Theism
Pantheism
Richard A. Stanford
Furman University
Greenville, SC 29613
Copyright 2022 by Richard A. Stanford
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. Theism
2. Atheism
3. Where is God?
4. Simulation
5. Playing Dice With the Universe
6. God's Operating System
7. Mystery in Religion and Science
8. Orthodoxy and Heresy
9. Theology in the Postmodern Cultural Epoch
10. A New Cultural Epoch?
11. Deity and the Universe
12. Pantheism Issues
13. Worship
14. Diversity
15. Discounting
16. A Final Word
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Introduction
I am an economist with no formal training in the natural sciences, philosophy, or theology, and thus no standing to comment on theological matters. I retired in 2008 after teaching economics for forty years at an American liberal arts college.
As a regular church goer I had always considered myself to be religious in a conventional sense, even though upon occasion I found the rational economic behavior that I taught to be at odds with theological dictums focused upon selflessness. Intrigued by this apparent incompatibility, I have devoted a substantial portion of my newfound freedom to delving into theological literature, mostly written by American theologians and biblical historians. I have also explored some of the critical literature advanced by self-styled atheists.
These literatures have enabled me to glimpse behind the veil of "consumer theology" that has been retailed to me from childhood onward through my adult life. These literatures also have caused me to struggle with the Christian faith that churches have instilled in me through my lifetime. I have become both skeptical and a bit cynical as I age into my 80s.
In my perception, archaic aspects of orthdox Christian theology include a multitude of Old Testament oral campfire stories that were progressively-embellished with successive retellings; the minutiae of Mosaic law; the Trinity, atonement, election, and sola fide doctrines; the messiah obsession; the virgin birth, crucifixion, and resurrection narratives; the sin-confession-repentance-forgiveness axis; and the exclusivity of the only-way mandate.
A theological transformation is unlikely to come from within the professional theological establishment. Those most resistant to such transformation may be theologians, religion professors, and ministers who are deeply invested in interpreting ancient scriptural matter to their students and preaching to their congregants.
I have told my economics students that each must become his/her own economist to make their way successfully through life. In similar vein, each human must become his or her own theologian in a personal quest to understand deity and relate to it. So, I shall claim personal theological privilege to offer my thoughts about theology.
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1. Theism
God is believed to intervene in the physical aspects of the universe by exercising control, exerting influence, predestining events, or performing miracles.
A dictionary definition of intervention: a situation in which someone becomes involved in a particular issue, problem, etc., in order to influence what happens. (http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/intervention) In divine intervention, the “someone” in this definition is none other than God.
Marcus Borg characterizes the concept of an interventionist divine entity as “supernatural theism.” (The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith, HarperCollins, 1998) He says that the concept of an interventionist divine entity, supernatural theism, is only a small step from "deism."
Deism is characterized by belief in a deity that created the universe and established its physical laws, but then left it to "run" without further intervention. Deist ideas were popular during the Enlightenment when scientists realized that Newton's laws of motion, including the law of universal gravitation, could explain the behavior of the solar system. Borg says that in both supernatural theism and deism, the deity is "out there" (not here) and largely uninvolved with the creation.
Borg advocates “panentheism,” an experiential concept of deity in which the deity is understood to be always present "in the here and now," is continually engaged with the creation, and is readily accessible to the inhabitants of the creation.
So here are forms of theistic belief identified by Borg:
a. atheism,
the non-belief in deity and any role for deity in the universe.
b. theism,
belief in the existence of a deity.
c. deism,
belief in a deity that created the universe and established its physical laws,
but then left it to "run" without further intervention.
d. supernatural
theism, belief in a divine entity who occasionally intervenes in the
universe.
e. pantheism,
belief that the deity is the universe, or that the universe is a manifestation
of the deity.
f. panentheism,
the belief or doctrine that God is greater than the universe and includes and
interpenetrates it.
These concepts of deity could be arrayed along a continuum from Borg's concept of panentheism (continual engagement) at one extreme, deism (no involvement after the creation) at the other extreme, and supernatural theism (occasional intervention) at various points between the extremes depending on how often the deity is perceived to intervene in the creation. Beyond the deism end of the continuum would be atheism, i.e., the non-belief in deity and any role for deity in the universe. Beyond the panentheism end would be pantheism, i.e., that the universe is a manifestation of the deity.
These ideas beg some questions:
1. If more widely accepted, could Borg's concept
of panentheism counter what appears to be a latter-day drift toward the deism
end of the continuum?
2. Does the idea of an ever-present and continually
engaged deity hint at the Calvinist notion of predestination by deity of all
cosmic and human events?
3. Is the concept of an ever-present and continually
engaged deity compatible with the notion that deity accords free will to
humans?
4. Does God
work miracles for people who survive devastating tornadoes or hurricanes or
pandemics? How about those who do not survive?
5. Does God
roll dice with the universe? (Albert Einstein said that he doesn’t. Niels Bohr
suggested that he might.) Does God manipulate the coin toss at the start a
football game?
6. Does God
choose a particular team to win a football game or a person to win an Olympic
event or a candidate to win a presidential election?
7. Does God choose some people to be cured of a serious disease? How about those who don’t survive?
A "normal distribution" of something across a
population could be illustrated like this:
This is an illustration of a "bell curve" fitted to a normal distribution:
Here is the statistical interpretation of a normal distribution bell curve:
In this interpretation, the lower-case Greek letter mu (μ) stands for the mean (i.e., the average) of the items included in the distribution. The lower-case Greek letter sigma (σ) represents a standard deviation from the mean μ. The range from the mean minus one standard deviation to the mean plus one standard deviation includes about 68 percent of the items. The range from the mean minus two standard deviations to the mean plus two standard deviations includes about 95 percent of the items. The range from the mean minus three standard deviations to the mean plus three standard deviations includes 99.7 percent of the items.
If a population of theistic believers
exhibits a typical "normal distribution," it can be represented as a
symmetric bell-shaped curve centered on the population mean.
Or if a larger segment of the population believes that God rarely performs miracles, the bell curve will have shifted to the left of the population mean, and it may become narrower and taller with crowding toward the deism end of the continuum. It is no longer a "normal" distribution because the bell curve is skewed to the left.
What would the supernatural theism bell curve look like if a society were populated
8.
...only by deists?
9.
...only by atheists?
10. ...only by panentheists?
12. Where
along the theism continuum is our society today?
13. And
where along the theism continuum is your own concept of God?
g. intimate
theism, belief in a “personal god”
who can be related to as a person instead of as an impersonal force, who is
ever-present in the heart and mind of the believer, whose intimate presence is
a source of comfort and strength to the believer, who is always accessible to
the believer by way of prayer, who is receptive to the believer’s petitions,
and who responds to the believer's petitions.
h. anthropomorphization theism: Ancient writers often subjected the idea of god to anthropomorphization, i.e., imputation of human characteristics. Old Testament writers certainly did this, and it is not uncommon today for humans to impute human characteristics to a perceived divine entity. The imputation of human characteristics to a deity enables the claim that humans were created in the image of the deity. Most assumptions about the nature of a god are anthropomorphisms. Anthropomorphization may be the only way that many can gain even a partial understanding of the divine entity that they worship.
i. avatar theism: In her book A History
of God, Karen Armstrong suggests that when humans impute human
characteristics to a divine entity, they create avatars of the divine entity
that they may worship and to which they may pray. (Grammercy Books, 1993.) When
worshiped, avatars of the divine entity in effect are idols. In their inability
to grasp the ultimate nature of a divine entity, most humans worship
anthropomorphized avatars of a divine entity that they then may refer to as
"God." Rather than bronze or wooden statues, anthropomorphized
concepts of a god are the idols of the twenty-first century. Since each human's
god avatar is a unique collection of anthropomorphized characteristics, there
may be as many unique avatars of divine entities as there are humans, but there
may be shared characteristics among the avatars. Humans organize themselves into
religions and denominations based upon the shared avatar characteristics. j. collective
consciousness theism: God is an idea, a figment of the human imagination that has
been widely believed, desired, needed, and sought by humans through the ages.
