The usual purpose for writing such as this is to mount an argument, prove a point. No such intention here as none of the following points can be proved. There is an appeal to reason though, as there is no suggestion that anything here be taken on faith. Let what follows be measured against experience, that it makes rational sense, even if it is not conclusive. After all, if the matter were finally settled it would mean the end of debate.
Probably the agnostic has a most logical position. Not the dithering sort who sometimes almost do believe, sometimes almost don’t and mostly can’t make up their minds. Rather the robust, the existence of a deity or the divine can be neither proved nor disproved, so theism and atheism remain tendentious at best.
While the non-existence of God cannot be absolutely established by science it remains a reasonable hypothesis. However, the contrary position must, therefore, also be reasonable, in that it has not conclusively been demonstrated to be in error.
A dialectical approach appears to be the most effective way of understanding matters. In a universe of constant change and contending forces, the emergence of any thing creates its antipode. The dynamic between the two poles brings about change through the appearance of something that is the hybrid containing the most propitious elements of its contentious parents.
Dialectics have often been expressed in the simple formula: Thesis creates Antithesis and their interaction produces Synthesis. However, while this does convey the basic notion, it camouflages a greater complexity. There are contending forces within the Thesis and the Antithesis as there must be in the emergent Synthesis. Nor should that Synthesis ever be regarded as a final state, even for a moment, as it too is dynamic, becoming itself a Thesis requiring Antithesis.
A good example of dialectics is evolution. A single cell emerges in an environment subject to constant change. To survive the cell also has to change to cope with its unstable environment, perhaps joining with another cell for mutual benefit. This two celled creature impacts on the environment which then reacts through some alteration in itself….and so on and so on…
Ideas also evolve, acting on and reacting to each other. Thus new thinking emerges and the reasonable mind remains open rather than made up. Absolute certainty is the denial of progress and the bane of religion.
All religions are Man made, as are all religious texts. They emerge in certain historical conditions and are expressions of the spiritual in the material contexts of their time. As material conditions change and societies rise and fall, so the content of surviving sacred books are reinterpreted. Over time interpretations clash and are transformed through contention. The deluded are those who convince themselves they are guardians of the original word of their god. Yet, like the last of the dinosaurs in a changing atmosphere, they may be on their way to extinction, but remain powerful and increasingly vicious in the meantime.
For Christians, God is the word and the word is God. “God” certainly is a word, a linguistic sign. Almost everyone knows what is meant by the word “Tree”, yet there are so many varieties and is even used in the sense of family tree and shoetree. All language is slippery, definitions provisional, which is why physicists employ mathematics to express themselves with precision.
The word God, rather than being a noun could be considered a verb. Divine as a process, the multiplicity of actions throughout creation and perhaps even transcending creation. Or an adjective that is as close to describing in a non-specific way what is ultimately ineffable. Perhaps God is noun, verb and adjective for a concept intuited apriori while remaining beyond human comprehension.
Though human knowledge and understanding has become vast, it would be best to avoid the hubris of thinking all will be known and understood. After all, there is no way of measuring the present sum of human knowledge as a fraction of what there is to be known. One function of the word God could be the X in this equation.
God as a verb perhaps gives a clearer view of Divine Being. Being in this case is not an individual, as in a human being, rather being as something that is, human being as the presence of Man on earth. Find a shard of knapped flint in an otherwise deserted landscape and this can be taken as indicating human being in that place many thousands of years ago. That the actual human being, the individual, who fashioned the flint is utterly absent from the site isn’t a denial. Similarly, that God as a discernable entity, a being, can’t be identified is no repudiation of Divine Being, the presence or doing of the divine through creation.
Deists repudiate religion based on revelation be it an individual’s vision or a scripture claimed as the word dictated by God. Even if each were actually the case they would only be revelations to the visionary or to God’s amanuensis. Once passed on to others by word of mouth or written text it becomes second hand at best and requires being taken on faith.
However, the deist who has personal experience of the world and interprets that as being evidence of purpose, divine purpose does so through the application of reason. That deist might recommend such an attitude to others, but it is up to those others to experience creation similarly, not to simply take the word of the deist.
* Some deists use the word “Deus” simply to differentiate their religious thinking from that implied from the common, if very imprecise, usage of the word “God”.
deismuk 