A Functional Deism
A little while ago I was watching a video on religion on youtube, and I commented that I don't believe in the supernatural historical claims of any mainstream religion, but I am a deist because I find cosmological arguments convincing. Someone replied that deism was a completely useless belief. I was rather annoyed, because I thought he doesn't know anything about my beliefs, but I didn't know how to answer. Sometime later, I was listening to an audio book by Aenga Besceawung (which I would recommend if you're interested in that kind of thing), and I realized that the commenter probably thought deism was not functional because it makes no claims about the divine dictates. But I think that if you really believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient, then that must mean that he made creation exactly the way he wanted it from the very beginning. Therefore, it makes sense to try to understand the world and accept it the way it is.
I've written essays about God before, and it seems hard for most people to understand it. Maybe part of the reason is that I don't have friends and I think about this by myself, so that when I share it with other people, my thoughts are utterly outside their frame of reference. But maybe if I write a more focused essay in response to someone's criticism, it will be better understood.
I suppose the only difference between a materialistic worldview and my deistic worldview is the moral implication. If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication. But if everything was made as it was for its own sake (like a giant artwork), then that morally implies that it is good, and that we ought to pay attention to it and appreciate it. So, my "religious" belief does not really accomplish anything other than a moral orientation. It makes no material claims that could not also be discovered in a purely materialistic worldview.
About cosmology: If you define logic as, "Rules of correct inference from assumed premises", and you think about ultimate causes, then you run into the problem of needing new premises in order to prove existing premises. Therefore, there are only 3 choices:
1. There exists a cause without a cause
2. There is an infinite regression of causes with no beginning
3. Causality is circular (maybe like someone going back in a time machine to start the big bang)
Whatever option you choose is outside the scope of ordinary logic. A thing without a premise cannot be acted upon by logic, you never get to the end of an infinite regression, and circular logic is ordinarily not considered valid. Therefore, SOMETHING definitely exists which is outside the scope of human reason.
I choose option 1, although I know I have no way of proving it. It serves the purpose of morally orienting myself towards existence. This is perhaps a hack on my brain. Humans are hardwired to be social, so it's easy for us to attribute personhood to things that aren't really people. It could be perhaps that the first cause isn't even a person as we understand it (I suppose an unconscious creator god is indistinguishable from the universe simply existing according to indifferent laws of nature), but thinking of it as a person immediately makes existence seem purposeful and therefore meaningful. There is no way to introduce meaning into a worldview without some kind of arbitrary moral assertion, because morals cannot be observed in the sensory (this is called the is-ought dilemma).
In physics, you use mathematical models to describe material objects (like F = ma). This gives the impression that matter is somehow subordinate to abstract logic, in that the logic can exist in the abstract without matter, but matter behaves only according to abstract principles. This can lead to the idea that math is somehow closely related go God. God is then, perhaps, an infinity of abstract potential, and he created the material universe in order to instantiate himself in particulars. From this train of thought, you'd predict a very big and very old universe, or possibly multiverses (you can't instantiate infinity with a small quantity of matter).
In this view, everything exists for its own sake, and is good in and of itself.
According to my understanding of science, I exist through an evolutionary process. If things exist for their own sake, then that means it's at least partially my purpose to play a part in the evolutionary game. It is good, therefore, that I am inclined to try to achieve success in life and try to spread my genes. But evolution works by weeding out the unfit, so God doesn't really care whether I succeed or not. Evolution can be thought of as a repeatedly instantiated proof by contradiction (where the unfit die because they are not good instantiations of whatever their species is in that particular environment). If I were lucky enough to become rich and famous and sire many children, that would be pleasing to God. If my life were cut short by cancer, or I were killed by a natural disaster, or by violence, or by my own folly, then apparently, those other phenomena would also be interesting and meaningful to God. This train of thought leads to the idea that it is noble and good for me to struggle in life, but that the outcome of my struggle ultimately doesn't matter. Everything is just a part of the great artwork.
There are many other phenomena than just evolutionary phenomena. When a scientist studies the storms on Neptune, or the gravity in a black hole, or the fission in a star, those things exist, and so must seem good and beautiful to God. When we study math and science and see beauty in it, perhaps we are beginning to see existence in some small way similar to how God sees it. But since I don't believe there was ever a covenant made with God, and we have no ability to affect these things, perhaps it is somewhat vain for humans to spend too much time thinking on obscure abstractions and distant planets.
This philosophy is perhaps bleak because there is no covenant with the divine, and therefore there is no promise of personal fulfilment. But this religious belief also necessarily implies that there is a whole universe (or possibly multiverses) of beauty and goodness completely outside the scope of my own personal desires.
I've written essays about God before, and it seems hard for most people to understand it. Maybe part of the reason is that I don't have friends and I think about this by myself, so that when I share it with other people, my thoughts are utterly outside their frame of reference. But maybe if I write a more focused essay in response to someone's criticism, it will be better understood.
