Accommodation

 

A scientist and science broadcaster recently said on the radio that although he wasn’t a religious believer, he thought of himself as an accommodationist. He went on to explain that he is content to accommodate the views of others running counter to his own. He’s not, in other words an atheist fundamentalist for whom any taint of belief is heresy.

This is refreshing in a world where far too often people are publicly derided, persecuted and even executed for daring to even mildly challenge orthodoxy. Even in societies professing to be liberal there is a simmering intolerance.

Making the effort to try and at least appreciate contrary views appears to be too great for many. Those so committed to their religion they perceive any disagreement as a defiance of God and the truth are mirrored by atheists who absolutely insist that God is a deception perpetrated by the self-deluded or outright liars.

Even when such standpoints are not openly elucidated, those utterly convinced by their own viewpoints are unable to tolerate seriously any contradiction.

Deism, however, accepts nothing as being certain. Even the existence of God or what “God” means is up for debate. Reason that brings the deist to the conclusion that there is something way beyond human comprehension that can be referred to as God or Deus, recognises this cannot be a settled issue.

Indeed, it is possible that Deism is a staging post to a view transcending both religion and irreligion. After all it’s beyond possibility that Deism is the final word in this sphere. Deists must be open to questioning and committed to questioning. It is a religious and philosophical accommodation with many rooms.

Arguing with Atheism

 

The easiest way of winning an argument is to concoct a premise flawed in its own terms and then demonstrate the superiority of its contrary position by comprehensively demolishing it. Such is often the method employed by atheists

For example, everything must have a cause, therefore the cause of everything is God. At least this is the atheist summary of the religious position. The cutting counter is then primed: if indeed all things have a cause, this has also to be true of God.

Therefore, God cannot act as the ultimate backstop to infinite regression and so the religious position is demonstrably unsustained. However, the atheist premise is at fault. God cannot be simply just one more component in the collection of components that constitute creation. Otherwise, that is not God.

God has to have a categorical difference from all else that exists, to be an element unconditioned by anything external to itself. Without such a concept we are left with a universe that wasn’t, there being literally nothing, which then produced itself and all that is in it, including the laws by which it operates.

There are attempts to mitigate nothingness with electrical, quantum or fluctuating fields in various guises, but then such is not nothing. Nothing is precisely that, no thing of any sort however tenuous or insubstantial.

What deists understand is that we don’t understand the nature of God. Deists are insistent that God is not some larger scale human and God’s existence can be inferred even while being beyond comprehension.

The God whose death is repeatedly announced by atheists would indeed be subject to dying by being very human. Such a God does figure in the simplified religions of the credulous, But we are capable of a much more sophisticated appreciation than that.

In a sense, deists are atheists in that they have moved away from the Abrahamic creeds of theism in its various forms, based on revelation and scripture, to embrace personal experience of creation illuminated by reason.

It just that deists are atheists who argue for God.

 

Attending To God

 

A recent Church of England report revealed that regular church attendance presently stands at 1.8% of the population. It went on to project that this would fall over the next decade to about 1%. The decline, it appears is inexorable.

No doubt secularists greeted this news as confirmation that religion has all but been vanquished, that we all now live in the Kingdom of Godlessness. Of course, it means nothing of the sort. What it does reflect is a diversity of views and an unwillingness to be martialled into any particular camp.

There can be no presumption that the corollary of the report’s findings is that 98.2% of the population are atheists or agnostics. Apart from members of other denominations and faiths, perhaps the majority of people rarely even give the matter much thought.

When they do it seems many profess a vague, inchoate sense that “there is something” or the order they see in the world around them can’t be the result of mere chance. Nothing more definite than that. A recognition they are part of something far greater than themselves, only there’s no need to go into some designated building every Sunday to sing about it.

Atheism has a fundamental problem most atheists seem to solve by denying it. That is, in a random, purposeless universe the only rational position is that of the nihilist. An assertion that Godless humans can find their own purpose, through existentialism or whatever, is to accept, at the very least, purposefulness does exist in creation.

