The classical Deist notion of an eternal spiritual creator who — for no apparent reason — transformed into a material world, was probably grounded on the common 17th century assump-tion that the universe itself was eternal. But in the 21st century we need to update that theory to conform to the current understanding that the space-time universe is only temporary. So the Clockmaker-who-became-a-clock myth of creation leaves the eternity before & after the Big Bang metamorphosis unexplained. Unless you assume an infinite cycle of divine reincarnation, as a caterpillar-to-butterfly-to-caterpillar explanation for the existence of the physical environment, as in Big Bounce theories. Such an eternal return concept may be compatible with the PanDeism (all is God) concept of deity. But my own attempt to imagine a more up-to-date and compre-hensive God-model is better described as PanEnDeism (all within God), in which space-time is like a bubble in the ocean of timelessness.
The Enformationism theory of the origin (creation) of our universe is based on the modern concept of metaphysical Information as equivalent to physical Energy. With that scientific “fact” in mind, I refer to G*D as the “Enformer”, who creates matter from He/r own eternal “substance” (the power to exist, i.e. BEING). That infinite potential is what I refer to in the thesis as “EnFormAction”. In the material world, that force is equivalent to physical Energy, which can transform from an intangible pervasive “field” into mundane localized Matter, and can also emerge as Mind. In traditional religious writings, that invisible energizing vitalizing force is known as Spirit. In my thesis, I refer to the mechanical Big Bang as a mental Conception, the emergence of a new idea in the form of a real world. That's a form of Platonic Idealism.
The backstory leading up to the Bang envisions an eternal infinite “field” of potential energy (Ideality) that, for reasons unknown to us, “decides” to create a Reality limited to space & time. Hence, I must assume, since our reality includes intentional minds, it must have always had the potential for Entention, which is manifested in the world as the Arrow of Time. Beyond those inferences, any other characteristics of G*D are speculations without evidence1. For example, I can’t imagine such a principle-of-BEING as a human-like Person, but I could be wrong. As for why such an entity would intentionally place limits on a portion of He/r being, I can only guess. So, the reason for creation remains a mystery. And all we know for sure is that our world didn't create itself.
A conceiving Creator2 then would not be an absentee mechanical Clockmaker with no further connection to his creation. Instead, the Creation would be more like a physical fetus within the “body” of a transcendent Mother, connected by an immaterial umbilical cord of Spirit/Information/Energy. Even though a mother can’t directly intervene in her embryo’s development, S/he is still in constant contact via the two-way exchange of Information (energy). So, everything the “baby” would need in order to evolve into a mature world had to be included in the original quickened “egg” (singularity). And everything Deists will need in order to flourish in the world (womb) is already in there. All we have to do is find & use it — not by praying, but by doing.
End of Blog Post 62
2. Conceptual Creation : The invisible and intangible deity of Deism can only be imagined by reference to physical metaphors, such as a Clockmaker or Mother. An appropriate 21st century analogy is to a computer programmer. In each case the creation begins as a mental concept, which is then transformed into a physical process of becoming. The Clockmaker is an 18th century mechanical concept; the eternal Mother is biological; but the Programmer is a closer analogy to a mental conceiver, whose creation is invisible and intangible information or knowledge. Before the 20th century, scientists assumed our world was made of matter. But now they know it’s ultimately made of invisible and intangible Information, just like the Creator,
PS__Why would the clockmaker become the clock? S/he wouldn’t. The clock is a product of the maker’s mind. The universe is not literally the deity, but merely a figment of divine imagination
1. Divine Attributes : In PanDeism, characteristics of the deity are the same as those of the Cosmos, including the Good & the Bad*. In PanEnDeism, the deity is, in Nietzsche’s terms, “beyond Good & Evil”, . As the whole of which our reality is only a part, G*D is amoral in the sense of having the unbiased potential for both good & evil. G*D is general & omnipotential, while the world is specific & actual. But because the universe is still evolving & emerging, it’s possible that it might come closer to Good as it develops a more balanced moral sense. The dualistic creation aspires to the monistic moral code of the “real deity”.
“Essentially what you might call God and Satan are actually the same entity in pantheism, except they are not separate personalities, but are part of everything. . . . Personally, this is the philosophical problem I have with pantheism - there can be no good or bad in direct pantheism; to define something as good or bad means you are positing a moral code that is higher than the deity itself, which means it must actually be part of a higher deity than the pantheistic deity which means the moral code is actually the result of the real deity, whatever that may be.” https://www.quora.com/If-pantheism-is-true-why-would-God-become-the-universe
Note : All we know about the Creator is what we perceive in the creation. In that sense, PanDeism is true.
* Click here for notes on one characteristic of Pandeism
“Note that the Creator proposed in Pandeism is one which has wholly become our Universe, and exhausted its separate existence in the process. There is no need for a characteristic of continuation of the Creator in any conscious form once the Universe has been competently set forth.” Knuje Matson, on Quora, https://www.quora.com/topic/Deism
In view of current Big Bang cosmology, this version of PanDeism implies that the Christ-like Creator sacrificed his eternal existence in order to become temporal. In Christianity though, the Eternal put off immortality on Earth, yet remained eternal in Heaven. That is closer to the PanEnDeism concept of our cosmos as a bubble of time in an ocean of timelessness.
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