Divining God

As church congregations continue to dwindle, triumphalist atheism proudly struts across TV screens in the personas of media scientists and stand-up comedians displaying their aggressive cleverness. Anyone daring to profess a belief in God must be prepared to be patronised at best or vilified as an anachronistic reactionary.

But for all it is garbed in modern fashion the arguments between theists and atheists would be better dressed in eighteenth century attire. It was during the Enlightenment, with the emergence of science as a significant force, that religion spawned its own nemesis, the sceptics, the free thinkers.

By the early nineteenth century militant atheism had become significant, typified by Ludwig Feuerbach who gathered a following for this position. His was a rejection of God, specifically the Christian God, on the grounds a recourse to the divine is to project the human onto some notion of the transcendent.

In other words, humanity has its worldly, historical and social content extracted and then moulded into a personification beyond this world in the idealised form of God.

Theists, meanwhile, maintained a fideistic theology, insisting on an absolute requirement for faith. For them, God existed beyond human comprehension, denying any possibility of rational justification.

However, as the century advanced so did thinking in this field. Karl Marx, often mistakenly identified with Feuerbachian atheism, rejected both Christian theism and the atheism of Feuerbach. He insisted each was equally replicating antithetically identical essentialist and abstract accounts of the sacred and the secular.

For Marx, humanity and nature exist for each other and people have become consciously aware of this. The idea there is a being existing above humanity and nature, with the consequent implication of the unreality of humanity and nature, has become practically impossible.

Therefore, the denial of such unreality, atheism, has become obsolete. Atheism negates God to assert humanity’s existence. But, such negation is no longer required as the positive self-consciousness of humanity has moved beyond the abolition of religion.

As an aside, it is interesting to note that subsequent regimes claiming the title Communist acted against religion, in the case of Albania outlawing it altogether, thus proving them Feuerbachian, not Marxist as they claimed, at least in this respect.

Effectively Marx moved the argument beyond the disputants of theism and atheism. Religion, specifically the Christian religion and by extension the other two Judao-religions, or its absence was rendered irrelevant.

Deism as a coherent and identifiable strand of thought also arose during the eighteenth century Enlightenment, emerging as a reaction to the clash between existing Christianity in its various denominations and atheism as a product of the emerging sciences. It was a strand of free thinking in its own right.

While Marx cannot be claimed as a Deist, his analysis can be drawn on by Deism in its rejection of both theism and atheism. The conclusion drawn, however, is markedly different from that of Marx.

Deists embrace rather than reject the concept of God, but in doing so they most certainly do not deny the reality of this world. In that sense they are as philosophically materialist as Marx. Nature is fundamental to Deism, its starting point, sometimes referred to as the one and only true gospel.

Deism is an apophatic philosophy recognising that what is referred to as God is actually beyond language to express. Many Deists prefer the term Deus to differentiate from theistic implications of using “God”. Perhaps it might be preferable to have no word at all, except that would make having any sort of conversation impossible.

Unlike fideistic theology, which also recognises the ineffability of God while rejecting any possibility of rational justification of their belief, Deists begin from a standpoint of using reason to identify in nature the consequences of God while accepting the divine is beyond the limitations of human comprehension.

Intelligent Design (ID) is often pressed into service at this point, but that has unfortunate associations with anti-scientific fundamentalist creationism. Perhaps it might be better for Deists if ID were to stand for Immanent Design, design integral to creation.

God or Deus signifies the source, the prime mover, the primal cause of all there is. Not a supernatural being or glorified superior humanoid dispensing favours on the faithful, visiting wrath upon the sinners. For Deists God is the X in the cosmic equation humanity is not equipped to solve.

That there is consciousness and intelligence in the universe is indisputable, humanity is both the evidence and witness to this. Reason leads Deists to the conclusion that such features play a crucial role in there being a universe at all let alone one that manifests those very features. It is how they divine God.

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.

Deism- A Few Thoughts

It seems society is becoming more secular. Not as a consequence of widespread atheism necessarily, more a general lack of engagement with religion. It simply does not figure much in people’s lives. If pushed many people respond with phrases like, “I suppose there must be something…” or “I don’t think there is one…” to whether there is or is not a God.