I suppose the only difference between a materialistic worldview and my deistic worldview is the moral implication. If everything simply exists without known cause, then there is no moral implication. But if everything was made as it was for its own sake (like a giant artwork), then that morally implies that it is good, and that we ought to pay attention to it and appreciate it. So, my "religious" belief does not really accomplish anything other than a moral orientation. It makes no material claims that could not also be discovered in a purely materialistic worldview.
About cosmology: If you define logic as, "Rules of correct inference from assumed premises", and you think about ultimate causes, then you run into the problem of needing new premises in order to prove existing premises. Therefore, there are only 3 choices:
1. There exists a cause without a cause
2. There is an infinite regression of causes with no beginning
3. Causality is circular (maybe like someone going back in a time machine to start the big bang)
Whatever option you choose is outside the scope of ordinary logic. A thing without a premise cannot be acted upon by logic, you never get to the end of an infinite regression, and circular logic is ordinarily not considered valid. Therefore, SOMETHING definitely exists which is outside the scope of human reason.
I choose option 1, although I know I have no way of proving it. It serves the purpose of morally orienting myself towards existence. This is perhaps a hack on my brain. Humans are hardwired to be social, so it's easy for us to attribute personhood to things that aren't really people. It could be perhaps that the first cause isn't even a person as we understand it (I suppose an unconscious creator god is indistinguishable from the universe simply existing according to indifferent laws of nature), but thinking of it as a person immediately makes existence seem purposeful and therefore meaningful. There is no way to introduce meaning into a worldview without some kind of arbitrary moral assertion, because morals cannot be observed in the sensory (this is called the is-ought dilemma).
In physics, you use mathematical models to describe material objects (like F = ma). This gives the impression that matter is somehow subordinate to abstract logic, in that the logic can exist in the abstract without matter, but matter behaves only according to abstract principles. This can lead to the idea that math is somehow closely related go God. God is then, perhaps, an infinity of abstract potential, and he created the material universe in order to instantiate himself in particulars. From this train of thought, you'd predict a very big and very old universe, or possibly multiverses (you can't instantiate infinity with a small quantity of matter).
In this view, everything exists for its own sake, and is good in and of itself.
According to my understanding of science, I exist through an evolutionary process. If things exist for their own sake, then that means it's at least partially my purpose to play a part in the evolutionary game. It is good, therefore, that I am inclined to try to achieve success in life and try to spread my genes. But evolution works by weeding out the unfit, so God doesn't really care whether I succeed or not. Evolution can be thought of as a repeatedly instantiated proof by contradiction (where the unfit die because they are not good instantiations of whatever their species is in that particular environment). If I were lucky enough to become rich and famous and sire many children, that would be pleasing to God. If my life were cut short by cancer, or I were killed by a natural disaster, or by violence, or by my own folly, then apparently, those other phenomena would also be interesting and meaningful to God. This train of thought leads to the idea that it is noble and good for me to struggle in life, but that the outcome of my struggle ultimately doesn't matter. Everything is just a part of the great artwork.
There are many other phenomena than just evolutionary phenomena. When a scientist studies the storms on Neptune, or the gravity in a black hole, or the fission in a star, those things exist, and so must seem good and beautiful to God. When we study math and science and see beauty in it, perhaps we are beginning to see existence in some small way similar to how God sees it. But since I don't believe there was ever a covenant made with God, and we have no ability to affect these things, perhaps it is somewhat vain for humans to spend too much time thinking on obscure abstractions and distant planets.
This philosophy is perhaps bleak because there is no covenant with the divine, and therefore there is no promise of personal fulfilment. But this religious belief also necessarily implies that there is a whole universe (or possibly multiverses) of beauty and goodness completely outside the scope of my own personal desires.
Comments (44)
Does it imply that? I don't intuit that conclusion. A deistic god could be just another thing, with no particular need to give it and what it wants any more mind than anything else. Who says it cares about you, or wants you to care about it? Perhaps it has no moral content at all.
I am aware that I can't prove that it is the way I spelled out here. I did mention that I can't prove that there is a creator God (although that's a plausible possibility), and that finding utility in creation being personal might come merely from the fact that humans are hardwired to be social. So, pointing out that things might not be as I suppose doesn't seem to really be proving anything, it's just rejecting the premises. I suppose I have to concede that even if there is a creator God, then there is the possibility that the purpose of creation is utterly unknown to us.
I suppose the only thing that is strictly implied by God creating the world is that God thought it was good (or else why would he create it?) I suppose it's technically a possibility that God thinking something is good has no bearing on whether we think it's good, but in this case, it's hard to imagine what possible basis for morality could exist at all. I don't even think that this idea of a possible conflict between God's desires and ours runs entirely counter to the train of thought in the original post, because I was talking near the end about how God sees beauty in things that are far outside the scope of my own personal desires. I suppose a moral presupposition here is that it is good to submit ourselves to God's way of valuing things, but the alternative would mean hating existence, which does not seem very pleasant.
I suppose I think the utility of this worldview is that it is a minimalistic explanation for existence which is consistent with our experience that simultaneously provides a metaphysical framework for valuing existence for its own sake.