The idea that a deity exists, if widely believed, worshiped, and prayed to, can
exert powerful effects upon human psyche and behavior. Communal worship
experiences may serve to instill and reinforce the ideology of the shared
consciousness. Humans sharing in a collective consciousness of an imagined
divine entity may feel directed or guided to be concerned about the welfare of
others sharing the collective consciousness. A collective consciousness of an
imagined divine entity implies that the divine entity resides in the minds of
those sharing in the consciousness. An imagined divine entity may seem to be
real to those who share in the collective consciousness, and may even appear
"to act" through those sharing in the collective consciousness. k. coextensive
theism, belief that humans have
converged with deity by virtue of their extreme intimacy, and acquisition by
humans (or provision by the deity) of such extensive knowledge of the universe
that humans can exercise powers which in previous ages might have been
considered acts of divine intervention (i.e., miracles). m. humanist
theism: Youval Harari, in this
book Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (HarperCollins, 2016, p.
221), dismisses the concept of God and the religions that worship a god. In
Harari's view, beginning in the early eighteenth century "humanism"
emerged as an effective successor religion to the various forms of theism. The
humanist religion worships humanity and expects humanity to play the part that
God played in Christianity and Islam, and that the laws of nature played in
Buddhism and Taoism. The central religious revolution of modernism was not
losing faith in God; it was gaining faith in humanity. n. science
theism: In his novel Origin
(Transworld Publishers, 2017), Dan Brown’s scientist protagonist foresees a
future without religions, i.e., when science has displaced theistic religions
to become the religion. "What happens next will depend on peoples' ability
to shed old beliefs and accept new paradigms,” Winston [the AI supercomputer]
replied. “Edmond [the scientist that created Winston] confided to me some time
ago that his dream, ironically, was not to destroy religion … but rather to
create a new religion — a universal belief that united people rather than
dividing them. He thought if he could convince people to revere the natural
universe and the laws of physics that created us, then every culture would
celebrate the same Creation story rather than go to war over which of their
antique myths was most accurate." (Chapter 98).
“Yes, which is why Edmond
hoped science could one day unify us,” Langdon [professor specializing in
symbolism] said. “In his own words: ‘If we all worshipped gravity, there would
be no disagreements over which way it pulled.’" (Chapter 102) And there may be yet others. These theistic
concepts beg yet more questions: 14. Is the
experience of deity personal and intimate for you, or is it impersonal, remote,
and mysterious? Is either experience of deity good or bad? 15. Do you
worship God or your own avatar of God? So, what if you do? 16. Do you
think that God may be only a figment of the collective human imagination? What
follows if this is true? 17. Is it
possible for humans themselves to become divine, i.e., by converging with
deity? What or who would divine humans worship? 18. Might
science replace theistic
religions? How would science be revered? ...worshiped? How would scientists be
regarded? 19. Can you
envision a post-theistic world, one in which humans no longer worship gods or a
god? What might be the social, ethical, psychological implications? 20. Will
humans always need to worship something beyond themselves, be it material
(statues, icons, money, things), avatar, or divine? Pre-scientific humans needed explanations and
attributions of natural phenomena that they did not understand. The deity
concepts of pre-scientific peoples thus might be closer to the panentheistic
end of a theistic continuum. As a society becomes more scientifically
knowledgeable and sophisticated, the deity concepts of members might progress
through the realm of supernatural theism toward the deism end of the continuum,
or even beyond into the realm of atheism. This will cause society’s theistic
bell curve to tend to skew to the left.
Since the beginning of recorded history, which is defined by the invention of writing by the Sumerians around 6,000 years ago, historians have cataloged over 3700 supernatural beings, of which 2870 can be considered deities. So next time someone tells me they believe in God, I’ll say "Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?..." If they say "Just God. I only believe in the one God," I’ll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods, and they don’t believe in 2,869. (Ricky Gervais, "Why I am an Atheist," The Wall Street Journal, blogs, https://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2010/12/19/a-holiday-message-from-ricky-gervais-why-im-an-atheist/)
The church’s prevailing image of God is of a supernatural being who is in some way ‘out there’; a God who is separate from ourselves and the universe, who looks on benignly—or otherwise—from a distant place called ‘heaven’ and, perhaps, sometimes tinkers with his (or her) creation. Such a notion of God is intellectually unacceptable today, although I suspect that many of us find it difficult to escape from such a concept and are perhaps reluctant to do so. (Jim Vincent, Should the Church Abandon the Bible?, aSys Publications, 2018, Kindle e-book location 4820)
Matthew 13:33: He told them another parable. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”
Except for John 18:36, these passages suggest that the “Kingdom of Heaven” is coextensive with material earth. It may be envisioned as an "overlay" to it but only for those who know of it and seek it. 7. Mystery in Religion and Science Mystery is important to both religion and science. Religion was the first human effort at attribution of causation of mysterious events; scientific explanation to dispel mystery may be the last human effort at religion. This essay is an exploration of religion as the pre-scientific human effort to attribute causation of events that they did not understand. Pre-scientific humans did not possess the language or concepts to explain phenomena, so they attributed causation to gods. This essay is also an exploration of the possibility that science is emerging as a religion for many in the twenty-first century. Mystery has driven both religious attribution and scientific explanation. Some definitions Religion is "a social - cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion) For our purpose, the essential characteristic of a religion is human effort to attribute causation of natural phenomena to a supernatural deity figure but without explicit effort or determination to explain such causation. Mystery remains a central feature of religious attribution because it is integral to the worship of a supernatural deity. Science is defined as “the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.” (https://bing.com/search?q=definition+of+science) For our purpose, the essential characteristic of science is human effort and determination to explain natural phenomena based on observation and logic, i.e., without reference to mysterious deistic causation. Mystery constitutes a challenge to scientists to dispel it. Attribution is defined as " the act of saying or thinking that something is the result or work of a particular person or thing." (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/attribution) For our purpose, the essential characteristic of attribution is human belief that a natural phenomenon is the result of supernatural intervention in the physical world. Explanation is defined as "the details or reasons that someone gives to make something clear or easy to understand." (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/explanation) For our purpose, the essential characteristic of explanation is human effort to exercise logic (i.e., to give reasons) that makes natural phenomena understandable to most humans. The essential difference between religion and science then is that a religion attempts to attribute causation without explanation, whereas science attempts to explain causation without attribution. Attributions Pre-scientific humans sought attributions of natural phenomena that they did not understand. In his book The Invention of Christianity (The Emperor Has No Clothes