Theism vs. Deism

The difference between theism and deism is essential in debates about the existence of God. On this website and in my books the Lens of Faith and Shoehorning God, I have studied evidence that suggests that there is a personal God who takes an interest in human beings. This is the most widespread view among religious people in the world. In monotheistic religions God is seen as a being who has intervened in the world to reveal himself to humanity. According to believers, God interacts with the universe through miracles or supernatural revelations. God is believed to be personally involved in the lives of believers, for example, through religious experiences and prayers. 

In debates about the existence of God, there are cosmological, teleological, and ontological arguments. Ontological arguments attempt to prove the existence of God through the concept of a perfect being. Cosmological arguments seek to prove God's exitence through the existence of the world. Teleological arguments consider the organization of the world to prove that it was created. To the extent that these arguments are valid, they attempt to prove a very generic God. They can only say that God exists and created the universe. However, the evidence that I discuss in my books has to do with the existence of a certain concept of God who interferes with the laws of nature, and causes miracles, visions, and inspirations.

If there is a personal God with a conscious will and thoughts, we can expect him to implement them in the world. The Christian God is believed to be operating from a transcendent reality and is not bound by the laws of nature. He is a personal being who interacts with the world. He is an anthropomorphic being with a will, feelings, thoughts, and actions. The question now is: where is the evidence for this interaction? 

General and Special Revelation

This book is about supernatural revelation as opposed to natural or general revelation. It is important to explain the difference between the two. God is believed to have communicated with mankind through both general revelation and nature, or the observable universe. General revelation refers to the idea that God can be known through the natural intellectual faculties without an additional act of supernatural revelation. General revelation is through the universe and its various objects and beings. The special revelation is given by influencing the lawful universe beyond the laws of nature. In Christian literature, special revelation refers to supernatural divine action. Christianity assumes that God has revealed his word and teachings on key matters concerning salvation, redemption, morality, and so forth in the Bible. 

According to Christian theology, special revelation has occurred in inspired texts and historical events. The biblical scriptures contain descriptions of historical events in which God expresses His will and reveals Himself to humans. Jesus is considered the incarnation of God. The life of Jesus, his words, and especially the end of his life are considered the most important sources of special revelation. .

Miracles, visions, and religious experiences can be grouped under the term "personal revelations". Typically, these kinds of experiences are private in nature, but they occur in every religion. Most often, they are not considered primary evidence but a part of a cumulative case for God among religious believers. By and large, the case that can be made for the existence of a personal, theistic God is weak. 

Prophecies, scientific miracles, miracle stories in sacred texts, and miraculous experiences are evidence for God only for people who already believe in God. 

If a theistic God existed, he could do a number of things to prove his existence to us. He could interact with the world in a way that would not go unnoticed. He could give prophecies or scientific data to someone directly or in a text. He could appear in a mass vision or in person, but in an understandable and specific way in different cultures. He could create new species of animals, or some new chemistry within life forms. He could create a life form based entirely on RNA, not DNA. He could condense new stars in the sky. He could speed up or slow down the planets or even align them in honor of "the Savior" on his birthday. 

The fossil record seems to show that animals and plants occur in a logical order in terms of geography and chronology. You do not find polar bears at both poles of the planet or australopithecines in Australia. When a species goes extinct, it stays dead. In other words, the God or "Intelligent Designer" of life did not move animals around or resurrect any of them.

We have no real, tangible evidence of the existence of a God who interacts with the world. All we have are flimsy miracle stories from thousands of years ago. 

However, the concept of God can be understood in a variety of ways. As the philosopher Ilkka Niiniluoto put it:

"The endeavor to prove the existence of God is problematic because the very concept is so ambiguous. It would be reasonable if theists and atheists would tell us what kind of God they acknowledge or reject" (my translation. From Uskonnonfilosofia, 2003, WSOY). 

There is still room for a God of the Big Bang, a deistic God, a great architect of the universe. The deist God is impersonal, a supreme being who does not interact with His creation. Deists themselves are called "spiritual freethinkers". Deists hold that divine activity is limited to an initial act of creation ex-nihilo. The deist God is an otiose God who is too remote to be involved in the activities and fates of human beings. 

Deists believe in an impersonal, generic God whose only role in relation to the universe is to set its processes in motion at the Big Bang. God created the world at the Big Bang and then let it evolve on its own. Deists believe that God established the natural laws but is not actively involved in human affairs. Deists believe in God on the basis of reason and without reference to revelation. Deism flourished during the Enlightenment, when deists challenged Christianity in many ways, largely by rendering miracles problematic.

