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.

 

Pandeism Continued

 

The following is based on, “Why Pandeism is Better than Theism: an Essay” by K.M. is posted on www.koilas.org.

Part 4 – Trinity

The trinity explored in this section is not that of Christianity. Rather, it is the three characteristics of a Creator discernible by human comprehension. It should be understood that such a Creator must remain largely ineffable, otherwise humanity would be on a par with that Creator rather than an element of creation.

Firstly, the Creator must possess sufficient power to control the immense power of the universe.

Secondly, the Creator requires an intelligence, way beyond that of human beings, to develop the intricate program governing the dynamics of the unfolding universe producing complex material forms.

Thirdly, the Creator must possess a rationality expressing itself through the rational nature of the universe, the physical laws by which it operates.

It can be inferred from these three factors that the Creator was/is rationally motivated to create.

If this model is sufficient to account for the universe and Man’s observations of it, then no additional factors are required. No further divine attributes can logically be added, which is not to say others do not exist, but if they do they are beyond human comprehension.

Pandeism, therefore, is posited on recognising a Creator with the power to create, with an intelligence that allowed for the universe to be brought about and operate according to its programming and a rational motivation to do all this.

Theism, in its various forms, makes often contradictory claims about their scriptures being the actual Word of God, faith affirming visions and miracles, and the presence of evil as a force to be countered. Each version of theism claims to be, or implies, it is the only true path to God.

Conversely, pandeism states that human beings are part of an incomprehensibly intelligent and powerful Creator, and all the factors theists claim are expressions of the ineffable Creator filtered through our limited, if often spiritually inclined, minds.

Pandeism is sufficient to account for all the features claimed by theism without the need for anthropomorphic God(s) or the Devil to explain them. Indeed, it cannot be assumed the Creator is a conscious and active deity.

The Creator may not intervene in the universe, nor create spiritual forces that do so. All the laws of nature by which the universe operates are a fundamental part of the creation. If the Creator is conscious and does intervene it must be through the processes of creation, not arbitrary miraculous events.

Such are the implications of the rational trinity of Pandeism. Theistic religions are not dismissed, but understood as various spiritual expressions relating to creation. Nor are they, individually or collectively, expressions of ultimate truth. And neither does Pandeism make such an arrogant claim. It is itself a limited, if rational, response to creation and its Creator.

 

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.

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.

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.

Bells, Smells and Life Eternal

Bells and smells! This, like “happy clappy”, is a pithy, if somewhat flippant, description of a certain sort of church service: Anglo-catholic rather than evangelical. It was certainly true for the memorial commemoration for those who’d died during the previous twelve months.

For someone not used to such proceedings there was a moment of alarm when smoke began billowing from a side chapel. Was the Devil making a surprise appearance or could it be the church was on fire? Neither as it turned out, it was merely the thurible being stoked up.

The service was solemn and formal, the hymns sung as tuneless dirges punctuated by coughs as the incense smoke caught in throats as it was wafted over sacred texts and in the general direction of the congregation. Then there was the homily.

It wasn’t a sermon as such, just a casual verbal digression around the theme of saying goodbye. Delivered without notes, it was well constructed and dealt poignantly with those significant goodbyes signalling fundamental changes in people’s lives.

Death was, of course, the final goodbye. Or was it? The priest conjured an image of all “who’ve gone before” standing decorously around Heaven in a state of bliss praising God and waiting for the rest of us to join them. Perhaps poppy essence was one of the incense herbs.

Atheists often claim that fear of death and personal extinction is the root from which religion grew, and continues to grow. Plausible, except the history of thinking on the possibility of life after death hasn’t always been so encouraging as to merit taking solace from it.

In the ancient world death was vaguely survived in the form of shades, barely being at all. Achilles is cited after his death on the battlefields of Illium as hankering after the drudgery of a peasant’s existence in life rather than the status of a prince in Hades.

While Christianity posited Heaven, the post mortem destination of most people, as sinners, was hell. The prospect of an eternity subjected to the vilest tortures inflicted constantly by pitiless devils was none too encouraging.

Stoicism was, in many ways, a precursor of Deism in that it favoured the use of reason, not superstition. MarcusAurelius, the Stoic Roman Emperor, thought life after death a possibility, though if there wasn’t it didn’t matter. Either way, death was inevitable and a natural phenomenon which it was pointless to fear.

While there are things that last for eons, everything is finite. However, every last constituent particle is recycled, not a single one “dies”, that is, goes out of existence. The universe is a process of ceaseless change that may itself be finite or infinite: whatever the speculation, no one really knows.

Eternal life is beyond comprehension. There again, so is God. For Deists there does not need to be a reward for what they advocate. If it could be absolutely proven that death is indeed final it would not invalidate the concept of God as each individual life in itself is an integral part of the creative process.

That there is a discernable process, and that it is dynamic, with destruction and creation being complimentary aspects, governed by identifiable laws is what leads Deists to posit God as the source. No anthropomorphic God dispensing privileges to humanity, but something way beyond limited human definitions.

Whether this entails the continuing employment of conscious experience developed in the course of a life has to be an open question. If life flows through a person as electricity flows through a light bulb, then as that current continues after the bulb has burnt out, so might the current of life continue.

Whatever the final consequence of death, a person remains significant to those who knew him or her. So when the surviving partner wishes to attend a service of commemoration it is incumbent on others to respect such a wish.

While dismissing any supposed supernatural properties, rituals can be a positive aspect of the drama marking an occasion. The bread and wine of the Eucharist does not, of course, become the body and blood of a saviour. But, as a stylised shared meal, taken in spiritual circumstances, such an act can have significance.

A Deist may choose meditation, personal or communal, a poem or piece of music or simply contemplate creation with awe and wonder rather than clouds of smells and clangour of bells.

Yet in the highest of high-church ceremonies a Deist can recognise the significance of a shared fundamental, God. Life, however brief or extensive, is a repudiation of notion that creation is pointless and meaningless. Otherwise, why bother to celebrate it at all?

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.