To take the latter one first: it appears the God they vaguely dismiss is an anthropomorphic figure dispensing or withholding goodies like some peevish children’s conjurer. Church, in its many manifestations, has no appeal for them except, perhaps, for weddings, baptisms and funerals. Even then, like the drunks rolling into the Christmas midnight mass, it’s more a matter of form rather than belief.

Those who admit to a tenuous belief in the possibility of God do not necessarily allow it to impinge on their lives. Again, they might attend church for occasions, but could not imagine it playing a significant role in their lives.

Beyond each of these indefinite positions are the ideologues. On one side the increasingly assertive unbelievers, the atheists militant. So certain of their absolute correctness not an iota of compromise with, or consideration of, any contrary view can be tolerated. God is dead and these are his grinning assassins.

Their counter parts on the opposing wing are the evangelists who are utterly convinced they alone are arbiters of truth. God is not only alive, but has chosen them for salvation while consigning everyone else to eternal damnation.

These are, of course, broad statements that do not take into account shades of opinion that undoubtedly exist. Nonetheless, there are vastly greater numbers of people in shopping malls of a Sunday than are seated in pews. And agnosticism, if not outright atheism, is developing as a popular consensus.

Yet those who concede a suspicion there might be “something” indicate a belief, however vague, in God is not easily expunged. Even some of those more dismissive might well concede nebulous feelings of spirituality in certain circumstances. Perhaps the God pronounced deceased was never alive in the first place.

A man was approached by an evangelist and asked if he believed in God. He replied that recently he had taken an interest in the Quakers. The evangelist shook his head and sadly informed the man that Quakerism is not a religion, only a philosophy.

This anecdote actually happened and illustrates a way of thinking that acts as a carapace shielding the evangelist. Unfortunately, it also stops the evangelist breaking out. The man in question did pursue the Quaker path, but his philosophising led him to Deism instead.

The traditional churches, in their varied manifestations and whatever their differences, practice Theism. That is a belief in a personal God who interacts with each individual believer. This is the God who keeps a ledger, or might it be a spreadsheet these days, in which He records every person’s good and sinful deeds and thoughts for the final reckoning. A God whose favour can be solicited through prayer and worship, who sent His son into the world to redeem it through His own death and resurrection.

Quite simply, Deists do not believe such things. Deism posits an extrinsic God that cannot be known personally, but can be profoundly appreciated and honoured. There are no holy scriptures or revelations, no priesthood to dictate creeds or forms of worship.

Deism is based on nature, reason and experience: the order and design found in nature indicates a creative power suggestive of God. There are natural laws and the universe is best understood mathematically: even randomness expressed through chaos plays a positive role in the development of the cosmos. Design should not be taken to mean William Pally’s clockmaker, if no better reason than that would simply be an affirmation of an anthropomorphic God. The existence of a celestial architects office is not being suggested, rather divine design is integral to the fabric of existence.

Reason allows us to discern the laws and mathematics of creation and extrapolate an ineffable divine purpose. An abstract painting may appear to be a random and purposeless series of colourful splotches, but we know the artist had a purpose for creating it even if we can’t discern what it is.

Perhaps one way to ameliorate the often futile dispute between science and religion is to think of Deism as an aesthetic appreciation of creation. It would not make sense to ask scientists to prove the veracity of a poem, painting or symphony and yet truth is found in all these forms. And no one disputes the existence of poet, painter and composer.

Experience of life lived in the universe allows a person to develop a view for which there can be no absolute verification. If Divine being appears to be the most reasonable conclusion to be drawn from something that may well be beyond knowing in its entirety then Deism has its foundation.

The very least that can be stated is that the universe is self-aware: we know of its existence, but we do not stand apart from it, we are very much of it. So consciousness must be as an integral feature of creation as any other. Neither is design foreign to the cosmos as, at least in our little bit of it, humanity is an active design agent.

It’s possible the word God is a stumbling block due to its historical associations, which is why some Deists have adopted Deus, just to differentiate themselves from other religious usage.

Language is an imprecise tool and much argument arises from differences of definition rather than substance. However, it is all I have at my disposal to contemplate and promote Deism.

Why Deism?