If there is a God, it must have set the universe and all its physics, chemistry, and biology in motion. In this sense, creation is not in competition with evolution.

The God of Spinoza is an immanent, initial cause of all being. This being cannot be expected to do anything other than manifest itself as the natural universe. It is the concept of a God who becomes the universe. 

"Spinoza's God is a self-caused substance of "infinite" attributes, including both extension and thought, from whose nature everything possible necessarily flows. It follows that individual things, such as human beings, can only be modes of this one substance - which Spinoza sometimes called "God or Nature" ["Deus, sive Nature")"4 Don Garrett, The Cambridge Companion to Spinoza, 1996.This is the God, the “Old One”, that Einstein believed in.

"I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

“The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all there is.” Albert Einstein

Many religions and philosophies have no problem with this way of thinking about God. The creation of the world is described as a radiation or an emanation, a flowing of the universe according to natural laws, without conscious action from God. The scientific account of the beginning of the universe is consistent with this idea. After the Big Bang, the universe unfolded through natural processes; matter condensed and formed hydrogen and helium as the universe expanded and cooled. Eventually, matter coalesced into galaxies within which stars were formed. Supernovae allowed heavier elements, the necessary materials for planets and biological life, to form. These processes are still ongoing in the universe.

If the laws of nature are all we have as evidence for God, they leave us with only very vague ideas of what God might be like. Should the universe itself be considered divine? Is there a God who set the universe in motion? If there is no supernatural interference, these arguments can only say that God implanted a design in the universe to make it work by itself. This is not a God to whom we are accountable or who promises us an eternal life after death. 

There are many deists in the world. They believe that God set the universe up. They emphasize the use of reason and reject special revelations and miracles. This sounds feasible. But on its own, it would hardly convince the average atheist. The emphasis on reason and, by that standard, rejecting special revelations, are a sort of given. 

It is almost impossible to prove what kind of force set the universe in motion. The question has to do with physics and cosmology, and their progress takes time. No philosophy or theology, no matter how great, will solve the question until scientists have had their say. Meanwhile, we can think about the two major implications of God.

If God was there behind the Big Bang, what difference does it make to us as human beings? It would make sense if the universe had a purpose - something that religions try to understand in their imperfect way. What are we as humans doing here? If God set the process going at the Big Bang, then it is quite conceivable that there is a real purpose that we should try to understand and implement in our lives. 

If the universe was designed by God, it should contain a role for us to play in the Divine Plan. If this is not the case, the question of whether the universe has a plan is not something the average person needs to know. A design for the universe that does not relate to humankind is - meaningless. In the past, religions and philosophies have interpreted this purpose in terms of a spiritual life. The religions prescribe to mankind rituals, values, and practices that we should apply in this world in order to achieve a favorable afterlife. The purpose they envision is related to the continuation of individuality after death. Religions claim that there is a part of human consciousness, a soul or spirit, that lives on after the body dies. The existence of a soul is a logical conclusion if, indeed, there is a design in the universe. Besides the Big Bang, this is the other major gap in our knowledge of the design of the universe.

Another eternal question is: Why does the universe exist? The universe is approximately 93 billion light-years across. There are around 200 sextillion stars in the universe. The universe is also constantly renewing itself. New stars are forming while old ones are exploding in supernovas and turning into black holes. It's been estimated that an average-sized galaxy produces one new star every year. Given that there are possibly 100 billion to 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, that would put the number of new stars forming in the range of hundreds of millions every day in the entire universe. According to one estimate scientific estimate, there are an incredible 4800 stars born in the universe every second.We are also beginning to find out that Earth-like planets are fairly common in the universe. According to estimates, planets approximately the size of the Earth orbit one in every four stars.So, it makes sense to ask: Wha purpose does all this space serve?

Here are some videos on the topic from the Youtube series Closer To Truth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o192JEmSlGE&pp=ygUbY2xvc2UgdG8gdHJ1dGggZ29kIGludGVyYWN0 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmButXMCrZ4&t=3s&pp=ygUbY2xvc2UgdG8gdHJ1dGggZ29kIGludGVyYWN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxr2VMhY1dg&pp=ygUbY2xvc2UgdG8gdHJ1dGggZ29kIGludGVyYWN0

 

 

 

 

 

God has never aligned the planets in celebration of the "saviour's" birthday. That would be some Christmas miracle, wouldn't it?