Press, 2005, Kindle e-book location, 2012), Alexander Drake argues that when humans have neither science nor religion, psychological mechanisms lead them to invent new religions. If this is true, then both religions and concepts of deities are purely human inventions. Lacking modern scientific language and concepts, ancient peoples sought attributions for events, positive and negative, that affected their lives. Positive events that improved their welfare were assumed to be caused by greater entities that were perceived to be pleased with the lesser beings. These greater entities became regarded as deities who were thanked and worshiped. Negative events may have had greater impact than positive experiences on the lesser beings’ perceptions. When something “bad” happened, they naturally assumed that the deities were angry with them. Angry gods were feared and had to be appeased. Many tribal peoples have claimed descent from a god or gods. Vikings trace descent from the Norse “All Father God” Odin. Celts and Franks trace ancestries to Dardanis van Arcadia and onward to the mythical Greek gods Zeus, Kronos, Uranus, Aether, and Erebus. Hebrew ancestry may be traced to Hebrew Patriarch Abraham. The ancestry listing in the 3rd chapter of Luke's Gospel in the Christian New Testament follows from Abraham to Adam, and then to Adam’s creator, known to ancient Hebrews as El Shaddai (God of the Mountain), or Yahweh (LORD, usually capitalized in English translations), or Yahweh El (LORD God). For the ancient Hebrews, the perceived alienation from their deity was manifested by natural phenomenon such as plagues, pestilences, droughts, storms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, etc., which were attributed to deity who was presumed to be angry with humans. This alienation became understood as “sin” so that the deity had to be appeased with offerings that would elicit forgiveness or atonement (reparation or expiation for sin). The sin-atonement relationship became central to the Judaic experience of deity. Variations of the atonement doctrine have been adopted by other Abrahamic religions, i.e., Islam and Christianity. The Christian variation of atonement substitutes the death of the Christ figure as reparation for all human sins. However, Abrahamic concepts of sin and atonement did not become central to relationships between humans and deities in other emerging religions. Sin is not a prominent feature in Nordic or Greek mythologies. Explanations Scientists attempt to dispel the mystery of natural phenomena by attempting to explain what happens without deistic attribution. The attempt to explain may be described as "scientific method," a process that has emerged and been refined over the past several centuries. Here is a brief description of the process for two types of scientists, those who can conduct laboratory experiments, and those who cannot. A scientist may first be attracted to a new topic by observation of some phenomenon. The scientist then hypothesizes a relationship between the object of interest (treated as "dependent variable") and some number of determinants (treated as "independent variables"). It may be possible for the scientist to design an experiment that is isolated from the surrounding environment by means of laboratory control. If laboratory control is possible, the scientist proceeds to conduct experiments in order to generate data to test the hypothesis. But some sciences are not amenable to laboratory experimentation (e.g., astronomy, meteorology, and some of the social sciences). In those sciences, the scientist may employ inductive logic (i.e., reasoning from first observations to a generalization about them) to structure a model in which many independent variables are assumed constant. The model, including only those independent variables that are not assumed constant, may be represented in the form of verbal assertions of relationships, mathematical equations, or graphs of the equations. Once the structure of the model is in place, the scientist may employ deductive logic (i.e., reasoning from a generalization to a particular conclusion) to derive conclusions about the model. The deduced conclusions are treated as tentative hypotheses to be subjected to empirical verification. In laboratory sciences, the natural scientist is provided with data generated by conducting experiments (stochastic processes). Experiments usually are conducted numerous times, generating enough data for a statistical inference about the validity of the hypothesis. In non-laboratory sciences, experimentally generated data are not available, so the scientist resorts to the world itself as a stochastic process. The on-going processes of the phenomenon that the scientist has determined to study produce continuing experience that can yield data as soon as they are observed and recorded. Once adequate data are in hand, the scientist may employ the tools of statistical analysis to test the hypothesis, thereby accepting or rejecting it on grounds of statistical inference. Accepted hypotheses constitute the sought-after explanations. Over the past four centuries, these scientific approaches have compiled a substantial body of human knowledge and technological understanding of the natural universe. During this time, the emerging methodology and ever-increasing body of scientific knowledge often have co-existed uncomfortably with ancient theistic attributions. Successive generations of the faithful have clung to attributions that were first uttered millennia ago. But with increasing education, exposure to scientific knowledge gradually has been displacing the ancient attributions. Knowledge Human acquisition of knowledge occurs by discovery, teaching, study, and experimentation. Can knowledge be discovered by humans apart from a divine entity, or is a divine entity the source of all knowledge (scientific, physical, metaphysical) of the universe? It cannot be ruled out that a divine entity enables the provision of knowledge to humans so that they may access and use the resources of the universe. But if a divine entity is indeed the source of all knowledge, one might wonder why the divine entity has allowed humans ever greater access to the technical knowledge of the universe? And in allowing humans to eat so freely of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, is the divine entity incurring risk that humans may use the technical knowledge to destroy the earth? Humans through the ages have believed themselves to be dependent upon the divine for sustenance. As the twenty-first century continues to unfold, is the divine now in the process of cutting humans loose, i.e., opening the knowledge flood gates in order to allow humans to become more self-sufficient and less dependent upon the divine? Or, are humans by themselves the sole discoverers of the universe’s technological secrets? In the early twenty-first century, some non-theistic or post-theistic religions that do not entail mystery may be emerging. One such non-theistic religion centers on politics. Christine Emba, writing in The Washington Post, describes the emergence of what she perceives to be a “new religion" centering on Donald Trump: …like many heretics, Falwell [now-deceased former president of Liberty University] and his fellow evangelical Trump apologists are on their way to founding a new religion, one in direct conflict with the old. This new religion doesn’t have much to do with Christ at all. Instead, it centers Trump as savior above any other god. A disconcerting number of self-professed Christians have transitioned from the traditionally “evangelical” ambitions of spreading the gospel and forming a personal relationship with Jesus to spreading the gospel of wealth creation and fighting the “radical left.” National identity is what ties this body of believers together, and “the wall” has become its icon of hope, pushing the cross to the side. ("Evangelicals' infallible new faith: The gospel of Trump," January 4, 2019, The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/04/evangelicals-infallible-new-faith-gospel-trump/?utm_term=.ee69f59380d5&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1) Another non-theistic religion may arise in science itself. In his novel Origin (Transworld Publishers, 2017), Dan Brown’s scientist protagonist envisions a future when science has displaced theistic religions to become the religion. If Brown's vision is prescient, science may become the only surviving religion.