After all, people are a part of that creation and are expressions of purpose. It is a similar realisation that the universe is self-aware: it must be, because we humans are aware of the universe, at the very least we are the universe’s self-consciousness.

Although atheism presents itself as a modern way of thinking, it is actually as ancient as religious belief. The per-Socratic philosophers were intellectually wrestling with the implications of materialism even as the chosen people of Israel were developing the early foundations of what have become the three Abrahamic faiths.

Deism is a dialectical product all the contending factors around belief and disbelief, informed by science. Like all religions it is man-made and, as such, has its own imperfections and contradictions. It does not claim to offer prefect answers, because they don’t exist.

Indeed, it may not even be a religion but a philosophy. It has no dogma or creed demanding obedience, rather the opposite, imposing on the individual the burden of drawing his or her own conclusions.

Deists cannot even say what God, or Deus, is. Not only is there no settled agreement amongst deists, there is a shared recognition that God must be, and remain, beyond human comprehension. Otherwise, God is little more than an idealised, but limited, human being at best, such as the God of the Abrahamic faiths.

Maybe the word God will eventually fall into disuse and some other arise to denote a less anthropomorphic designation. If so, it seems unlikely it will require the filling of pews on a Sunday.

Certainty

 

Are there intelligent beings, perhaps far more advanced than us, on other worlds scattered through the vastness of the universe? It is possible to construct reasoned arguments to support both positive and negative answers to this question. The one thing that cannot be stated categorically one way or the other is absolute certainty.

Certainty can be a dangerous concept, too often founded on an absolutist partial view. To be certain is to accept no contradiction, all contrary views must be summarily dismissed as erroneous.

Is there God? In Britain it has become the prevailing trend amongst those who would consider themselves to be most progressive and rational in their thinking to become unholier than thou. God of the gaps has become no gap for God.

Non-belief in God is perfectly rational, a reasoned conclusion drawn from some combination of scientific understanding with all too many execrable examples of religious dogmatism or malpractice.

Atheism, though, does not confer secular sainthood on its adherents. Atheists are as capable of all the foibles that too often are considered the failings of the religious. The uncomfortable truth is that such failings, from the trivial to the horrendous, are human, not God’s.

God is often cited to justify truly terrible acts committed by those claiming to be His most pious adherents. Whether they sincerely believe this or not their justification is a human falsehood, the crimes are theirs.

This is also the case for religious practices and books. They are human productions, not divinely ordained. Therefore they cannot be cited to justify persecution of those considered non-believers or claim a monopoly on truth.

Atheists who readily cite such religious malfeasance are conniving at the pious fallacy. False belief remains just that whether dressed in religious garb or sporting a secular appearance. Both are guilty of closed thinking if they profess absolute certainty in their ideology.

Deism begins with the view that all ideologies, religious or secular, are manmade, including its own. Therefore, an ideology at any given moment is provisional and will change over time, and may be supplanted at some future date when it has been falsified by new understandings.

The argument for God or Deus that deists profess is based on the application of human reason. Science provides an expanding knowledge of the universe, which is only possible because it operates according to discernible laws.

If creation was the product of just random chance then there would only be chaos, certainly none of the predictability science requires to function. Deists argue that universal laws rather than chaos are at the very least suggestive of something that can be referred to as God or Deus or First Cause or perhaps even X.

This is not certain, but it is a recognition that the age old belief in deity, expressed in such varied ways over millennia, is perhaps an a priori feature of human cognition. That it gets bound up in sectarian religious practices is a reflection of a desire for certainty about something which is ultimately beyond human comprehension.

It is far, far more likely that the existence or otherwise of extra-terrestrial advanced beings will at some point be possible than some absolute proof of God. However, inquiry should not be dismissed or even curtailed by a present insistence on an absolute certainty.

