Deism and God

 

 The portrayal of God in the holy books of various revealed religions ranges from the wrathful to the insistence on turning the other cheek. What all these have in common is a God that is all too human, be it on a grand scale.

Deism differs profoundly by appreciating that God ultimately lies beyond our comprehension, so we are not in any position to ascribe a form. What God isn’t is a super being essentially like ourselves.

A certain quality of God is being eternal. This is an assumption, but a reasonable one, differentiating from the finite nature of the universe. There is a scientific notion supporting this view in that Einstein’s general theory of relativity suggests the possibility of there being parts within the universe that are void of time.

Rather than scripture of one sort or another, deists look to science as the best way humanity has of expanding our understanding of creation. For it is through studying creation we can discern some inkling of the Creator.

Deists also want to set aside anachronistic concepts relating to God. For example, God as a celestial king, and a rather despotic one, sitting on a throne in constant judgement over His vassals, humanity.

As our learning evolves, so must human religion, and religions are human creations, they are not ordained by God. In this deism is no different. It presently reflects a religious or philosophical view of current understanding.

Deism is likely, at some future point, to be superseded by a more advanced view taking into account new thinking. Although, not being hidebound by creeds, doctrines or supposed holy books, deism is open to adapt to new and developing ideas.

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.

Deism and Science

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Observations of a Deist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deist Epistle 1

It is no small task to become free from superstition. In infancy children are exposed to prevailing religious ideas. Often before they can comprehend such an the event, baptism is performed and they are inducted, however nominally, into a church.

It is not long before Christmas begins to inculcate some basic notions. Perhaps twinkling lights, glitter and presents are what fascinate the most, but angels, stables wise men and mangers also start to appear. Then there’s the central figure.

The baby Jesus is something a young child can relate to as being very like themselves, only extra-special in some ill-defined way. At nursery simple carols are learned and sung and then on into school and religious education.

Even children raised in secular households are not immune from such religious influence. Modern society, having arisen from Christendom, is infused with its ideas and values so they appear to be a natural part of even an atheist’s personal ideology.

Atheists tend to be those who have made a conscious effort to liberate themselves from outmoded religious concepts. The bible has proven to be not the infallible word of God, but the all too fallible tale telling of man.

Science split not only the atom, but also heaven wide open, revealing great mysteries though ones susceptible to human interrogation and comprehension. However influential culturally Christendom might remain, its cosmic monarch has been toppled as surely as Byzantium.

God is dead! Nietzsche wrote the obituary almost a century and a half ago, and yet religion refuses to emulate Judas by slinking away and quietly perishing. Certainly, with notable exceptions, pews continue to be polished more regularly by aging volunteers with dusters, rather than the bums of believers.

The recent census demonstrated a decreasing number who laid claim, however tenuously, to religious observance of any sort. Regularly society is declared secular through the organs of the media; while celebrity atheists, some scientists, others stand up comedians, make mock of the few remaining deluded fools.

However, it is on the ship of fools many take passage against this rising tide of scepticism. Perhaps humanity should not consider itself so clever that it alone can now walk on water. Tides have a way of turning unexpectedly, catching out those who considered themselves safe on the moral high ground.

Reason is the faculty that has promoted humanity to its present lofty position. The world is no longer taken on faith; its ways and enigmas are challenges for reasoned investigation.

Science makes manifest the natural laws by which it is possible for there to be sentient life capable of such a task. Everyday experience confirms generally what science defines precisely.

Such thinking has been applied to religion for as long as science has been rising to its dominant position. The eighteenth century saw the emergence of Deism, the application of reason to religious and sceptical thinking.

If the universe operates according rational laws, then what is the source of such reason? God as the creator, the prime mover, emerged, transcending previous theistic revealed religion and confounding those promoting Man through their declared absence of God.

God is a concept of unfathomable depths, ultimately beyond human comprehension. As a word it is little more than a convenience, a sign allowing conversation to take place.

Perhaps “God” as a word is dead, due to the accumulated burden of all its previous associations. If the word has had its meaning crushed from it, then another will take its place. Deus is favoured by many Deists.

The word is not ultimately important; it is not in itself holy. Language has limitations that do not allow for direct and precise definition, which is why physicists use mathematics.

But, Deism is at least true in the sense that a poem is true, or a painting, or a piece of music. Nietzsche was aware that with the interment of Christendom’s God science, of itself, was not suitable to fill the vacant throne.

In “The Birth of Tragedy” he looked back to ancient Greece for indications of what might hold the key to human flourishing. In the Stoics he could have found the early development of thinking that has re-emerged in modern times as Deism.

Like all religions and philosophies, Deism is man made and as such will have its moment and then pass away. However, when it does so there will arise a new manner of thinking in which the timeless precepts of Deism will be inculcated, just as those of value from previous religions have echoes in the Deist heart.

Religion and Science

The following article by Albert Einstein appeared in the New York Times Magazine on November 9, 1930 pp 1-4. It has been reprinted in Ideas and Opinions, Crown Publishers, Inc. 1954, pp 36 – 40. It also appears in Einstein’s book The World as I See It, Philosophical Library, New York, 1949, pp. 24 – 28.
Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and longing are the motive force behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present themselves to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions – fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates illusory beings more or less analogous to itself on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. Thus one tries to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed toward a mortal. In this sense I am speaking of a religion of fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets itself up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many cases a leader or ruler or a privileged class whose position rests on other factors combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their own interests.
The social impulses are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence, who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes; the God who, according to the limits of the believer’s outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even or life itself; the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing; he who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God.
The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, a development continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples’ lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. In general, only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to elucidate this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it.
The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this.
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with this highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another.
How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically, one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events – provided, of course, that he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man’s actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God’s eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it undergoes. Science has therefore been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hopes of reward after death.
It is therefore easy to see why the churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer work in theoretical science cannot be achieved are able to grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to kindred spirits scattered wide through the world and through the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man such strength. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people.

Article courtesy of they Celestial Lands Library!
http://celestiallands.org/library.htm

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.