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9. Theology in the Postmodern Cultural Epoch Critics and commentators have outlined a progression of cultural epochs from ancient understandings of the workings of the world through the Medieval, Enlightenment, Modern, and Postmodern eras. The epochal progression provides historical insight into societies’ early twentieth-first century theological views. Ancient peoples perceived that the universe was created and controlled by God (or gods), and all unexplained phenomena were attributed to divine causation. The Western Medieval worldview differed from the Ancient view in that God appeared to follow consistent patterns that became regarded as “natural law.” The Enlightenment of the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries shifted understanding of causation from subjective judgment and emotion to objective reason and rationality. The Enlightenment was the precursor to the so-called Modern epoch that commentators describe as coincident with Industrial Revolution in the West and continuing to mid-twentieth century. The Modern epoch entailed the optimistic belief that the application of science and technology to industry could bring about a better world. The ideals of Modernity included equality, democracy, freedom, and human rights. Coincident with the post-World War II transition of Western economies from primarily industrial to mainly service economies, a movement among European continental philosophers began to question the ability of industrial capitalism to continually bring about material improvement and emotional well-being for their societies. Philosophers also focused upon negatives that they perceived were brought about by industrial capitalism during the twentieth century: the Great Depression, two world wars, the Holocaust, a “cold war,” the prospect of nuclear annihilation, and ever more unequal distributions of income. By the last quarter of the twentieth century philosophers had begun to exhibit a rising skepticism concerning absolutism in science and religion. Social commentators perceived that the cultural milieu of the late-twentieth century was becoming characterized by skepticism, ethical relativity, permissiveness, religious pluralism, and a victimhood mentality. Crime and vandalism were on the increase. Expectations were rising that government should ensure that all of society’s needs are met and that government should prevent any from suffering harm or discomfort. For want of a better term, the emerging era became known by the rather unimaginative term “postmodern” to distinguish it from the Modern epoch prior to WWII. Edward W. Younkins describes the present-day content of Postmodern thought:
Many of today's leading intellectuals are postmodernists who accede to the ideas of anti-realism, skepticism, subjectivism, relativism, pragmatism, collectivism, egalitarianism, altruism, anti-individualism, the world as conflictual and contradictory, and emotions, instincts, and feelings as better and deeper guides to action than reason. (Edward W. Younkins, “The Plague of Postmodernism," http://www.quebecoislibre.org/04/041215-9.htm) Newspaper columnists add envy, resentment, self-righteousness, and outrage to this list. Thomas Sowell says that, “There was a time when most Americans would have resented the suggestion that they wanted someone else to pay their bills. But now, envy and resentment have been cultivated to the point where even people who contribute nothing to society feel that they have a right to a ‘fair share’ of what others have produced.” (Thomas Sowell, “Dismantling America, Part II,” August 18, 2010, http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell081810.php3) A continuum between the extremes of Modernity and Postmodernity may be imagined. Not all people in Western societies have adopted philosophical positions at either extreme, but rather may be somewhere between the extremes. Conservatives and religious fundamentalists likely are closer to the Modernity extreme of the continuum. People who perceive themselves to be liberal and “liberated” from the constraints of doctrine and absolutist social values may put themselves closer to the Postmodernity extreme at the other end of the continuum. People may find themselves gradually moving in one direction or the other along the continuum as they mature and as their social associations and perceptions change. It is likely that people of older generations may remain closer to the Modernity extreme. Those in subsequent generations may occupy social thought positions closer to the Postmodernity extreme. Great social transformations often take multiple generations to complete. Early in the twenty-first century, Postmodernity’s extreme subjectivity, pessimism, ethical relativism, pluralistic tolerance of other religious traditions, and rejection of absolute truth seemed to produce a cultural malaise that weakened the “social glue” that binds society together. The Pew Research Center reports that church membership in the United States has been declining during the early decades of the twenty-first century:
The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among women as well as men. (Pew Research Center, "America's Changing Religious Landscape," May 12, 2015, http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/) This phenomenon raises questions about whether Postmodernity’s subjectivity, pessimism, relativism, and quests for personal spirituality are rendering organized religions obsolete. If so, it is not certain that a call for a new theology as a vehicle for worship of deity can save “church” as a vehicle for corporate worship of deity in the twenty-first century and beyond. 10. A New Cultural Epoch? It [the James Webb Space
Telescope] will test, and possibly disprove, theories about the earliest
galaxies. But can it say anything new about god? Only if there is a religion
whose concept of god is compatible with existing astronomy and that makes
predictions that are testable via the James Webb. --Jonathan Cardy, Jul 14,
2021 (https://www.quora.com/Will-the-James-Webb-Telescope-prove-that-theres-no-God) Postmoderns likely will continue to abandon the Christian religion unless it is "cleaned up" by deletion of several incredible doctrines that have become attached to it during the past couple of millennia. But we now may have progressed beyond the so-called "Postmodern Epoch." This new "post-Postmodern" era might be termed the "James Web Space Telescope Epoch." Astronomers
tell us that there are billions of stars in our galaxy, the "Milky
Way," and billions of galaxies in the universe. And there may even be
multiple universes, i.e., a "multiverse." The universe that we know
(because we live in it) continues to expand and occupy ever more
"space." It challenges the human intellect to envision or even
imagine the vastness of such space. And what does it suggest about the deity
whom humans have thought to have created such a space and who they believe
continues to occupy and govern it? Ever since
the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was successfully launched from Kourou,
French Guiana, on December 25, 2021, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket and successfully
deployed at the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point on January 21, 2022, I have pondered John Cardy's question: Can it say anything new about god? Could the universe have started itself? Can it maintain itself?
Is it self-regulating? The JWST enables astronomers to peer back in time more than 13
billion years, near to the estimated occurrence of the so-called
"Big Bang." And this raises a question of whether a deity was
essential to the big-bang singularity that is hypothesized to have initiated
the universe. While a theological answer to this question might be a resounding
"Yes!", it appears that many (most?) members of the scientific community are likely to respond in
the negative. I have subscribed to the Christian religion as it
derived from Judaism over the past couple of millennia, so Cardy's question for
me is whether the Judeo-Christian concept of god is compatible with the JWST
experience. Perhaps the question should be posed in the opposite direction: is
the JWST compatible with our concept of the Judeo-Christian god? But I think
that the ultimate question may be whether the Judeo-Christian god (or any other
deity) even exists. For want of a better name, I'll refer to the
Judeo-Christian (J-C) god simply as "God." If God indeed exists,
he/she ("he" for sake of exposition) could have interrupted the JWST
design, fabrication, launch, and deployment processes at any time. But he
didn't, nor has he prevented the sharing of images captured by the JWST. But this begs another question: who/where/what is
the repository of all of the knowledge of the universe? If God himself is the
repository of all such knowledge, he has gradually dribbled it out to humans
over the past couple of centuries (the so-called "scientific age")
and has been tolerant of human discovery and use of it. If neither the J-C god nor any other deity exists,
then there is no repository of knowledge other than the universe itself.
Knowledge "lies about" in the universe, just waiting for humans to
discover it, and it seems to be a human compulsion to search for and discover
such knowledge. If no deity exists, there was no divine force
that might have interdicted the JWST design, fabrication, launch, and
deployment processes. According to Bill Ochs, the telescope’s project manager
since 2011, it represents the combined effort of about 20,000 engineers, astronomers,
technicians and bureaucrats (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/science/james-webb-telescope-images-nasa.html).
Either an existing god acquiesced in the JWST processes, or in the absence of a
deity the JWST was the product purely of human effort. So, where does this leave us? It's not possible
to prove a negative, i.e., that God doesn't exist. The burden of proof falls
upon the advocate of a positive assertion, i.e., that God exists. The JWST
phenomenon implies either that God doesn't exist or that God exists but is
tolerant of humans delving into the mysteries of the ("his"?)
universe. Scott Hershovitz, the author of a New York
Times opinion piece, quotes his 4-year-old son, "For real, God is
pretend, and for pretend, God is real," like Dumbledore who teaches at
Hogwarts that exists only in fiction ("How to Pray to a God You Don’t
Believe In," The New York Times, May 2, 2022). Can the JWST
experience be reconciled to a J-C god who "for pretend" exists, but
who "for real" doesn't exist? Theology is the study and advancement of ideas about deity. Theism is the belief in a divine entity. I am not optimistic about the long-run survival of either theology or theism. Even if Christian denominations leave behind the more incredible aspects of their doctrines, increasing education and the "technification" of daily life are likely to be instrumental in the transition from the postmodern understanding of the world to a post-postmodern JWST worldview. In this new era, people may feel less need for reliance on a divine presence in their lives, and they may find it difficult to perceive a divine authority in a vast universe depicted by JWST images.
11. Deity and the Universe
The New York Times' "Beginner's Guide to the James Webb Space Telescope" describes what the telescope is revealing about the universe.
The [James Webb] telescope is an engineering marvel: Its massive mirror makes it possible to collect light from the faintest objects. It has multiple ways of blocking and dissecting that light, giving us detailed portraits of distant galaxies and close neighbors alike.
