Introducing PanenDeism
Larry Copling
www.PanenDeism.com
�2004, Larry Copling
Part 1
It may surprise you to discover that, after thousands of years of human societal evolution, after the contributions of literally hundreds of major and minor philosophers, and an untold number of scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, there are still only FOUR basic ways available for us to attempt to describe to each other the nature of what we might call �God�. At least, until now.
Beginning in the year 2000, in between the raising of children with my wonderful wife, Tammy, running a business, and pursuing other personal goals, I began the work of assembling my own reflective thoughts, as well as my notes from personal, independent research, and the powerful thoughts and ideas of others who had gone before me, in order to �flesh out� a very elusive pattern of thought that I believed I had discovered in the varied, and apparently dissimilar writings of spiritual philosophy, classical and quantum physics, mythology and ancient mysticism.
This �pattern of thought� that I found can best be described as a nagging, recurring theme that seemed to reappear and haunt me like an elusive apparition with a message to tell. At times, I felt very silly even attempting to pursue such an original insight because my background was in electronics and computer technology, not physics or philosophy. Who was I to try to add to the incredible insights of Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, Ken Wilber, or Teilhard de Chardin? Still, this elusive apparition continued to disturb my peaceful, traditional Christian understanding of �...what God must Be, in order to Be at all.�
Before I introduce some of the results of my study and address the thesis of this article, which is represented by its title, a short overview of our approach and a quick review of the currently available descriptions of Deity might be helpful.
Approaching the Divine
In response to the question, �How might we best describe the nature of God?� we must first begin with a distinction. This question does not address the dogma or formal teachings of any one religion. We must begin by separating our ideas about what God, Jesus or Buddha teaches from those ideas we have about what we believe God is. Our question addresses God�s nature.
Imagine that we have welcomed a very advanced, but friendly species to our planet from some distant star system. During the slow process of �getting to know each other�, our visiting guests have helped us to conquer the language barrier and have presented us with an honest query about what our conception of �God� is. Let�s also imagine that this advanced species has no pre-existing conception of Deity that would agree or disagree with ours, since their society developed along more scientific and technical lines.
It may be difficult to imagine that any advanced species might develop without exploring the question of First Cause, but let us imagine that this particular species worked the problem out �centuries� ago by simply postulating that all evolution is creative in nature. We might also imagine that they refer to this creative, First Principle as Alpha. The point here is that we are beginning this discussion with a tabula rasa, as John Locke might say; a clean slate. We will have to explain our conceptions to a people who have no idea of our history, preferences or individual religious prejudices.
Notwithstanding the enormous problem of trying to explain to our advanced guests why we, as an �advanced� species ourselves, happen to have over 2000 versions of Christianity alone, as well as hundreds of other available religions, sects and sub-sects, and several �approved� sacred texts (Bible, Quran, Torah, Vedas, etc.) to choose from; each one anxious to answer our visitor�s questions with the �revealed Truth� of their particular version of �ultimate wisdom�, we have decided to explain our various conceptions by starting with the four most basic understandings we have of the nature of what we call �God�.
Continue with Part 2...