Stoics counsel against the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake and the frantic avoidance of pain. Both are necessary features and it is the dialectical interplay of the two that sentient creatures have to come to terms with.

Deists recognise the working of Universal Nature and celebrate it without any expectation they will receive some divine bounty in return. Rather, there is recognition that the divine is far greater than our understanding can encompass. The best people can do is to continue to wonder and speculate, moderated by reason and experience. Perhaps deism is better understood as a philosophy than a religion.

To become a sage, a philosopher (in the non-professional, seeker after wisdom sense) is the aim. “For what can be more pleasant than wisdom itself, when you consider the safety and contentment of everything which relies on your mind’s understanding and knowledge.”

All references are taken from, “The Spiritual Teachings of Marcus Aurelius.” Compiled by Mark Forstater, Hodder & Stoughton, 2000.
Page references in order: 125, 124, 126, 153, 117, 174, 164 97.

Differing Deisms

All ideologies, religious and secular, have their internal differences. Christianity, for example, has the three major divisions, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant. Taking the latter, it sub-divides into Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers and others. Within each of these further divergences can be identified.

The same is true of politics for instance. The British parliament boasts three main parties and representatives from a number of others. Take any of those parties and within it a variety of views will be found, coalescing around official or semi-official groupings.

This is perfectly natural as it is the way ideas contest and prove themselves or change or become discarded. All positions, no matter how formidable they may seem for a time, are provisional, influenced by changing times, events and advancing knowledge.

Unfortunately, problems arise when a particular ideology becomes so dominant it considers all opposition as heresy requiring the apparatus of repression. This engenders bitter opposition often resulting in violence: the bloody history of the Reformation being but one example of this tendency. An agreement to differ is not only more civilised, it opens up possibilities for the exploration and formulation of new thinking.

Just as Christians of whatever stripe have fundamentals on which they agree, so it is with Deists. Deism is usually broadly defined as belief in God founded on Reason, Experience and Nature (of the universe). However, this does not imply all deists are alike in their thinking.

There is a variety of deist positions, some of them being:
• Monodeism – The universe was created by a single god that does not intervene in human affairs. Instead, God observes the universe, and therefore people as a sentient element, and its development in the way of an impartial scientist.
• Polydeism – Rather than the creation of one god, the universe is the product of various gods, each responsible for creating a different part, which is why there isn’t a single god taking an interest in the universe as a whole.
• Pandeism – God is the universe and the universe is God. Not only did God create the universe the divine pervades every aspect of it, living and non-living. This does not imply God takes a personal interest in human affairs, but that the whole universe is the extension of God.
• Panendeism – The universe is only a part of God, the divine power extending way beyond physical limitations. The philosopher Immanuel Kant insisted the power of omnipotent being cannot be limited, and allows for the idea of some cosmologists of the existence of multi-verses.
• Process Deism – God, like the universe, is subject to change. Not omnipotent, but omnipresent, God is eternal and experiences the passage of time. For people who also change over time, their lives can be validated by sharing this experience of God.
• Christian Deism – Interprets the teachings of Jesus in a Deist way while rejecting supernatural elements or that Jesus is the Son of God in a literal sense, other than as all people are ultimately the sons and daughters of God.
• Philosophical Deism – Draws on a broad range of religious and philosophical sources for deist ideas, while discounting as myths all suggestions of miracles.
• Scientific Deism – Scientific precepts and methodologies have pre-eminence, so any religious thinking must not be in contradiction with science. Particular reference is made to quantum physics as a demonstration of the strangeness of the universe.

These are some of the main strands of deism and there may well be others. There can be no definitive deism because God stands beyond human definition. Reason and experience applied to the nature of the universe is, for deists, suggestive of God, but by no means a proof.

Even what is meant by God is open to question, certainly not an anthropomorphic figure often suggested by religions. Language can only go so far to express what is little more than an inkling at best. Deism thus has much in common with Humanism that would not use the word “God”, but still express spiritual concepts drawn from the religion it grew.

Deism is not a proselytising religion, knocking on doors with the intention of securing converts. In its many forms it offers views of creation and suggests to those who are in some way in agreement that they also may be deists.

Those who are prepared to accept such a designation will, most likely, favour the form of deism that most closely accords with their thinking, or maybe prefer to be just deists, reflecting an implicit imprecision.

Difference for deists is a strength and should be embraced as an opportunity for keeping the conversation alive: reason and experience are not limited to a particular moment so there will always be room for new ideas and shared speculation.

Why God?

In a society where God is all too readily dismissed, especially by the cognoscenti (actual and aspiring), it has become almost a truism that secularism is in the process of finally vanquishing religion. The reaction of religious fundamentalists merely reinforces the notion of believers being little more than deluded or fanatics.

Those who style themselves deists may well be regarded as agnostics or even atheists who cannot quite bring themselves to let go of childhood or childish beliefs. Alternatively, they are accused by theists of believing in a God so remote from and inactive in creation as, to all intents and purposes, be non-existent.