Pandeism

Introduction

 

“Why Pandeism is Better than Theism: an Essay” by K.M. is posted on www.koilas.org. This is the basis of what follows, a series of pieces on the subject of pandeism that not only précis K.M.’s exposition, but also reflect on it.

 

Part 1 – Defining Terms

 

Princeton University’s ‘WordNet’ dictionary is cited for a definition. Pandeism is “…the belief that God created the universe and its phenomena by becoming the universe, thereafter the sole manifestation of God.”

This is supported by the Encyclopedia Britannica. “Pandeism…attempted to unite aspects of Deism with pantheism, (and) held that through the act of creation God became the universe. There is thus no theological need to posit any special relationship between God and creation; rather, God is the universe and not a transcendent entity which created and subsequently governs it.”

Both these definitions, largely in agreement, indicate a polar opposite to the supernatural, anthropomorphic depictions of God propounded by most religions, especially the three Abrahamic ones. God cannot be supernatural, above or beyond nature, because God has become and is nature, all of it.

This also means that every aspect of the universe is a part manifestation of God. Patently, every particle, system and galaxy is an element of the universe as a whole, so if the universe is the total manifestation of God, then any individual feature of the universe must be a feature of God.

To claim pandeism as being better than theism may appear to be positing a moral superiority. However, the use of ‘better’ in this context is to state that pandeism provides a more suitably logical explanation of the relationship between creator and creation, being on and the same, than transcendent model favoured by theism.

Pandeism also counters the tendency towards human self-promotion with theism suggesting humanity has some special place in creation, or has a more significant role or destiny – Man being the image of God.

Ironically, atheism suffers from the same tendency to human self-promotion in its opposition to theism. Essentially, whether stated as such or not, atheism total denial of God implies that as far as is known Man is the most intelligent, the superior form, in the universe.

Theism encourages, wilfully or not, people to embrace what is comforting over what can be shown to be true. This can lead to ideas conflicting with science or bending of supposed divine principles to make them comply with science. Pandeism does neither of these, indeed it embraces science as presently our best way to insights into the workings of the universe, and therefore by God.

Does God Exist?

 

This question is considered by many philosophers to be one of the irresolvable conundrums. Essentially, it cannot be known absolutely whether God exists or not. Indeed, philosophically, the proper position to take may be agnosticism.

However, religion has played a significant role in human life to date, being manifested in a variety of ways. Today, atheism is widely considered to be the smart position to hold, with many claiming it to be superior to belief.

Faith is mocked as staunch belief in an entity for which there isn’t a shred of evidence: worse, it is akin to advocating the existence of fairies or Santa Claus. Here though there is a category error: fairies and Santa Claus demonstrably belong in the realm of childhood and most people, adults and children, know what they are and look like.

This is not true of God. Islam rejects any possibility of representing Allah and Judaism used Yahweh to signify God, originally not a name, rather an unpronounceable collection of letters. Christianity has given God a human face in Christ, but even then that is only an aspect of God who is ineffably greater.

The point is that while atheists could be correct, there is no objective way of establishing the case one way or the other, it is as much a belief system as theism, both being faiths profoundly held. It often seems the God atheists vehemently do not believe in is not a God theists do.

Agnostics draw a perfectly reasonable conclusion by recognising that neither contrary position can be verified. However, this does not prevent people from drawing another reasonable conclusion from their own observations and experiences.

The universe, possibly a multiverse, is a dynamic system operating by comprehensible laws. While chance does play its part, the cosmos is not just an agglomeration of random events. Is there purpose in creation? Human beings know there is at least purpose in their own lives, therefore purpose can be shown to be a factor.

This leads some to posit a Prime Mover or Grand Designer, which is not to suggest some human-like being on a grander scale. Both phrases can be picked apart if they’re taken literally, but accepting the limitations of language to describe what may always lie beyond human comprehension, they can be used indicatively.

Deism adopts this provisional position, provisional because it cannot be absolute and desist make no such claim to infallibility. They may also prefer the Latin Deus to the Greek Theas, to differentiate themselves from previous considerations and speculations about the divine.