And now [October 2023] the European Space Agency's new Euclid telescope is beginning to send images as it is being prepared to map the universe (or one-third of it).
Launched in July, Euclid is on a quest to map a third of the extragalactic sky and to reveal how the mysterious influences of dark matter and dark energy have shaped the structure of the universe. The new images are just a taste of what scientists expect the space telescope to achieve.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/07/science/euclid-telescope-photos.html?unlocked_article_code=1.80w.EJud.bQp3GaKI5wGQ&smid=url-share)
The images captured by the Webb and Euclid telescopes are of light that has traveled to us over billions of years. The telescopes give humans the ability "to look back" toward the initiation of the universe, however it happened, but this conveys only a hint of the magnitude of the universe.
In 1953 Anglican clergyman J.B. Phillips wrote a book that became very popular: Your God is Too Small. Here is the Amazon description of Phillips' book:
Your God is Too Small is a groundbreaking work of faith, which challenges the constraints of traditional religion. In his discussion of God, author J.B. Phillips encourages Christians to redefine their understanding of a creator without labels or earthly constraints and instead search for a meaningful concept of God. Phillips explains that the trouble facing many of us today is that we have not found a God big enough for our modern needs. (https://www.amazon.com/Your-God-Too-Small-Believers/dp/0743255097)
"Webb helps us know but also to 'unknow.'" The idea of a god may have served a useful purpose for pre-modern and pre-scientific humans who needed attributions of natural phenomena that they did not understand. As societies became more scientifically knowledgeable and sophisticated and thus less in need of mystical ascriptions of natural phenomena, their deity concepts needed to change. But theological change is unlikely to occur in a religious establishment that is heavily invested in the ancient theologies. Ancient ideas of God that humans continue to worship to this day still are too small.
O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
12. Pantheism Issues
The wonder and awe that I have experienced could be a purely secular response that is commensurate with the atheist belief that no deity exists. I suspect that most physicists and astronomers would avoid consideration of any theological angle, but I feel that these images must have implications for theism, i.e., belief in the existence of deity.
Sacredness
A problem with a pantheistic theology is that the presumed coincidence of deity with the universe implies the sacredness of the entire universe. But if everything in the universe is sacred, there can be no basis for humans to identify the non-sacred, i.e., the secular. This is like the distinction between good and bad: without instances of bad there is no way to identify what is good. Judgments of good and bad are purely human intellectual and emotional constructs that pertain only to human life on the earth. The greater universe is not subject to judgments of good and bad. It is only humans who judge the existence of bad people, people who do bad things, and bad things that happen.
Pandeism
In a variant of pantheism, pandeism, the creator deity is perceived to have become the universe (imminent), ceasing to exist as a separate entity after the creation process. The deistic aspect implies that the deity no longer intervenes in the universe (ceases transcendence) but leaves it to "run itself" by the laws established in the creation process. The behavior of a post-creation pandeistic universe (deity not active even though present) thus would approximate the non-existence of deity as perceived by atheists. Pandeism would seem to be ruled out by Webb and Euclid telescope images which reveal that universe change is on-going, whether by natural processes or conducted by a creator deity.
Imputation
It has occurred to me that the anthropomorphic imputation of human characteristics to a deity may in fact be blasphemous to the deity if indeed one exists. Who are we humans to speculate on the characteristics of a deity? It is arrogant if not blasphemous for humans to try to describe deity, to purport to speak for a deity, or to declare the will of a deity or what a deity wants from humans on this planetary spec in the vastness of the universe.
God and evolution are not mutually exclusive. Evolution is a scientific phenomenon, one that scientists can study because it is observable and predictable. But digging up fossils does not disprove the existence of God or a higher purpose for the universe. That is beyond science’s power.
A dictionary definition of theism is belief in the existence of a god or gods. A theist is one who believes in the existence of a god or gods. The negative of the term atheism means disbelief in a supreme being or beings. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a supreme being. The term "atheism" derives from the Greek word atheos meaning "without god(s)." The earliest instances of people publicly identifying themselves as atheists probably date from the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment. An "agnostic" is one who simply cannot discern whether a deity exists.
The adjectives "universal" and "selective" may be used to qualify these terms. Although the term "universal theism" may lack meaning, the term "selective theism" can refer to belief in a specific god, e.g., the monotheistic God of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity (the three Abrahamic religions).
"Universal atheism" is the denial of the existence of any supreme being. "Selective atheism" is disbelief in a specific conception of a supreme being. Karen Armstrong, in her book The Case for God (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), suggests that even the most ardent self-identified and implicitly universal atheists usually are railing against some particular conception of God, often a simplistic notion of deity as commonly depicted by televangelists. Most theists in effect are selective atheists with respect to other conceptions of God (anthropomorphized avatars) that diverge too widely from their own conceptions of God.
British comedian Ricky Gervais, a self-professed atheist, points out that selective monotheism is only one off from universal atheism:
These ideas suggest a practical distinction between theology and mythology. My theology is what I believe to be the nature of the divine entity that I may worship. Mythology to me is what anyone else believes about deity if the belief differs significantly from what I believe. Most people today (Christian or otherwise) regard the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman pantheons as populated by mythological deities. Our descendants some generations on may look back on what we believed and wonder at our "Christian mythology."
In this sense, then, most of us are selectively atheistic, both with respect to mythological deities and with respect to any currently held concepts of deity that are significantly different from our own. A Muslim may regard me as an atheist with respect to the Islamic concept of Allah. I may also be selectively atheistic with respect to some of the god concepts held by Muslims, Jews, Catholics, other Protestants, and even other Baptists.
Some twenty-first century people proclaim themselves to be universal atheists. My guess is that many are private theists who genuinely seek what is called “oneness with deity” through personal meditation, but who may not want to associate themselves with any organized religion or denomination.
As noted in Chapter 1, Borg characterizes the concept of a divine entity that exists apart from his creation but intervenes in the creation as "supernatural theism." He says that supernatural theism is only a small step from "deism" that is characterized by belief in a deity that created the universe and established its physical laws but then stepped away and left it to "run" without further intervention. In both concepts, the deity is "out there" (not here) and largely uninvolved with the creation. Here is Jim Vincent’s description of the "out there" deity:
Borg mentions the concept of "pantheism" in which God is perceived to be coincident with the universe, i.e., the universe is God (or God is the universe). In the concluding chapter of his book God: A Human History, Reza Aslan says that he arrived at pantheism through Sufism: "In its simplest form pantheism is the belief that God and the universe are one and the same—that nothing exists outside of God’s necessary existence." (Random House, 2017, Kindle e-book location 2360) This leads him to conclude that humans are inherently divine.
Borg advocates an experiential concept of deity in which the deity "interpenetrates" the universe and is understood to be always present "in the here and now," is continually engaged with the creation (i.e., the universe), and is readily accessible to the inhabitants of the creation. This concept of deity is called "panentheism."
Borg's ideas beg the question of whether it is only a matter of degree in the difference between the concept of a deity that is present only upon occasional interventions, and the concept of one that is continually engaged and ever present.
Yet another concept is that instead of being physically apart from or within the universe,
God resides in the hearts and minds of humans who believe in him. The idea that God resides in the hearts and minds of humans, if widely believed, worshiped, and prayed to, can exert powerful effects upon human psyche and behavior. Believers may relate to one another in a sort of collective or shared consciousness (like bees in a hive or ants in a colony, or like the "Borg" in the Star Trek TV series). Communal worship experiences may serve to instill and reinforce the shared consciousness.