All morality depends on arbitrary assertions, since we cannot directly observe values. I do not think you could come up with a moral system which did not take SOMETHING for granted. So, I did not find it very useful to point out that my assumptions might not be true. The only constructive thing that could come from that is forcing me to more concretely spell out my assumptions. I suppose I thought that the original assumptions were that there is a creator God and that we can learn how he values existence by observing existence, and you pointed out that this only makes sense if we care about what God thinks.
Just giving my idea some color, wasn't aiming my ass at you.
[quote=Deus]All I want is all the life in me to be free.[/quote]
Freedom is the prerequisite for morality and immorality. All a bit Hegelian, but potentially explanatory.
An interesting, well written post. My thoughts.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
There are other possible choices.
4. Causation is not a valid, or at least not the only valid, way of thinking about how the universe works. This is mainstream philosophical position.
5. The universe is eternal. It's always been here and always will be. It never began and was never caused.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
What you say may be true for deductive logic, but not for inductive. Inductive logics job, if you want to look at it that way, is to generate premises for deductive logic to work on.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
I think this is important. I have been thinking about a metaphysical argument for God that is similar to your understanding of deism. I just have not put my arguments together well enough to bring it out on the forum yet. Speaking personally, when I see, live in, the world, I often want to express my gratitude for something so wonderful. That is the heart of my understanding of God, although there's more to it than that. To be clear, when I say "metaphysical" I mean that it is not something that can be determined empirically. It is not true or false. That seems similar to how you are describing your attitude toward deism.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
I love the world. I can't believe how wonderful it is. Seems like you feel something similar. There are many people here on the forum and in the world who have a much sourer take. They are unlikely to find your approach useful.
Quoting T Clark
4 is a valid alternative, although it does mean that logic/science would not work to describe uncausal things.
5 seems to me to be the same as 2. If the universe is infinitely old and one thing causes another, then that is an infinite regression of causes. Although an infinite regression of causes isn't necessarily limited by time. For instance, if there were an infinitely old universe with fixed laws of physics, you could still ask, "Where did the laws of physics come from?" If the laws of physics don't come from anything, then I guess they would be God (the uncaused cause).
Quoting T Clark
I think inductive logic can argue for plausibility, but it can't prove unique truth.
Quoting T Clark
Actually, I developed this philosophy to counter my natural sourness. I think it has helped. Changing one's thoughts really can change one's emotional state. I can tell myself (and believe it) that even if I don't feel grateful right now, there is cause to be grateful, so that not feeling it is a problem with me and not with the world .
At one time I was really trying to be a Christian, but was frustrated by a couple things. One frustration was that there didn't seem to be any evidence to me that I was actually in a relationship with God. Another was that adhering to one tradition or another opened one's self up to having literal interpretations of Bible passages being disproven by science. And a general life frustration was that many things did not seem to be going my way. So, this philosophy answers these problems by not requiring for there to be any covenant with God, not being offensive to my intellect (such as by asking me to believe something that seemed contrary to scientific evidence), and by helping me find meaning even when my personal goals were failing.
Since we cannot observe values with our eyes, in a certain sense, all of our moral systems are just made-up. This is probably why it can be nigh impossible to bring another person around to your way of thinking in the religious/moral sphere. A person with different experiences or temperament could not be influenced by my philosophy the same way I am. I think it is a good thing to explicitly spell our one's moral assumptions as I have done, because at least this is honest. It think the new atheist types that just attack everything are unaware of what the foundation of their values is. They can poke holes in other people's beliefs, but they are not self-aware enough to even know that they have moral beliefs of their own which others could theoretically poke holes in, if they were to formulate their beliefs.
Thanks for the essay. I too have an unconventional understanding of The Universe, Nature, Evolution, and my role in it. But as soon as you use the word "God" you may encounter harsh push-back prejudice from those who are disappointed in the imperfections of our pale "Blue Dot" in the blackness. And even "Deism" may be viewed as faith in a do-nothing-deity. Years ago, I spelled it "G*D" to subtly indicate that it's not your grandfather's deity. For Atheists though, it's all the same old fairytale BS. And for those who follow traditional religions, its basically the same old materialistic Atheism with a veneer of deity. So I now use a variety of labels to indicate a generic loosely-defined god-concept. For example, ancient functional philosophical terms, such as "First Cause", "Prime Mover" and "Potential" sound more like scientific terminology than religious doctrines.
I was raised as a fundamentalist non-catholic Christian. But I began my non-religious sojourn as an Agnostic. Eventually I found Deism to be somewhat more positive, in that it acknowledges that something important is going on, that is beyond the Reductive scope of empirical Science. However, the dominant mono-theistic religions seem to "believe that God is omnipotent and omniscient, then that must mean that he made creation exactly the way he wanted it from the very beginning". And yet, they all have to make doctrinal compromises to accommodate the obvious imperfections of the "creation" as we humans experience it. For example, a secondary evil god is presumed to have spoiled God's perfect paradise by introducing FreeWill into robotic animal behavior. But that pragmatic storyline adjustment undermines the ideal Omnipotent doctrine, with Duality, and Trinity.
