Today’s Post

As we saw last week, Richard Dawkins himself, arguably one of the most eloquent apologists for atheism, points the way for this third phase of the blog, reinterpreting religion. Undoubtedly he believed that stripping the conventional ’baggage’ of God from the concept of a ‘ground of being’, or a ‘first cause’, would strip any religious meaning from the concept of God as well. The thought that the opposite might occur, that such reinterpretation might actually add relevance to the concept of God and the meaning of “person”, evidently did not cross his mind. The remainder of this blog will address such reinterpretation in the light of Teilhard’s secular, scientific approach to evolution and the framing of the universe taken in the first two phases. This third phase of the blog will consist of six parts:

• Distinguishing the approach of this blog from Deism (this post and the next)
• A brief history of religion
• What’s unique about Christianity?
• Some thoughts on a definition of religion
• Approaches to ‘reinterpreting’ religion
• Reinterpretations of common Western religious beliefs in the light of Teilhard’s insight into a more cohesive view of science

So far, this blog has identified a personal aspect of the “first cause’, as manifested in the integrated and unified ‘framing’ forces of the universe. This would not seem to lend itself to anything which possesses the traditional attributes of God found particularly in Western theology. Understanding God as “a manifestation of force” would not seem to equate very well with the God of the bible, or the God to which one prays, or the God with whom one could have a relationship. To this statement, Professor Dawkins would certainly agree. He would suggest that this particular perspective is just another type of Deism.

Deism

As a system of belief, the rise of Deism reflected the distinctive new eighteenth century viewpoint of the intellectual leaders of the Enlightenment: that religion should be based on reason. Deism, then, was the approach that “adapted Christianity to reason”, as Dawson puts it, by “divest(ing) it of all the baggage that the word ‘God’ carries in the minds of most religious believers.” Such ‘divesting’ resulted in a Natural Theology in which reason replaced revelation as a basis for belief. Effectively, the thinkers of the Enlightenment considered reason alone as sufficient to understand reality.

Deism therefore didn’t fall into the categories of ‘a-theism’ (non-belief in God); ‘anti-theism’ (against religion); or ‘agnosticism’ (neither belief nor denial of God). Instead, Deists believed that there is indeed a God, that he created the universe as we see it, but since then has left it alone. In the world of Deism, God created but is no longer involved.

Many, if not most, of the founders of the American nation were Deists. They were very aware of the horrors and aftershocks of religious wars in Europe, extending back several hundred years, and had a healthy respect for the potential dangers of institutionalized religion to society. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, while granting freedom of religion, by its wording,

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”

also guaranteed ‘freedom from religion’. In addition to an aversion to the miraculous, supernatural and generally non-rational content of Western Christianity, the framers of the constitution had a healthy fear of the ills of religion when it becomes iestablished as a political entity.

Jefferson, Deism and Christianity

Thomas Jefferson is undoubtedly the best known of the framers of the constitution, and like most of them, a Deist. His views on religion in general and its influence on society are succinctly summarized by Wikipedia:

“On one hand Jefferson affirmed, “We all agree in the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus, and nowhere will they be found delivered in greater purity than in his discourses”, that he was “sincerely attached to His doctrines in preference to all others” and that “the doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend all to the happiness of man”. However, Jefferson considered much of the New Testament of the Bible to be false (containing “so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture”). In a letter to William Short in 1820, he expressed that his intent was to “place the character of Jesus in its true and high light, as no imposter himself”, but that he was not with Jesus “in all his doctrines”. “

From his study of the Bible, Jefferson concluded that Jesus never claimed to be God.

While living in the White House, Jefferson began to piece together his own version of the Gospels…from which he omitted the virgin birth of Jesus, miracles attributed to Jesus, divinity, and the resurrection of Jesus – among many other teachings and events. He retained primarily Jesus’ moral philosophy, of which he approved. This compilation was completed about 1820, but was not published after his death and became known as the Jefferson Bible.

Deism also had an anti-religion content. Many of the constitutional founders beside Jefferson, such as Franklin, Adams, Madison and Paine harshly criticized the Christian establishment of their day, as “perverted” (Jefferson), “useless” (Franklin), “frightful” (Adams) and “of prideful and arrogant clergy” (Madison).

The Next Post

So this week we have seen how the approach to God as reflected in all the framing forces of the universe has historically led to a naturalistic but impersonal belief system which is further somewhat hostile to traditional organized religions. Is Dawkins correct when he predicts that this is the inevitable outcome of “stripping the conventional ’baggage’ of God from the concept of a ‘ground of being’ “? Next week we will take a closer look at Deism to see what was missing from the viewpoint of the intellectual leaders of the Enlightenment, and situate Deism more clearly in the spectrum between atheism and theism.