The idea of an ever-present and continually-engaged deity suggests the possibility of continual manipulation of the creation by deity (“God is in control!”), leaving little discretion to the inhabitants of the creation, and it may hint at the Calvinist concept of predestination by deity of all cosmic and human events. This begs the further question of whether the concept of an ever-present and continually-engaged deity is compatible with the notion that deity accords free will to humans.
Bostrom posited three future possibilities for humankind, (1) that
the human species is likely to go extinct before reaching a "posthuman"
stage; (2) that a surviving posthuman civilization is unlikely to run
simulations of their evolutionary history; and (3) that "we are almost
certainly living in a computer simulation." He assessed the
probabilities of the first two at nearly zero, but the third to be
highly likely.
Bostrom conjectured that future
(post-postmodern) computing capacity will become great enough that
posthumans can conduct a virtually unlimited number of simulations of
environmental and life circumstances. These simulations may be
sufficiently complex and refined that they cannot be distinguished from
reality. And with enough computing power it may become possible to simulate
human or posthuman participants that cannot be distinguished from real
humans. The simulated humans and posthumans, called "sims," might even
possess consciousness so that they are sentient and self-aware, but
unaware that they are not real humans. (Does this sound like the "holodeck" on the Starship Enterprise in the Star Trek TV series?)
Who would be conducting those simulations? Bostrom suggests the
possibility that at least a few advanced posthumans may, for whatever
reasons, run simulations of the lives of their ancestors or similar
beings. Unbeknownst to us today, we may be participants in such
simulations that are being run by our advanced descendants.
When I taught economics courses for undergraduate students, I
designed and wrote the code to implement a number of simulation models.
In a macroeconomic model, groups of three or four students role-played
making government expenditure, taxation, central bank, and international
trade policy decisions for countries in pursuit of economic growth. In a
microeconomic model, groups of students role-played in making
management decisions for companies in competition with each other for
profits and market shares. As the simulation designer and digital code
writer, I was acting as if "god" in creating the simulation models,
determining the rules of the games, and setting (and manipulating) the
parameters.
With this experience as background, another
possibility comes to mind in regard to Bostrom’s paper: the world that
we live in today may be a simulation being conducted by a divine entity. In this perception, the divine entity programs the simulation (i.e.,
writes the digital code that creates the simulation environment and
establishes the rules that govern it) and can change the parameters at
will (i.e., intervene or "tinker" with it). The divine entity may run
digital-code simulations in order to observe how humans behave and react
to changing conditions, or possibly just for the divine entity's own
amusement.
The simulations may be populated by both real humans and
sims, but the simulation participants may be unable to distinguish
either their own or any other simulation participant's existential
status. The divine programmer may even choose to play a role as a
participant in the simulations. A crucial question is whether in any such divine simulation, the
participants, real or simulated, may have access to the divine code
writer to petition for assistance or relief from simulation adversity.
From a simulation-modeling perspective, the initial chapters of Genesis,
the first book in the Bible, appear to be pre-scientific efforts to
describe the divine code-writing process that created the simulation
environment. The Hebrew Tanakh (to Christians, the Old Testament) book
of Job may have been a divine simulation in which the simulation
operator interacts with a human simulation participant.
And in the
Christian New Testament, could the life of Jesus have been a divine
simulation experiment in which the divine code writer becomes a
simulation participant? Perhaps we today are living in one of the divine
entity's simulation environments. And what if all of us are digital
sims rather than blood-and-bone humans? This of course begs the question
of what constitutes reality in our postmodern world.
Even if real humans inevitably must die, could a sim survive to an "afterlife" in another divine simulation?
The anthropic principle is the contention that the properties of the known universe are "just right" to allow the initiation and support of life. This principle implies that the universe was carefully designed by a divine entity. However, some scientists hypothesize that the known universe may be one of an infinite number of universes with different properties and laws of physics, and that the known universe is one (perhaps among others) that happens to have just the right properties and laws of physics to enable the initiation and support of life.
If a divine entity did indeed establish the laws of physics that govern the known universe, the divine entity must have the power to intervene in the laws, i.e., to perform what may appear to humans to be miracles. The fact that human scientists have been able to identify the laws of physics of the known universe with high degree of confidence suggests that the divine entity rarely intervenes, at least in the physical aspects of the universe.
Some of the events of the modern world that are deemed to be miracles actually may be happenings for which there are very low, but still non-zero, probabilities of occurrence. Even events with very low probabilities of occurrence still happen. For example, if there is a one-in-a-million chance of an event occurring, somewhere in a million opportunities it will occur. When it does occur, those who witness it may be inclined to call it a "miracle" and attribute it to the "hand of God."
Such happenings may be non-events. For example, in 9,999 of 10,000 similar automobile accidents in the past the driver died, but in one particular similar instance a driver survives the accident. Although the result may have been purely a matter of probability (0.01 percent), some will be inclined to regard the survival of the driver as a miracle and look for God's intent in preserving the life of the driver.
A variation on this example provides another interesting puzzle. Suppose that in 9,999 of 10,000 similar automobile accidents the driver has survived, but in one particular instance a driver dies. Again, the event occurred as a matter of probability (also 0.01 percent), but friends and family of the driver, suffering acute emotional distress, may blame God or presume that God had some particular intent in taking their loved one from them prematurely. I am skeptical that such low-probability occurrences are revelations of God’s intent or power.
Given the range of possible outcomes of any event, humans tend to focus on the worst imaginable. As suggested in Blaise Paschal’s Pensées, numbers 82-84, anxiety seems to heighten when the imagination of the possible outcomes of an event overpowers the probabilities of their occurrence. For example, the probability of an automobile accident may be quite low, but an overdue arrival of a loved one may elevate the anxiety of those awaiting the arrival out of proportion to the probability of occurrence. The uncertainty of random events with possible negative outcomes may elicit more prayer than does anticipation of events with positive outcomes and higher probabilities of occurrence.
In 1927 Albert
Einstein famously argued with Niels Bohr whether God "plays dice with
the universe," i.e., whether the universe is deterministic as maintained
by Einstein, or subject to randomness as asserted by Bohr.
("Bohr-Einstein Debates," Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr%E2%80%93Einstein_debates)
By "deterministic" Einstein meant that it should be possible to
describe any aspect of the universe by an equation.
Astrophysicist Ethan
Siegel explains that today’s knowledge of quantum mechanics renders
Einstein’s conclusion false. (Ethan Siegel, "Proof Of 'God Playing Dice
With The Universe' Found In The Sun's Interior," Forbes, September 15, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/09/15/proof-of-god-playing-dice-with-the-universe-found-in-the-suns-interior/#11803cea3b03).
Random and unpredicted events do occur in the universe, but with the
accumulation of enough data about similar events, scientists can
estimate probabilities of their occurrence. A question is whether random
events occur in the universe independently of divine causation, or are
they evidence of God playing dice with the universe?
Matthew 20:1-16: “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. ... "
Matthew 22:1-14: And again Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying, ‘Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast.’ But they paid no attention and went off, one to his farm, another to his business, ... "
Matthew 25:1-13: “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. ... "
Matthew 25:14-30: “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money. ... "
Mark 4:30-33: And he said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.”
Luke 17:20: Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, ... "
Luke 21:27-31: And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” And he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. As soon as they come out in leaf, you see for yourselves and know that the summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near."
John 18:36: Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”
An analogy that may be helpful is to think of Earth as like a computer program running in the "foreground"; it is what we see and feel happening; it is our physical reality. Heaven is like a computer program running in "background," i.e., it is there and operating but functioning without visibility to the computer user; it is a divine "virtual reality." It is knowable to believers but unknown to those who are unaware of it and do not seek it.