So, does God exist? For deists, Deus does.

 

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.

Proud Man

Being an apostle of Pyrron
A certain man must insist
Religion is quite redundant,
God can safely be dismissed.

Faith is so terribly passé,
What can’t be proved isn’t there,
Those deluded who say otherwise,
Well, they haven’t got a payer.

All the wars and atrocities
To which religions incline,
Man can manage perfectly well
Without needing the divine.

Pity feeble-minded believers,
Let churches crumble and fall,
Gather scriptures up and burn them,
For atheists know it all.

Celebrate mankind’s accession,
With God dethroned it must be
Man is now the supreme being,
The universe’s apogee.

For the self-proclaimed free thinker,
It comes as a great relief
To be so certain he believes
He’s not blinded by belief.

The Problem with God

Census data and other surveys indicate a declining propensity for people to associate themselves with a belief in God. Certainly, with a few exceptions, this is reflected in declining church attendance.

While the supernatural remains a popular form of entertainment, few regard it as an actual feature of life. Even at quasi-religious occasions such as church conducted funerals, how many really believe in the angels and archangels intoned by the prelate?

Religion plays at best a marginal role in most people’s lives and those who persist in professing a faith it is questionable how many of them seriously reflect on what it is they claim to believe.

Are they aware of the many contradictions and inconsistencies contained in the bible? Do they know that what they accept as the word of God is very much a human construct, a selective assemblage brought about at the behest of the Roman emperor Constantine?

Even the divinity of Christ was finally decided upon centuries after His time. Most of the accepted narrative of Jesus’ life story is a reworking of elements drawn from a number of previous sources such as classical mystery religions and the religious traditions of ancient Egypt.

For deists, not only is all this not a difficulty for people, but an opportunity for believers and non-believers alike. No longer can anything be regarded as literally the gospel truth.

Nor is there any requirement for anyone to declare them self steadfastly atheist. The very word, atheism, indicates opposition to theism, the belief in whatever form of denomination, in the biblical God. Deists, in that sense, are atheists.

Deism makes no appeal to scriptures of any kind, regarding all supposedly holy books and texts as very much the word concocted by Man. Nor is there recourse to the supernatural: the universe in all its aspects, however strange or awe inspiring, is natural.

Deists might accept the supranatural; that God transcends or is beyond the universe in ways exceeding human comprehension. For all practical purposes, however, the concept of God is an extrapolation from what humanity can comprehend: that there is a creation functioning according to discernable laws in which consciousness and intelligence are integral features.

This is in no sense a suggestion of an anthropomorphic super being, motivated by anger, jealousy, or love depending on pious point of view, who manipulates His creation according to His whim.

Some deists prefer to use the Latin “Deus” rather than “God” because of the entrenched associations of the latter word. Language is inadequate in that it cannot formulate a precise word or phrase to accurately encapsulate what is ultimately beyond human comprehension.

This is not some verbal sleight of hand. There are intimations of deliberation in nature; even what was until recently considered by physicists as the chaos of the sub-atomic is beginning to yield to understanding.

Reason and experience are the watchwords for deists who make no claim to having a definitive view or explanation. Science is embraced for offering insights and expanding understanding, revealing the universe to a marvellous creation. Deism makes the logical claim that creation is suggestive of a creator.

When pressed, people who claim no religious affinity will admit to seeing a pattern in nature, in their lives. Even atheists are usually loath to declare their lives purposeless. Deism offers the possibility of Deus without any requirement for religious observance.

Indeed, it’s possible to be a deist and deny being religious, accepting deism as a philosophy. This might actually become the most tenable position, with deism eventually transcending religion while meeting spiritual needs, however vaguely these manifest themselves.

It is also likely that deism itself will eventually be superseded by enlightened thinking going beyond present levels of understanding. Even then, deism will have been a valuable contribution to human development, just as theism and atheism served their purposes in the past.

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.