Your admission that, "my "religious 'belief' does not really accomplish anything other than a moral orientation", may simply mean that you rely on rational Philosophy, instead of doctrinal Religion, for your moral compass. I agree that, "there are only 3 choices: 1. There exists a cause without a cause." Modern Cosmology is built upon the open-ended assumption of a sudden Big Bang emergence without a prior Cause. And philosophers, without empirical or biblical evidence can infer the logical necessity for an abstract First Cause of some indefinite kind, to fill the causal gap at the beginning of the ongoing chain of causation that we now refer to as Evolution. As you say, "Whatever option you choose is outside the scope of ordinary [scientific] logic". So, we fall back onto old-fashioned philosophical inference and hypothesis to add a few dots . . . . to the ellipsis at the beginning of space-time.
Since we Deists have no scriptural "word of god" to rely on, our revelation can only be the "Creation" that we can study using scientific methods. Having no direct communication with the First Cause, we can't even know for sure if it is a Person with a human-like mind. So, I agree that "the first cause isn't even a person". However, from the perspective of the Creation's thinking creatures, the world is both Physical/Material and Metaphysical/Spiritual*1, both Mechanical and Animated. Yet, by "spiritual" I only mean "philosophical".
Obviously, the pre-Bang First Cause cannot be a space-time physical object. So I agree with the "idea that math is somehow closely related to God". And, "God is then, perhaps, an infinity of abstract potential". However, as atheist physicist Steven Hawking wrote, "If we do discover a theory of everything...it would be the ultimate triumph of human reasonfor then we would truly know the mind of God.". So, until then, we will have to be content with un-provable speculations, such as "[i]he created the material universe in order to instantiate himself in particulars[/i]". In which case it might be, "my purpose to play a part in the evolutionary game".
You lamented that, "This philosophy is perhaps bleak because there is no covenant with the divine, and therefore there is no promise of personal fulfilment". The only "covenant with God" we humans have may be the innate urge to explore and understand the "artwork", in order to know the artist through the art. In that case, the only "personal fulfillment" may be to set our own goals and to produce our own "works of art". Like Virtue, Art may be its own reward. If the lack of a promise of Paradise is "bleak", then at least we can take some pride in our little "work of art", by which we individuals create a "good" Person, and as collectives create better Societies. I'll reserve the question of Progress for later posts, only if the thread tends in that direction. :smile:
*1. What does it mean to be spiritual? :
Spirituality means knowing that our lives have significance in a context beyond a mundane everyday existence at the level of biological needs that drive selfishness and aggression. It means knowing that we are a significant part of a purposeful unfolding of Life in our universe.
https://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/docs/default-source/members/sigs/spirituality-spsig/what-is-spirituality-maya-spencer-x.pdf?sfvrsn=f28df052_2
PALE BLUE DOT
(2022)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/718054
What about Spinoza's acosmism?
(8 months ago)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/876609
Morality does not issue from anything as arcane as cosmogony but rather from the pragmatic necessities of harmonious social life.
I think in principle, it's probably impossible for us to find a theory of everything. This is because of Geodel's theorem, which if I understand correctly, says that a mathematical system cannot be both complete and consistent. That means for any consistent theory, there will be things that are true but can't be proven. Anything based on logic or math (including science) ought to also be affected by Geodel's theorem.
I think in the case of science, we probably err on the side of inconsistency. This is because for any given phenomena, we can come up for an explanation for it. But we might not have worked out all the implications of our explanations. An example of a historical inconsistency was that in Maxwell's equations, you can derive the speed of light irrespective of reference frame, but according to the physics of the time, the speed of anything ought to depend on reference frame. A current possible contradiction could be relativity and quantum mechanics (relativity is smooth and deterministic, and quantum mechanics is not). I'm not saying that science is all wrong and I'm smarter than all the physicists in the world. I can't point at exactly where the contradiction is, but based off Goedel's theorem, it's probably there somewhere.
Going back to God, if there is such a thing as a necessary premise or a first premise which is complete in itself and from which we can derive everything else, then it breaks Geodel's theorem (or is altogether outside the bounds of human logic). But if there is no such thing, and Geodel's theorem holds for all things whatsoever, then does that indicate that reality itself is incomplete or inconsistent? It is rather unsettling. It is another indication that it is beyond our power to know the ultimate truths.
I don't think I entirely understood the comment about pandeism. It looks like you were arguing that we are all a dream in the mind of God, and it was somehow connected to physics. I suppose I already liked to imagine that God was something like a programmer and that we are the programmed world. I suppose that's very similar to being in the mind of God.
If you define God as the unmoved mover, however, then it does not make sense to say that "everything" is God, in the same way that it would be wrong to say that the world of Minecraft "is" the developer(s) who made it.
I've looked into Spinoza briefly before and it seemed to me that his ideas on God were similar to mine. But it made more sense to me to think using my own brain than to copy what someone else thought.
Logic and science do not require the concept of causation. Whether or not the idea of causation is needed is a very big subject. We've discussed it quite a few times here on the forum.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
They seem different to me. Or maybe 5 is a combination of 2 and 4.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
Ultimately, premises in deductive logic are generated either by assumption or by inductive logic.
Quoting Brendan Golledge
I consider myself the Polyanna of the forum.