To extend this analogy, the Kingdom of Heaven is not like just a computer program. It is more like a computer operating system (e.g., Windows, iOS, Linux) that was designed (created) by a grand, super-intellect programmer (does this sound deistic? the "great clock maker"?). It is running all the time but in the background to human and cosmic physical realities. It is not seen, but it is always there, out of sight, but controlling and enabling activities and functions in the foreground, i.e., human physical life and cosmic events.
The OS enables access to the grand programmer by humans who can "log onto the system" via prayer. There is no required password or any other log-on credentials than human will and desire to access.
The original creation might be designated OS-G1 (the first version of God's operating system described in Genesis, Chapters 1-2). In this original version, there is no mention of death for the human inhabitants of earth, and we may presume that initially they enjoyed eternal life.
While the
OS operates in perpetuity, we might perceive that occasionally it is
modified (or upgraded) by the OS designer who makes changes to the way
that the OS operates. The first modification of the operating system, to version OS-G2, occurred in Genesis Chapter 3 when God evicted Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. The modification to the original OS lay in God's eliminating eternal life for his human creation by limiting their life spans and requiring toil to earn their subsistence (God's imposition of economic scarcity). The Great Flood described in Genesis 6-9 might be understood to be the second modification of the operating system, to version OS-G3.
In his first book, God: A Biography (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), Jack Miles examines the "person" of God from the literary perspective of character development. Using the chronological book order of the Hebrew Tanakh (rather than the non-chronological order of the Christian "Old Testament"), Miles reveals a sequence in the transition of God's character from initial almighty creator of the universe through stages of naivete of his human creation, intimate conversationalist, wrathful evictor from the garden, destroyer of wicked humanity, exile liberator, law dictator, disobedience punisher, mighty warrior who destroys his people's enemies and perpetrates genocide, and capricious manipulator of a human subject. These character transitions might be taken as a cumulative upgrade to version OS-G4.
After God speaks to Job, Miles describes a gradual waning of God's direct involvement in the world as he no longer speaks with humans but communicates to them only through "prophets." Toward the end of the Tanakh we see a distant and receding "Ancient of Days" figure who doesn't engage with humanity for four hundred years. This is the modification to version OS-G5.
In a sequel, Christ: A Crisis in the Life of God (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), Miles perceives God to have brooded over his "mistake" of eliminating eternal life for all humans after Adam and Eve sinned by eating the prohibited fruit in the Garden of Eden (OS-G2). But God devises a means of correcting this mistake by coming to earth in the guise of a human named Jesus. In this view, the literary character of Jesus is God Incarnate, i.e., God in the flesh. By allowing himself as Jesus to be "killed" by humans as a blood sacrifice to himself as God in order to atone for the sinfulness of all humanity, God created a means by which humans again could achieve eternal life.
This is the great upgrade to OS-G6. Humans who confess and repent of their sins and who believe that Jesus rose from the dead can enjoy heavenly eternal life beyond earthly mortal life. In this grand operating system, Jesus as God Incarnate is a divine being who pre-existed time, who lived as a human, died, and rose from the dead, and who continues to live in judgment of the world.
The final book in the New Testament, Revelation, anticipates the "End Times" for the world and a transition to a new Heaven and a new earth. When it occurs, this upgrade might be designated OS-GFinal.
Non-Theistic Religions
The Nicene Creed is the conclusion reached at the Council of Nicaea in 325 A.D. after nearly three centuries of emerging thought and debate about the nature of Jesus. For many Christians the Nicene Creed specifies the orthodox ("right thinking") understanding of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit as three separate divine forms in one being, i.e., a "Trinity." At the Council of Nicaea that was attended by 318 bishops of Christian churches in 325 A.D., the orthodox perception of Jesus was hammered out through much debate. While the Nicene Creed affirms belief in the Trinity of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Creed focuses upon the nature of Jesus:
The Nicene Creed, as amended in subsequent ecumenical councils to deny specific heretical notions, presents the view of the "Catholic and Apostolic Church" that is supposed to have descended in direct lineage from the apostles of Jesus. Today Catholics in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church are expected to "toe the line" specified by the Nicene Creed. (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, "What We Believe," http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/what-we-believe/) Protestant churches and individual Protestants may accept all or only some of the tenets of the Nicene Creed.
Bart Ehrman (biblical historian at the University of North Carolina), in his book How Jesus Became God (HarperCollins, 2014), identifies various concepts that had been advanced but were rejected at the Council of Nicaea:
The Gnostic heresy that was revived by Cathars in southern France during the 11th to 13th centuries maintained a dualistic view that there are two gods, a New Testament god of love and an Old Testament god of judgment.
Another of the reputed heresies that were rejected at Nicea was advanced by an Alexandrian presbyter, Arius (256-336). Arius argued that Jesus was not divine, but was entirely mortal and nothing more than an inspired teacher. Further, Arius asserted that God was a single omnipotent deity (not a trinity) who had not incarnated into human flesh.
After the Nicene Creed was accepted and amended in the ecumenical councils, any views of Jesus that diverged from the Nicene Creed were regarded as heresy (heterodox views). Advocates of such heresies often have been vilified, attacked, and even excommunicated from the Church or from particular church congregations.
In the twelfth century, Pope Innocent III launched the "Inquisition" to root out heresies and heretical groups such as the Cathars in southern France, even executing people charged with heresy (often by burning them at the stake). The Inquisition was intensified and expanded in scope across Europe in response to the Protestant Reformation. Though its activities have softened, the institution of the Inquisition has survived into the twenty-first century as part of the Roman Curia (the central government of the Catholic Church) but now is known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
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Webb helps us know but also to “unknow”: It gives us stunning new discoveries while simultaneously challenging us to rethink and rebuild our understanding of the past. (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/05/magazine/james-webb-space-telescope.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8kw.jv89.i66QDSamsbbw&smid=url-share)
The Webb and Euclid telescopes' discoveries surely have implications for theology. The images coming from the telescopes are making me ever more aware of how inadequate and archaic are our concepts of deity. Through the ages humans have personified deity by imputing human characteristics which then enabled them to claim that humans were created in the image of the deity (Genesis 1:26). In William Shakespear's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairy Puck's exclamation would be an apt comment on the imputation process: "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
I was raised as a Christian, a Protestant, a Baptist. During my early life I was indoctrinated with classical Christian theology. I still am a member of a Baptist church, but my perspectives on theology, religion, and church have changed. I am reminded of verse 11 in Chapter 13 of the Christian New Testament book of 1 Corinthians: "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." (NIV)
I now am an old man of 80+ years. As I contemplate in wonder and awe the vastness and majesty of the universe as revealed in the Webb and Euclid images, I find myself drawn to the concept of pantheism in which God is perceived to be coincident with the universe, or the universe is a manifestation of God.
The idea of pantheism is not new. Although the term did not yet exist, the concept was articulated by philosopher Baruch Spinoza in this book Ethics, published posthumously in 1677. Marcus Borg, in his 1998 book The God We Never Knew: Beyond Dogmatic Religion to a More Authentic Contemporary Faith (Harper Collins), surveys various theologies including pantheism and a variant, panentheism. In pantheism, the deity is perceived to be coincident with the universe or to be omnipresent in the universe (imminent). Borg advocates for panentheism in which the deity is perceived to exist apart from the universe as creator and sustainer but also may be present in and engage with the universe (transcendent).
