A CHRISTIAN-DEIST MANIFESTO

My perspective as a Christian minister and pastor and my faith tenets are shifting.  This is a beginning to an explanation of where those beliefs currently lead.  Comments, questions, and discussion are welcome.

 

A CHRISTIAN-DEIST MANIFESTO

I am a computer programmer.

I WAS a computer programmer, and I directed and managed those who write programs for computers.  Although I no longer work at that vocation, I am conversant with and quite experienced as a computer programmer.

I wrote many computer programs and those computer programs could do many things.  It is necessary to understand the process of writing a computer program and the resultant program in order to understand the analogy presented in and central to this manifesto.

The programs I wrote (or that anybody could write; such programs are pervasive today) do things, which for most of human history, were thought to be the exclusive domain of human thought and effort.

Those computer programs take incredibly small bits of instruction and link those instructions together to perform useful tasks.  The more sophisticated and complicated those combinations and chains of instructions, the more sophisticated and complicated the resultant computer program and the more sophisticated and complicated the behavior of the computer.

Computer programs play chess.  Computer programs make telephone calls and offer reminders.  Computer programs assist physicians in making medical diagnoses.  Computer programs consider geology and make intelligent and informed recommendations regarding the best locations to drill for fossil fuels.  Computer programs can consider and reject options and look for optimal decisions.  Computer programs can direct incredibly complicated space flights.

Computer programs can learn.  It is a matter of programming.  Computer programs can be written to take past experience into account and to weigh that experience against current real world facts to make some determination.  The success or failure of that decision then is blended into the aggregate ‘awareness’ (knowledge base) of the computer program and the program ‘learns’.  Computers can be quite sophisticated, making decisions, informed guesses, and determinations based on a realm of knowledge, much like human decision-making.  Computers can take actions and perform tasks that are comparable to humans, emulating rudimentary human cognition.

Computers, by virtue of the sophisticated programs that direct them, are smart.  They are capable, intelligent, and capable of learning and of making self-directed changes.  They are fast and talented.  Much of what humans do today, frequently placing our very lives in the ‘hands’ of computers, relies on computer technology and ‘intelligence’.

Computers are rather remarkable and at an amazing state today.

Computers, however, are NOT sentient and do NOT consider themselves in existential, phenomenological ways.  We assume that they do not ‘regard’ themselves and we certainly do not assume that computers and computer programs ‘regard’ us – the program writers.  The creators – if you will.

THERE IS A GULF BETWEEN THAT WHICH IS CREATED AND THAT WHICH CREATES.  The gulf between me as a computer programmer and some computer action is so vast and of such a nature, that the assumption must be made that the computer never, ever could consider or reflect upon me, the programmer.  We assume that computers – plastic, wires, chips, electrodes and electrons – are unable to independently ‘consider’ the programmers: to regard or to form opinions regarding the programmers.  We assume that computers and programmers are quite different in nature and that the nature of computers CANNOT PERMIT SUCH CONSIDERATION.

Yet, within our religious lives and our traditional human religious and theological frameworks, much of humanity daily assumes that the petty, finite, temporal mind of humankind can consider (and perhaps even embrace and emulate) the mind of God.  Hence, the arrogance of the bumper sticker: God said it, and I believe it, and that settles it...

The foundation bases of this manifesto are:

a)      God is Creator, the author and first cause of all things;

b)      God, as Creator, is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent;

c)      Humankind is the creation of God, a creation born of God’s will;

d)     Humankind is temporal, limited, finite, mortal, capable of error, misunderstanding, misapprehension and wrongdoing;

e)      The gulf between God’s nature and existence and humankind’s nature and existence is sufficiently large that we are unable to consider (let alone comprehend) the nature of God;

f)       Pure deism (incorporating the traditional ‘clockwork creation’ concept) is anathematic to the concept of an omni-benevolent God;

g)      The gulf of understanding and communion between Creator and creation, in the case of programmer and computer, could never be bridged – computers do not have the power to ‘regard’ the programmer and understand the programmer’s nature or existence; programmers lack the ability to imbue existential reflection and introspection into computers;

h)      The gulf of understanding and communion between Creator and creation, in the case of God and humankind, could never be bridged if the onus were on humankind, alone;

i)        Failure to bridge the gap between Creator and creation, in the case of God and humankind, is not consistent with the concept of omni-benevolence;

j)        God provides mechanism(s) for humankind’s limited understanding of portions of God’s being, God’s existence and God’s will;

k)      No ONE mechanism of understanding is adequate to impart the entirety of any aspect (however small) of God’s will to humankind (because of the vast, unimaginable nature of God);

l)        Humankind will continue to fail to understand God’s being, existence, nature and will;

m)    A loving, omni-benevolent God will permit us to see portions of God’s will, as necessary, as it relates to God’s plan for us and our understanding of God’s plan for our behavior;

n)      Permitting us to see portions of God’s will is not inconsistent with an omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent God;

o)      Given the diverse and complicated nature of communications and interactions among humans, it is unreasonable to assume that one manifest revelation of God’s being, existence, nature and will would be adequate to address humankind’s understanding of God;

p)      God chooses to manifest God’s self to humankind in various ways (referred to as aspects);

q)      The aspects of God (while manifesting differing views or understandings of God to different humans) must be consistent with one, true God, i.e.: the Creator;

r)       The derivation of differing views of God and understandings of God’s will is due to human limitations, and occurs despite the infinite, unchanging nature of God;

s)       Different views of God, derived from differing human perceptions of the aspects of God, do not contradict or negate one another; they merely define and demonstrate our limited, finite and flawed understanding of the Infinite;

t)       It is conceivable, reasonable and desirable that humans should experience differing perceptions and understandings of God;

u)      Complete understanding of God is not possible, but sharing our limited and personal understanding of the aspects of God is desirable and necessary for us to achieve the fullest possible ‘aggregate’ human understanding of God’s being, existence, nature and will;

v)      No ONE religious revelation, perception, faith, understanding, or practice can be assumed to be a priori divinely inspired based on the tenets of that faith or the conviction of its adherents, NO MATTER WHAT AUTHORITY IT CITES;

w)    No ONE religious revelation, perception, faith, understanding, practice is a priori erroneous, just because it differs from another, NO MATTER WHAT AUTHORITY IT CITES;

x)      We can assume the ‘correctness’ of our faith tenets, faith journey, religious experience, and organized religion only to the extent that they are:

·         Not inconsistent with human and social concepts of decency

·         Not inconsistent with decent behavior as evidenced by other societal and religious experiences

·         Tolerant of other religious experience which may differ from ours (not necessarily tolerant of the behavior which purports that religion as a rationale)

THEREFORE:

a)      We CANNOT negate, disregard, challenge, or assume that some religious revelation or experience is wrong, SIMPLY BECAUSE IT DIFFERS FROM OUR OWN;

b)      Many of the major religions of the world (some of which are regarded as mutually exclusive) may be coexistent explanations of and manifestations of the multiple aspects of the single God.

c)      These understandings speak to some very deeply held traditional Christian thinking, particularly that of the single pathway to salvation and to heaven, which appears counter to the nature of a Creator capable of creating such diversity.