All of the god-models you mentioned are merely frustrated attempts to answer the "why are we here" and "where is here" questions with non-religious (philosophical or scientific) representations of "things unseen". PanDeism and PanEnDeism merely mean that "G*D" is the whole of which we humans are like single-cells trying to imagine the whole body. The "we are dreamers within a dream" concept is suggestive, but we can't pinch ourselves to wake up. The cosmic "programmer" model is a plausible notion, that makes some sense to modern people, but is not much different in essence from ancient concepts of a gigantic invisible puppeteer pulling our invisible strings. After all, the model is not the deity, and we are shooting at a black cat in the dark. So all our attempts to understand something that is not observable with our physical senses is "mere Philosophy", and all moot, since we have no empirical evidence to support our mythical models.
Some philosophers, for whom traditional religious myths are passé, attempt to create theories that sound more like scientific models. For example, the notion of a "non-planck" universe sounds sciency, but only reduces G*D to an imaginary negative-dimension speck of matter, smaller than the smallest possible particle, hence deliciously mysterious. Likewise, "Acosmism" is a sort of negation of the knowable world, which denies its mundane reality in favor of a titillating paradox like the infinite unmanifest absolute. Ultimately, all our attempts to visualize something inherently invisible are going to be infinitely debatable. Consequently, we can't be dogmatic about any of our hypothetical god-models. But the alternative to such philosophical speculation is to smugly accept the absurdity of a world with no known reason for being.
For thousands of years, philosophers have been looking for clues at the scene of the crime : the physical universe. But the perpetrator is cleverly hidden behind an invisibility cloak. Is that inaccessibility a deliberate attempt to deceive us, or is it a logical necessity of a physical world created by a metaphysical deity? Deism has no final answer to the big "Why?" question. But we can amuse ourselves by exploring all possible solutions in a chat room. It's your turn to play detective. :cool:
Ha! That Incompleteness Theorem may be G*D's invisibility cloak. But it's true only for "formal systems of logic", and chat room Philosophy is an informal system. So, we can prove our informal language theories-of-everything to our heart's content. Which may be why Faith is such a powerful mental attribute. For example, Materialism is more of an Axiom than a formal theory*1. As is Deism. Both propose to explain everything by reference to an assumed universal fact.
Pandeism (all is spirit) and Materialism (all is matter) postulate a universal substance within the universe, that explains everything else in the world. But PanEnDeism assumes that G*D is not so much a Substance, but a Cause*2. And the prevailing materialistic TOE, the Big Bang, assumes implicitly that Cause & Laws (e.g. Energy & Gravity ; Change & Organization)) existed eternally prior to the beginning of the material empirical world. Likewise, for Deism, Causation and Control are necessary attributes of any meaningful G*D. Hence the Deist logic : no G*D, no Energy or Order to make the plethora of material things. No G*D, no organized evolving world. QED. :halo:
*1. Is Materialism true? :
In general, materialism isn't 'empirically robust'. Indeed, it's empirically uncorroborable, because it doesn't make testable predictions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/1opsr8/is_materialism_really_as_empirically_robust_as/
*2. Acquinas' Cosmological Argument :
The cause is God, the effect is the world :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zv2fgwx/revision/2
:rofl: Stunning ignorance. :lol:
Quoting Brendan Golledge
No I didn't. I asked you to philosophically consider (my proposed summaries of monist-immanent) pandeism & acosmism as alternatives to (dualist-transcendent) deism.
I sometimes refer to my philosophical worldview as "Deism", or more specifically as PanEnDeism. Yet the "moral implication" of our world derives not from some divine Ideal that we are supposed to fulfill. but from its inherent opposing forces (positive vs negative ; good vs evil) that force us to make moral choices.
There may be a reason why the creation was not an all good paradise from the beginning. But as we know it --- from our perspective somewhere in the middle of the evolutionary process --- that duality of causes is perhaps its dominant feature, for both scientific and philosophical purposes. Nevertheless, we imagine that the Cause of the Creation was something like a single purposeful Mind. However, I must assume that the purpose of the Creation was not to create an all-good perfect paradise by divine fiat, but to allow the cosmic system to work-out its own destiny.
The "moral implication" of our ever-changing world is not for its Creator, but for its sentient creatures. :smile:
The Case for Deism :
Consequently, my proposed alternative deity is neither the all-good God of obsequious flattery, nor the evil incarnate of various Satanic fables; neither the bestower of blessings upon the faithful, nor the author of eternal damnation on those of other faiths. But merely the awesome enigmatic creative force behind all aspects of reality. The hypothetical G*D of the real world is not Good or Evil, but the Potential for all possible states.
https://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page25.html
Deism vs Atheism :
Atheists & Humanists agree with Deists that most traditional religions, while useful for melding groups of unruly individuals into cohesive societies with standardized ethical systems, have gone astray from practical real-world truth in their search for idealistic other-worldly certainty. They observe that the social bonds of racial & religious tribalism also create rifts between tribes that are rife with strife. But more specifically, Atheists part ways with all forms of Theism on the touchy subject of supernatural deities that are imagined to rule the world, and whose existence must be taken on faith. While Neo-Deism has no use for a pantheon of cloud-dwelling Olympian deities or hordes of dirt-dwelling demons, it still has a role for a single ultimate principle of causation that created the universe, and governs its evolution. That abstract principle may or may not be personal, and may or may not be self-conscious; but it is essential to the existence & evolution of the natural world; hence must logically be a priori, in the sense of First Cause.