There is dialectic between an evermore pervasive (and persuasive) materialism and an inner prompting insisting God is not to be so easily set aside. In a largely secular society dominated by science and technology, atheism can seem to be the obvious truth.

When ill I turn to medicine and not the relics of saints, for even though doctors may be a long way from a cure all, they are more efficacious than some crumbling canonised toe bone in a reliquary. Similarly, while I might rant against a seemingly pernicious universe when my car breaks down at the most inopportune moment, I know a mechanic is going to be of more use than a priest.

And yet, standing in an isolated stone circle out on the bleak Lake District fells, I’ve been in the presence of the ineffable; an intuitive feel for the sacred that is beyond the ideologies, temporal as well as spiritual, cast as infallible creeds by Man.

What I’ve come to understand is that atheism, rather than being the alternative to belief, is in fact another belief in itself. While perfectly credible to uphold scientific understanding is persuasive there is no God, such a position remains a belief. Neither science, nor any atheism emerging from it, can prove or disprove the existence of God.

The existence of God can be asserted or denied, but neither can be claimed as objective certainty. I rather suspect that what atheists deny is a straw God, stuffed with scriptural quotations selected out of context.

The weakness of much religious belief is its basic tenets often originated millennia ago. The only evidence offered for the veracity of those tenets is sacred scriptures, authenticated by being the actual word of the deity either delivered directly or mediated through angels. This leads to rigorous enforcement of holy writ; after all the very word of God must not be contradicted, so unquestioning belief is demanded.

These ideas become literally set in stone, be it Moses bringing tablets from the mountain, or the raising of magnificent cathedrals across Europe. This petrifying of faith transformed the Church into a political power reaching into heaven itself. I have long considered the promise of eternal life, offered only to those who accept faith in Christ, is actually a denial of faith, as the motivation is utterly self-centred.

Reason demands recognition of a religious impulse in Humanity. While forms of expression through which this impulse is realised changes historically, it nonetheless continues. Religions rise and fall, but religion perseveres.

It may well be the words “religion” and God” eventually become archaisms: that would merely be semantics. A new lexicon would surely evolve to express recognition of the sacred nature of nature. Or will Man dethrone God and install human being as the apogee of the universe?

No doubt we would like a God who is some sort of super Santa: if only we are good then we will be rewarded by getting what we want. And if there is some apparent oversight, some faithful soul suffering an awful and unjustified affliction, then prayers might just act as a reminder to the divine. The question has been posed, where was God in the Nazi death camps? A more apposite one would surely be, where was humanity?

Deism is inspiration rather than revelation, inspiration subjected to the discipline of reason rather than allowed to run wild and become fanciful. This is not to deny the importance of the mythic, as long as it is regarded as such and not some literal truth. Sacred writings may have an importance as a way of reflecting upon creation, as poetry does. No one asks if a poem is objectively true.

Even if it could be absolutely proved that no such person as Jesus ever existed the narrative remains valid as myth, a parable, with important things to say. Stories are referred to as fiction not lies, and are a way of addressing the human condition.

I like to go to church, though not when there’s a service on. As places of quiet reflection dedicated to spiritual pursuit they are, for me, sacred spaces. Such spaces are the creation of Man wherein the divine can be contemplated, not contained. It is a shared, agreed purpose, even if the expression of that purpose is not necessarily held in common.

It is perfectly reasonable for there to be space set aside for spiritual use, a function that goes beyond creed and doctrine. The stone circle serves just as well, as can, a bench in a modest garden beneath a night sky, star strewn or clouded, amidst soughing trees.

Deism should not be some dry, emotion denying belief pushing God so far away there’s no communion. As a deist I see the universe as is God’s unfolding creation and I’m part of it. Even if I’m talking to myself as I sit on that bench I am at least speaking with some small aspect of God.

Human religious and spiritual history cannot be simply declared false and written off. Deism offers the possibility of recognising the intrinsic worth of much in the various traditions around the world and a context where they can be developed and expanded upon to serve the religious needs of the future.

Whatever their profound differences, religions, including Deism, have the divine as their starting point. Deism is not a denial of what others believe; it is not even a single, coherent ideology in itself. Rather it is recognition of possibilities in a universe so vast and mysterious it is reasonable to be humble and recognise we, humanity, may not be the absolute acme of creation.