Unsurprisingly, deists take a different view. Rather than an infantile clinging onto an outmode concept, the complexity and order they see in nature is indicative of the divine.

It has been said that to view the universe as a chance event, or series of chance events, is like exploding a bomb in a scrap yard, blowing junk randomly into the air and having it fall as a ready to fly jumbo jet.

Sitting in an aircraft at 40,000 feet reflect how it is we got there. That first Wright brothers’ flight, the string and paper bi and tri planes, the advances in aircraft building through two world wars and the eventual development of the jet engine.

Before all that there were hot air balloons and men in giant kites: the painful, often fatal attempts to leap from tall towers with wing contrivances proving ineffective. There is still silent film footage of bicycles also fitted with wings that never got off the ground.

Looking down on the earth so distant below the one thought that doesn’t occur is; I’m up here purely by accident. Indeed, at that height accidents are the least welcome episodes. Today’s aeroplanes are the product of a process of evolution during which failed versions didn’t survive, while each success contributed to the development of the next stage.

All this was achieved through a conscious process: if the history of flight was utterly unknown the most reasonable assumption on coming upon an aeroplane would be that it was the product of meaningful development, not just a fortunate accident.

Of course, this is flawed analogy, as all analogies are, and is not meant as a literal comparison with the development of the universe. The developers of aircraft are known directly and the process is wholly comprehensible to the human mind.

Not so creation, but there again that is on a scale human thinking has yet to fully grasp and may never do so. However, science has made tangible both the cosmic and sub-atomic realms of the universe, and has clearly identified evolution as the mode of development.

That science is able to do this means creation is rational otherwise it would not be susceptible to reason. There is chaos at work, it seems to operate as the dynamic for change, but it operates within the physical laws governing the cosmos. Referring to the analogy above, there were undoubtedly many accidents and chance discoveries along the way and they contributed to the overall aero-development. Human reason became cognisant of, and educated by, them.

Deists do not believe in an anthropomorphic God: there isn’t some celestial design office in which an old chap with a long beard as white as his gown, drawing up intricate plans for how His creation will be. God is ineffable: the creator/cause of what is, is not a person in any sense, of any gender.

The Roman Stoic emperor, Marcus Aurelius, often referred in his Meditations to Providence or the Natural Cause without any attempt to define either.

Unlike theistic religions, deists do not cast humans as the very image of God, not does God dispense favours or even choose humanity as favourites. Deism has reverence for life’s creator, regards the vastness of the universe with awe and seeks ways to approach the source of all.

Humans may not be as important or central to creation as sometimes we tend to think. But that we are, and imbued with consciousness, which at the very least proves the universe is self aware as we are conscious of it as an integral part of it, indicates there is rather more to creation than what we presently know.

And as there is creation, so a creator, God far beyond our powers of definition, yet God we can aspire to contemplate.

Are You A Deist?

The following series of statements suggest you may well be a deist if you agree with all, many or even some of them. They are reasonably common points of general agreement amongst deists, but are not prescriptive.

1. Belief in God, but without the authority of any church, mosque, synagogue, temple or other formal religious institution. All religions, including deism, are human constructions.
2. Belief that God is revealed in and through the universe. Nature is the deist’s gospel, not holy books or scriptures claimed to be transcriptions of the divine word, but actually authored by humans. Not that sacred writings have no value as they are reflections of human thinking on spiritual concerns. Considered poetically some can have profound things to say; it is when they are read literally and proclaimed the infallible proclamations of God they can become dangerous. The human impulse to power using God’s name is all too apparent in history and the contemporary world.
3. A willingness or even determination to contemplate and speculate as to what is meant by “God”, rather than simply accepting what others have said or taught. Language is an imprecise medium and for a three letter word “God” bears a vast linguistic and historical burden. Listen carefully to debates between theists and atheists; more often than not they are arguing over their own pre-definition of what they claim the other believes. Some deists choose to use the word “Deus” rather than “God”, which is just Latin for the same word, but without the immediate associations.
4. Concern that religion does not contradict science, but enthusiastically embraces it and its insights into the universe. If it’s thought, as deists most certainly do, that God is revealed through creation, then any investigation of the cosmos in its vastness or sub-atomic levels is to be welcomed wholeheartedly.
5. A common deist assertion is that through scientific investigation and the promulgation of nature’s laws there is indication of an intelligent designer. The problem with this is the association of intelligent design (ID) with creationism, that fundamentalist denial of evolution. This is most certainly not what deists believe and would be in opposition to point 4 above. It also suggests a cosmic design office where God, with a celestial CAD system, draws up detailed plans for the universe’s continuing development. Perhaps it would be better if ID stood for Immanent Design, an integral feature of creation allowing for the creative interplay between pre-destined elements, such as the DNA code, and chance.
6. God does not need to be repeatedly reminded how good and great (s)he is through prescribed hymns and prayers. An appreciation of the divine through personal prayer, contemplation, poetry, music or whatever suits the individual is a recognition of, and engagement with, the ineffable. It is an acceptance there is something worthy of consideration that’s greater than humanity.
7. While deism does not have consecrated ground or buildings and deists tend to meditate alone, there is absolutely no reason why deists should not come together in communion. Not the Eucharist, but a sharing of ideas, spiritual practices and mutual support.
8. It may well be a deist does not consider him or her self as being religious. Some may prefer to be described as spiritual, although that has become a much overworked word in recent years, or philosophical, a seeker and lover of wisdom. In a secular society more and more people deny they are religious while still claiming, however vaguely, to believe “…there is something behind all this”, a statement often accompanied with a sweep of the arm to indicate the world.
9. Morality is patently relative and changes, sometimes dramatically, over time. However, a sense of right and wrong seems pervasive in the human condition. So it is the interaction of conscience and circumstance that determines what is acceptable at any given historical moment. Conscience is the guide, not a deontology prescribed by some ancient scripture purporting to be God’s commandments.
10. Religion, or the lack of it, is a personal issue and a person’s beliefs should be respected as long as they are not being imposed on others. This does not mean they are beyond criticism or that anyone is privileged by what they believe. The separation of church (or whatever religious institution) and state is preferable.