https://bothandblog.enformationism.info/page39.html
Like any philosophical worldview, Deism is subject to personal idiosyncrasies and interpretations. For example 's Monist Immanent Pandeism is generally compatible with my own Monist Transcendent PanEnDeism. Yet, for some unarticulated reason (emotion), he finds my view distasteful, and responds to my amateur scientific & cosmological arguments with sophistic ad hominems, plus rude trolling gibes and supercilious taunts. Go figure! :cool:
Monist Immanent Pantheism :
Pantheism is the belief that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent God, or that the universe (or nature) is identical with divinity. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal or anthropomorphic god, but believe that interpretations of the term differ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism
Immanent vs Transcendent :
PanEnDeism is inclusive in that the hypothetical deity is both immanent and transcendent. Immanent as the ongoing Cause of Evolution, and Transcendent as the First Cause of our contingent space-time world.
In any objective morality, existence is good
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15203/in-any-objective-morality-existence-is-inherently-good/p1
And while it is one of my earlier works and not as clear, this is a proof that leads to your conclusion here.
A first cause is logically necessary
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12098/a-first-cause-is-logically-necessary/p1
Maybe in metaphyasics but not for modern fundamental physics (or mathematics re: real numbers)..
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/617855
Like if there were a mathematical proof "A" that proof "A" does not exist, then I agree that would be a contradiction. But if there isn't necessarily any correlation between existence and goodness, then I don't think it follows that if a mathematical proof of goodness could exist, that that proof would necessarily be good.
I have a hard time understanding what you mean because you throw out all these terms and I don't know what the terms mean. I had to look up, "Res ipsa loquitur", for instance. And throwing out those terms isn't really an argument unless the person you're speaking to already understands exactly what you mean by those terms, and they understand how you mean to apply them.
Feel free to make your comment in that post so we don't distract from the OP. Long story short, yes, its still logically necessary.
If you are noting that no first cause has been discovered or proven in physics, I agree 100%
No, because the initial point is that existence vs nothing is good. So inherently there is some good to existence. When breaking existence down into 'parts' or existences, we can find that some existences are better than others in their interactions. Whatever interaction creates more existence is better, while interactions that lower overall existence are worse.
As a very basic example, a small explosive to open up a mine allows access to ore for commerce and improved human life. A large explosive that destroys the entire Earth is evil as is erases all the potential and actual existence of life. But its best if we discuss the specifics in the article itself so you get the full idea and don't distract from the other conversations here.
Deism is a philosophical axiom, not a religion. However, probably due to its religious associations and implications, several posters take issue with your first choice : an uncaused, hence eternally existing, general power of causation or generator of change*1. For them, a space-time limit on philosophical Causation is not self-evident. But Entropy does place an ultimate limit on physical Causation.
Some philosophers are content with the First Cause/Prime Mover hypothesis of empirical astronomical Cosmology : an ex nihilo Big Bang with no known or knowable precedent. Others, like David Hume, don't take Causation for granted, but conclude that it is an artificial concept. And some don't consider Causation to be a concern : things just happen for no apparent reason. So, don't bother reasoning with them, since they don't accept your Axioms.
And don't bother reasoning with . As he said, "The member to whom I replied knows what all those terms mean." For example, "Res ipsa loquitur, coming from him, simply means "you're an idiot". As you noted, he doesn't make rational arguments, just ridiculing accusations. Since he doesn't agree with your Axioms*2, anything you say will be absurd nonsense to him.
And don't assume that Common Sense has any special validity on this forum. Philosophers can logic chop*3 any concept into infinite bits of non-sense. For example, in Set Theory, the Axiom of Choice*4 says that you can take one element of an old Set and construct a new Set, "even if the collection is infinite". So, when a thread reaches a point where the points are near infinite, its time to bail out. Or to limit your responses to those who seem to be on the same page.
There are a few posters on TPF who are willing to civilly discuss plausible, but debatable philosophical concepts like "First Cause" or "Deity" without resorting to political (us vs them) debates and supercilious Troll taunts. Dialog but don't debate. :smile:
*1. What is the meaning of uncaused first cause?
But remember that in this argument, first cause just. means uncaused cause - or, something which causes other things to exist but was not itself caused to exist. And there appears to be no contradiction in the idea of there being more than one uncaused cause.
https://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/2009-10/10100/LECTURES/3-second-way.pdf
Note___ The statement in bold does violate the principle of Occam's Razor. A single Cause of the Big Bang should be sufficient. "Uncaused" implies self-existent, and some assume as an axiom that the hypothetical Multiverse is self-existent.
*2. Plausibility of Infinity and Transcendence :
Anything outside the set of Space-Time is philosophically conceivable, but scientifically non-empirical.