In the concluding chapter of his book God: A Human History (Random House, 2017), Reza Aslan says that he arrived at pantheism through Sufism: "In its simplest form pantheism is the belief that God and the universe are one and the same — that nothing exists outside of God’s necessary existence." Aslan says that as a Sufi he worships "...a god with no material form; a god who is pure existence, without name, essence, or personality."
Although I do not subscribe to other tenets of Sufism, I find Aslan's perceptions of deity and pantheism to comport with what I am coming to understand about deity and the universe. I now might call myself a post-Christian pantheist.
As I finish this essay, the lyrics of How Great Thou Art, the great hymn popularized in the Billy Graham Crusades by George Beverly Shea, come to mind:
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Saviour God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!
As avowed in the previous chapter, I have viewed with wonder and awe the images being captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope* and the European Space Agency's Euclid telescope**.
On the chance that a deity actually does exist, the vastness and majesty of the universe revealed by the Webb and Euclid images have drawn my personal theology toward the concept of pantheism, i.e., belief that the universe is God, or God is the universe, or the universe is a manifestation of God. But there are some pantheistic-related issues with which I still am wrestling.
In similar vein, the universe is not subject to human identifications of sacred and secular. Sacred and secular are purely human intellectual constructs that pertain only to human life on earth. So, how can such concepts be reconciled with the pantheistic perception of a universe that is sacred? The sacredness of the universe would seem not to preclude the existence of bad humans (who engage in criminal behavior), bad individual human behavior (theft, fraud, murder), or bad collective human behavior (despoiling the environment of the earth).
*(https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/05/magazine/james-webb-space-telescope.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8kw.jv89.i66QDSamsbbw&smid=url-share)
**(https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/07/science/euclid-telescope-photos.html?unlocked_article_code=1.80w.EJud.bQp3GaKI5wGQ&smid=url-share).
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13. Worship
What might it mean, in Reza Aslan's words, to "... worship a god with no material form; a god who is pure existence, without name, essence, or personality" (God: A Human History, Random House, 2017). What does "worship" actually entail? And, more fundamentally, why do humans worship deities? Why do they pray to deities?
First, what is worship? I distinguish between internal and external worship modes. Internal worship occurs with personal acknowledgement, reverence, and veneration of a deity. It also entails intimate communion with the deity by way of listening, hearing, and private communication (prayer) with the deity. External worship takes the forms of public prayer, public statements of acknowledgement and praise of the deity, participation in collective worship events, and communication with and to others on behalf of the deity.
External worship may become audacious and possibly blasphemous if the proclaimer purports to speak for the deity or assert the deity's intents and wishes upon the pretext that the deity has revealed those things to the proclaimer. I believe internal worship modes to be authentic; I suspect that many external worship events are scripted to be heard by human audiences rather than by deity. And all too often they entail directions to the deity rather than requests of the deity.
Why do humans engage in deity worship? An economist imagines that an economic principle may apply here. Virtually all ancient theologies entail some form of a quid-pro-quo ("this-for-that") relationship, i.e., humans offer worship to a deity in exchange for whatever they want from the deity, whether physical benefits in this life, prevention of negative effects in the natural or human environments, averting the effects of a deity's perceived wrath, or admission to a heavenly afterlife.
Without the possibility of quid-pro-quo exchanges, why should humans expect a pantheistic deity to engage in interventions on behalf of the humans? I can only hope that the god of the universe is panentheistic in engaging with the universe and its occupants, but in my limited experience, I cannot confirm that God intervenes in the functioning of the universe.
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14. Diversity
Pandeism may imply creationism, i.e., belief that deity established diversity during the process of creation of the universe, but then allowed or caused no further change ("one and done"). Creationism does not appear to be able to explain on-going change in the universe over 13+ billion years as implied in Webb and Euclid telescope images.
In 1859 Charles Darwin published a theory of evolution (On the Origin of Species) to counter the creationist explanation of diversity. Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was based on observations of the traits and characteristics that he observed during his voyage on the ship Beagle (1832-1835).
As the theory of evolution developed over the subsequent century and a half, a standard explanation of how animals and plants developed variety and complexity emerged: small genetic mutations accumulate over time (billions of years) to produce innovations such as eyes and wings.
I am not favorably disposed toward the creationist theory of diversity. I am inclined toward the Darwinian contention that the existing range of diversity which we observe today in nature has been the result of evolution, mutations, and natural selection over billions of years following the Big Bang.
The modern theory of evolution might be compatible with panentheism if evolution is a process that is enabled and guided by deity. In his book Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea (HarperCollins. EPub Edition 2010, p. 414), Carl Zimmer makes a strong case for evolution over creationism; but he also says that
15. Discounting
If the god of the universe indeed is a panentheistic deity, there may occur a lapse of time between the offer of worship to the deity and the receipt of a benefit that has been asked of the deity. The center-piece of Christian theology that prompts worship of God by a believer is the promise of salvation to a heavenly afterlife once the physical life of the believer comes to an end. Worship occurs in the present, but the fulfillment of such a promise would be a future event for most humans with average expected longevity.
In other essays I have expressed skepticism that an afterlife is a possibility. Whether an afterlife is a real possibility (or not), humans tend to discount the value of any future eventuality. Another economic principle may apply here: the present value of an expected future event is implicitly discounted in the mind of a normal human to reflect the remoteness of the future event.
Discounting may be illustrated with some simple examples using the discount formula [1 / (1 + r)] in which r is an annual discount rate. At a discount rate of 5 percent, the present value of a million dollars expected a year from now would be less than a million dollars today, calculated as [1 / (1 + 0.05)] x $1,000,000 = $952,381. At a higher discount rate of 10 percent, the present value of a million dollars expected a year from now would be even less, calculated as [1 / (1 + 0.10)] x $1,000,000 = $909,091. At a very high discount rate of 95 percent, the present value of a million dollars expected a year from now would be little more than half a million dollars, calculated as [1 / (1 + 0.95)] x $1,000,000 = $512,821. If the discount rate were zero, the present value of a million dollars expected a year from now would be the same amount (undiscounted) as it is today, calculated as [1 / (1 + 0.0)] x $1,000,000 = $1,000,000.
The size of the implicit discount rate that believers apply to the hope for admission to a heavenly afterlife likely varies with each person's expected death time horizon. A young person not expecting to expire in the near future may implicitly apply a high discount rate, say 95 percent (r = 0.95), to the expectation of admission to a heavenly afterlife some decades in the future. This implies that the promise of an afterlife may mean little to a young person.
But death is a certainty for everyone who has lived. As a person ages and gets ever nearer to their expected death time horizon, the implicit discount rate likely decreases toward zero. This means that the expectation and hope of a heavenly afterlife reaches its maximum present value just before the expected death. This suggests that the hope for admission to a heavenly afterlife may mean far more to elderly people than to young people.
Even if afterlife doesn't exist, the discount rate idea may apply to the present value of anything expected in the future, including life itself and even death. Young people who implicitly apply high discount rates to their own time horizons are more likely to be willing to enlist in the military during a time of active combat than are older people who apply lower discount rates to their time horizons.
The discount rate idea may apply to death as well. A young person not expecting death for many years may implicitly apply a high discount rate to their expected death time horizon and be willing to engage in risky activities in the present. Older people are likely to apply lower discount rates to their expected death time horizons, and thus to try to minimize exposure to risky activities.
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16. A Final Word
So, perhaps I have reached the end of my quest to understand deity. With wonder and awe, I acknowledge the vastness of the universe, its sacredness, and its coextensiveness with deity. I should quit speculating on the characteristics of deity or what deity may want from me or any other humans. I shall leave it to deity, if one exists, to let me know.
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