Alexander Pope: A Deist Essay on Man*

In 1734 Alexander Pope published that last of four parts, epistles, which made up his Essay on Man. Written in heroic couplets this is a philosophical poem 1236 lines long intended to challenge the anthropocentric world-view. It also opposes the then prevalent Christian view of Man having been redeemed through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. Pope’s view is that whatever the circumstances humanity must seek its own salvation.

Pope accepted that the universe can appear complex, perverse, ultimately inscrutable and yet it functions according to identifiable natural laws: it is rational and can be understood rationally, at least in part. What seem to people to be imperfect or even downright evil this is a measure of Man’s partiality, the result of a necessarily limited intellectual capacity and viewpoint.

However, despite the creation being confusing and chaotic at times it is, nonetheless, divinely ordered. God is the nub around which the universe is structured according to laws that must be reasonable as they are susceptible to reason. Yet whatever the advances of human investigation Man’s intelligence is finite, limited in scope as to what can be understood and leading always to provisional truths.

Through experience humanity is aware of its own existence and the products it is responsible for. This is the basis for the moral order, the striving for the good whatever the circumstances and, therefore, the ability to judge the bad.

A poem of such length cannot be adequately considered in a brief blog posting, rather the first 30 lines of the second Epistle must serve as a limited illustration of the whole, in itself a deist metaphor. This exemplar has been chosen for its first two lines being probably the most widely known couplet in the poem

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
(1-2)

In the first line is a significant deist statement; that while God can be perceived God can never be entirely known or understood: better then for humans to concentrate on the ancient adage, “know thy self”. Pope emphasises the primacy of self knowledge as opposed to two extremes of not giving any real consideration to man and the universe or claiming ultimate knowledge, perhaps through divine revelation.

Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
(11-12)

Humanity is caught in the middle between knowing and not knowing. However great the intellectual and technological advances Man can never know what is not known and perhaps lies beyond human knowing if not speculation.

Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus’d;
Still by himself abused, or disabus’d;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet prey to all;
Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl’d:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
(13-18)

In line 18 Pope sums up his view of the human condition; the equal potential for greatness and stupidity while there remain an enigma. However this does not, and indeed should not, impede the earnest quest for knowledge and understanding. It is what humanity does and is the difference between the human species and all other known life forms. Genetics may show there is not such a vast difference between a cabbage and a poet, yet the chain of being remains valid. Man is a consciously active agent in creation as no other species is, between, …a God, or Beast…(8)

In keeping with line 2, Pope encourages humanity to make the most of its potential for learning, thereby being a little closer to God than Beast.

Go, wond’rous creature! mount where Science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun;
(19-22)

These four lines are indicative of the optimistic philosophy of the 18th century, a time when the Enlightenment would displace the ignorance and superstitions of former times. The old certainties of religion would be challenged, God and gods denied, and deism would develop as the rational expression of religion of those who continued to see through their experience of the world a divine “hand” behind it.

Through lines 23 to 28 Pope encouraged the appreciation of philosophy: Go, soar with Plato to th’ empyreal sphere…(23) and those thinkers who came after, Or tread the mazy round his follow’rs trod…(25). He recognised the mazy round of contending ideas and those of more distant cultures, As Eastern priests in giddy circles run…(27). Whatever the intellectual vehicle, humanity strives to understand.

As a deist, Pope was sure humanity could apply reason based on experience to learn about both God and Nature. If the contemplation of the divine was the province of religion, then God’s universe, Nature, was science’s territory. However, he was aware of hubris, that science provides Man with a power that deceives: it is all too easy for humans to convince themselves they are imitating or even displacing God. Better a self awareness of how little is known whatever progress science makes.

Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule –
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!
(29-30)

*All quotations from An Essay on Man, Epistle 2, the Twickenham Text.
“The Poems of Alexander Pope” Edited by John Butt,
Methuen &Co. Ltd. 1963