*3. Logic Chopping :
(fallacy)
Using the technical tools of logic in an unhelpful and pedantic manner by focusing on trivial details instead of directly addressing the main issue in dispute.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com logicalfallacies
*4. Axiom of Choice :
Informally put, the axiom of choice says that given any collection of sets, each containing at least one element, it is possible to construct a new set by choosing one element from each set, even if the collection is infinite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice
And once again, like Trump, your accusation is a confession, Gnomon. :eyes: :sweat:
Will you elaborate on your topic, to explain why you refer to it as "functional" Deism? Is functional merely the opposite of useless? Or do you mean that G*D has some specific function in the evolving space-time world that presumably began, for no apparent reason, with a cosmological Bang? :smile:
:clap: :sweat:
No, but I'm embarrassed. Like a parent looking in the back seat to see what the ruckus is all about, you caught me pinning the arms of little brother who has been punching me to get a rise out of the parents. :yikes:
You weren't supposed to see that "explanation" of 's hidden meanings in abstruse jargon. Like I looked up the foreign phrase, even though my high school Latin allowed me to guess that the implication was a disparagement of Deism, as belief in a worthless negligent deity. The "coming from him" interpretation was based on years of personal experience with 180's sarcasm, scorn & sneering. Since I am one of his favorite victims, I try to warn newbies not to engage him in a serious dialog --- if your worldview involves any violation of his Immanentism belief system : "beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience".
Apparently, you didn't notice that the Latin phrase was "defined" with tongue in cheek. When I was a newbie on this forum, I found 180 to be very intelligent and well-educated in philosophy. And our philosophical worldviews seemed to be generally compatible --- from my perspective. Except that any implication of Transcendence from the material world seems to trigger some flashbacks of his childhood religion (nun or priest abuse?). Provoking him to lash-out at the provocateur.
180 proof and I have a long history of his trolling my posts with lots of over-my-head philosophical jargon ; often couched with supercilious implications of stupidity toward anyone who could believe in supernatural beings. So, I no longer engage him in dialog. He seems to think that only blathering idiots could take seriously anything that transcends space-time, and especially anything reminiscent of traditional gods. His typical insult is to label me a New Age nut, due to my frequent references to Holism. I don't take such affronts seriously, though. So, they don't hurt my feelings. But someone new to his veiled ad hominem attacks may think he's trying to make a legitimate philosophical argument. :cool:
Excerpt from my post above to Brendan :
"As he {180} said, "The member {gnomon] to whom I replied knows what all those terms mean." For example, "Res ipsa loquitur, coming from him, simply means "you're an idiot".
For me, Deism is not a religion of any kind. It is instead, a philosophical position that is an alternative to both biblical Religion and scientific Materialism. At this moment, I don't know a single Deist or Shaman in my area. And I have never joined with other worshipers of Nature*1 to dance around trees in the moonlight. However, if that is 's definition of Deism, I can understand why he likes to label me a "New Age nut". That common misunderstanding is why I don't normally identify myself as a practicing Deist ; just an amateur Philosopher.
I can't speak for , but my own definition of Deism is simply a philosophical worldview*2, not a worship of Nature or natural phenomena. Since I, long ago, realized that the Bible is not the Word of God, and lost faith in Revealed Religion, I discovered that Deism was a valid alternative, in which the Creation (Nature) is the revelation of the Creator (First Cause). Instead of studying the Bible, I now study secular Science. FWIW here's my own personal definition of Deism*3. :smile:
*1. What is an example of a natural religion?
What religions are based in nature? Many religions are based in nature, including pantheism, theism, panentheism, deism, polytheism,animism, totemism, shamanism, paganism, Saridharam, sarnaism,Kirat, and Wicca.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/nature-religion-overview-history-facts.html
*2. Philosophical Deism :
Aspects of Deism in Enlightenment philosophy. Enlightenment Deism consisted of two philosophical assertions: (1)reason, along with features of the natural world, is a valid source of religious knowledge, and (2) revelation is not a valid source of religious knowledge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism
*3. Deism :
An Enlightenment era response to the Roman Catholic version of Theism, in which the supernatural deity interacts and intervenes with humans via visions & miracles, and rules his people through a human dictator. Deists rejected most of the supernatural stuff, but retained an essential role for a First Cause creator, who must be respected as the quintessence of our world, but not worshipped like a tyrant. The point of Deism is not to seek salvation, but merely understanding.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html
*4. Deist :
Deism can be described as a rational, science-based worldview with pragmatic reasons for believing in a non-traditional non-anthro-morphic deity, rather than a faith-based belief system relying on the imaginative official myths of a minor ancient culture. So a Deist does not live by faith, but by reason. However, on topics where science is still uncertain (see Qualia), Deists feel free to use their reasoning powers to develop plausible beliefs that lie outside the current paradigm.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html
Note --- The "current scientific paradigm" is Materialism, which is useful for Chemistry, but not for Psychology or Cosmology. For example, cosmologists have been searching in vain since the 1990s for the Dark Matter particle. Hence, faith in Dark Matter is waning : "we have every reason to believe dark matter is everywhere. Yet we still don't know what it is." {Scientific American, Sept 2024}
Note ---Substitute "God" for "Dark Matter" and you may see a parallel to the "god is dead" notion in the 20th century.
