Human Life as Originated by God and Terminated by Death
A Deistic Essay by Raymond Fontaine, PhD - January 2004
On January 1, 2004, I received an e-mail from James. He was born and bred in the Christian tradition that he zealously promoted in the 1990's. "During my ministry," James wrote, "I began to base my religious beliefs on reason and hope rather than on blind faith. I became a Deist. Now I embrace truth more than ever before."
I usually reply to an e-mail with one of my own. In this case, however, I choose to answer James in an essay that I address not only to him but to everyone in cyberspace with similar concerns.
First, James calls himself a Deist without explanation. For my larger audience, let me share Webster's definition of Deism. "It's belief in the existence of a God on purely rational grounds without reliance on revelation or authority. It's the doctrine that God created the world and its natural laws but takes no further part in its functioning." That defines my Deism exactly and, I hope, that of James.
When people on the Internet ask me, "Whom can I trust to reveal the existence of God?" I usually reply as follows. Before answering that question, let me recall an event that occurred in Southern France. In 1940, cave paintings dating back 17,000 years were discovered. The painter did not leave his signature nor a self-portrait. The paintings do not reveal who he was nor how he looked. Yet no one doubts that someone living then and there painted those pictures. Their painter existed.
The same is true for all the structures and designs embedded in nature: in the flowers and the trees, the animals and the fish, the reptiles and the birds. Some intelligent Being or Force fashioned whatever later developed and evolved into all the living beings on earth. Humans call him God or some other name like Allah and Yahweh. Nature presupposes that Intelligent Being. He existed and undoubtedly still does. Human reason comes to the conclusion THAT God exists but nothing about WHAT he is.
If nature cannot provide that information, who can? Many writers and preachers claim that they know. They say that some ancient persons, like Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, declared that God revealed to them a lot about his Being and activities on earth. Other humans compiled those supernatural revelations into Holy Books such as the Bible, the Gospels and the Koran. After that, other people interpreted those reputed revelations in a whole variety of sects. All those thousands of writers and preachers were mere humans with minds like yours and mine.
For many years I was one of them - a Catholic priest. Finally I no longer believed in any reputed supernatural revelations of God. I fell back on the clear simple revelation of God in nature. Its structures and laws presuppose an intelligent Creator. He exists. But nature reveals nothing more about God.
Let's return to James' e-mail message where he says that he has now embraced the truth. Again for my Internet audience, let me recall Webster's definition of truth and fiction. "Truth suggests conformity with the facts or with reality while fiction is something invented by the imagination." Like any normal person, I enjoy a novel or a detective story that is fiction. But as regards God's existence and activities, I do not accept fiction. I want the facts - the truth. Fiction won't do, no matter how glorious it is presented in a movie or book, in a sermon or hymn. Save the fictitious fabrications about God for the theater and the church.
If the preachers and writers sincerely believe that they are teaching the truth when in fact they are spreading falsehoods, they are sadly mistaken. Unfortunately they are also misguiding others. If and when the preachers no longer believe what they are teaching, their message turns into a deliberate hoax and they become charlatans - fakes.
Let's bring James back into the picture. In his final paragraph, he addresses me and writes, "You seem to believe that God is completely good because Creation has much good." Since James got the idea, apparently from my writings, that I believe in God's complete goodness, let me clarify my position. First, I don't believe any reputed revelation about God. From nature's structures and laws, I gather that their Creator exists. Since only intelligence can uncover and unravel them, I believe that only an intelligent Being could create them.
From nature that's all I know about God. If I should say more, it would be simply my personal ideas, emotions and desires. None of these personal reflections about God reveal anything objective about the Creator but only how Raymond Fontaine feels and thinks about God and his handiwork in nature.
The readers of my Webs surely have ideas and emotions of their own. I respect them. I will not ferret out ideas different from mine and try to prove them wrong. But if someone contacts me with questions and doubts about God or the teaching of their priest or preacher, I will express what I sincerely believe to be the truth as revealed in nature.
For an example I will answer here this question from James: "The only way that I can continue to believe that God is completely good is to believe in an afterlife. If God is completely good, then God must make creatures live after they die and give them what they deserve, eventually making all of them completely good and happy forever. Do you agree?"
To answer him, I did not check in the Bible, the Gospels and the Koran. I looked in nature that has already revealed to me that God exists. In nature all organisms die. Since the first bacteria appeared on earth 1.5 billion years ago, all organisms have eventually ceased to exist never to reappear. The future offers no hope of an afterlife for any organism including humans. I accept that fact - the truth.
Since nature reveals only God's existence and nothing about his nature and nothing about an afterlife for humans, I am content with nature's wonders and resources, its flora and fauna, especially humankind. I don't need anything more. For the index of my essays, click here