Another trollish non sequitur ...
(2022 Gnomon is)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/783863
(2022 as Gnomon does)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/781656
@tim wood
Perhaps Deism is an aesthetic philosophy that sees beauty & design in the world, and speculates on its provenance. Not to serve physical needs, but to fulfill metaphysical desires for meaning & understanding. On the other hand, materialistic Science is not concerned with Beauty, but Utility. So, the role of theoretical Philosophy is "outside the scope" of physical necessities, but does serve the "human desire" for virtue & pleasure & happiness, and our homo sapiens need-to-know.
You haven't posted for a while, so I hope your original enthusiasm for Cosmology and Ontology has not been deterred by the nasty trolling attacks on philosophical speculations that transcend the practicalities of Immanentism and challenge the Faith of Materialism. This is not a Science symposium, it's a Philosophy forum. As biologist Stephen Jay Gould suggested, maybe we should consider them as Non-Overlapping Magisteria and different fields of study.
For example, Deism sees evidence of Design in Nature, but can't prove the existence of a Designer. Likewise, Science sees evidence of Dark Matter in the universe, but can't demonstrate what or where it is. Like the God-Hypothesis of all religions, Gravity & Dark Matter are hypothetical*1 causal forces, that work via "spooky action at a distance". But, for Newton & Einstein, such conjectures filled a need for understanding how & why the world works as it does. Like Gravity and Dark Matter, G*D serves as a conjectural causal principle in the universe. The only evidence for all these forces is circumstantial, not material. Astrophysicists have been faithfully searching for Dark Matter since the 1930s, and like G*D, it's still missing*2.
Analogous to Dark Matter theories, Deism accepts the notion that the universe is self-organizing, but makes no factual claims about Who, What or Where the Organizer is. Just as gravity is portrayed as warping empty space, G*D is an exotic notion that has to be accepted as an axiom in order to explain the observed organization of the universe. Newton's 17th century Gravity was an invisible inangible brute force. But 21st century Information (Enfomy*3) is more like a teleological computer program. An infinite deity is no more illogical than the concept of Zero or Void.
Forum trolls*4 seem to lump Deism into the same sh*tpot with the religious "opiate of the masses" in 15th -17th century Europe. But in Deism there is no opiate, no dogma, no faith, no covenant, just Reason & Science. Yet trolls, scarred by their own experience with authoritarian religions, cannot grasp that distinction. Modern religions are careful to accept the practical value of skeptical Science, but draw the line at having their own "revealed facts" placed under the microscope. Deism's scientific facts are empirically demonstrated. And its philosophical conjectures are open to rational argument.
Deism and Materialism are both based on metaphysical*5 Axioms that can't be proven*6. Axioms in philosophy and science are general statements that are not provable, but are generally assumed to be true or self-evident. They are accepted because they serve as the foundation for many other, more empirical facts. For some true believers though, the Axiom itself may become an article of Faith, instead of a placeholder.
Quantum Physics, with its ineffable mysteries, may have opened the door to a revival of the G*D hypothesis, to serve as an axiomatic foundation for all other attempts to explain how & why the world works as it does. For example, the commonly accepted Unified or Universal Field Theory is incompatible with Materialism*7, but serves as a framework for all of the superstructure of Physics. Deism*8 also has a mystery, and a missing First Cause, at the origin of the material universe. Yet, unlike the Dark Matter believers, Deists have accepted that it's futile to look for the metaphysical cause of all worldly effects inside the ongoing effect of Cosmic Evolution. Like Gravity, it's just an axiom. :smile:
*1. "Yes, gravity is an assumption in science because it cannot be proven. While we have never observed gravity change, we cannot prove that it will not change in the future."
___Google AI overview
*2. 85% of the matter in the universe is missing :
We have not yet found the elusive particles we believe dark matter consists of
https://phys.org/news/2024-08-universe-scientists-closer.html
*3. Enformy :
In the Enformationism theory, Enformy is a hypothetical, holistic, metaphysical, natural trend or force, that counteracts Entropy & Randomness to produce complexity & progress.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html
*4. "A forum troll is someone who posts inflammatory, off-topic, or aggressive comments on online forums to intentionally upset others. Trolls are bullies who want to enrage online communities, not engage with them." ___Google AI overview
*5. "Materialism is the metaphysical theory that all reality is composed of matter, meaning everything, including mental states and consciousness, can be explained by physical processes and interactions, essentially denying the existence of any non-physical or spiritual entities." ___Google AI overview
*6. "[i]Metaphysical : of or relating to the transcendent (see transcendent sense 1) or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses.
Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality, including existence, objects and their properties, possibility and necessity"[/i]" ____ Wikipedia
*7. "Yes, universal field theory is incompatible with materialism because the most fundamental aspects of the material world cannot be understood in terms of material substances." ___Google AI overview
*8. Enlightenment Deism consisted of two philosophical assertions: (1) reason, along with features of the natural world, is a valid source of religious knowledge, and (2) revelation is not a valid source of religious knowledge. ___Wikipedia