Pandeism is the belief that God created the universe (God existed before the universe’s existence), God is the universe (God became the universe), and the universe will one day coalesce into a single being (the universe will once again become God). It is somewhat simple to explain the definition of Pandeism, but it’s a whole other ballgame to explain how Pandeism could be a possibility in the world we know to exist today. I will explain the theory of Pandeism in four different phases.
Pandeism Phase 1: God: Pre-Universe
[For the sake of an easier venture in describing God, I will sometimes refer to God as “He” or “Him”, even though God cannot be described as a male in any sense of the term.]
Pandeism Phase 1: God: Pre-Universe
[For the sake of an easier venture in describing God, I will sometimes refer to God as “He” or “Him”, even though God cannot be described as a male in any sense of the term.]
In the Pandeistic theory, the God that existed before the universe is an omnipotent being. God, being omnipotent, does not operate as a human would. He does not desire and does not need anything because omnipotence grants Him freedom from desires and needs.
This God is also aware of Himself. He knows that He exists and that He is omnipotent. He is also aware that He is the only god that exists. In a sense, God has a consciousness.
If God is aware of Himself and is aware that He is omnipotent, what thought or question could possibly exist in His mind?
God can only be aware of Himself in the manner in which He exists. Therefore, God would not be aware of Himself in a manner in which He would not exist. Or would he? By default, this would be the only question that could exist in God’s mind: What would happen if I cease to exist?
That question being asked by God, would be the logical reasoning behind His motivation to act, to do anything at all. To answer this question, God took action and destroyed Himself.
Pandeism Phase 2: The Birth of the Universe
According to the Law of Conservation of Energy and Matter, anything that exists cannot cease to exist, nor can anything be created from nothing. If we apply this same law to God, we can then safely state that God cannot cease to exist, but His existence can shift from one form to another.
When we rewind the evolution of the universe, we can see that there was indeed a beginning roughly 13.7 billion years ago (give or take 200 million years) according to the Lambda-CDM concordance model of “big bang” cosmology. According to the Big Bang theory, the universe started out as a very high density of energy, huge temperatures and pressures that was very rapidly expanding and cooling.
Let’s overview our present scenario after Phase 1 and Phase 2: First, we have an omnipotent being who decides to self-destruct in order to answer His own question, “What will happen if I self-destruct?”. Second, we have the birth of the Universe as we know it. If, according to the Law of Conservation, the universe can not be born from nothing and God can not cease to exist, then one must conclude that God, in the act of self-destruction, gave birth to the very elements that make up the beginnings of our universe as we know it. God ceased to exist as He knew himself to exist, and appropriately existed in another context, the universe.
When God took action and became the universe, He created another phenomenon; time. Time is essentially the sequence of events taking place one after another. Before God took action, created an event, there was no event to be created, no action to execute. Once God created an event (his own self-destruction) He put forth a sequence of events that would continue long after His initial self-destruction.
Pandeism Phase 3: The Coalescence
After God’s self-destruction, His composition was re-composed in the manner in which is described by the Big Bang theory. If His essential being is currently compiling into stars, planets, and everything else that exists in our universe, what can be said for His consciousness? According to the Law of Conservation, His consciousness cannot cease to exist; of course this is assuming that consciousness has a tangible existence within our universe.
When we look at ourselves as the beings we are, we notice that we are self-aware, sentient, sapient beings on a level quite unlike that of any other species in our known universe. Is this self-awareness that we possess just the logical outcome of a world evolving? Yes, but it cannot be ignored that our self-awareness is also the logical outcome of an omnipotent, self-aware God that once existed in a manner in which can execute His own decisions based on motivation to do so, not unlike the way we do.
If God’s self-awareness and consciousness has been handed over to us as a characteristic we possess, we must then conclude that every decision we make, every action we perform is a result of being the remnants of God. If we are the inevitable results of God’s destruction, then what are the inevitable results of us? What is to become of an ever-evolving universe and an ever-evolving consciousness?
If we look at the timeline of human civilization, we can use that as a parallel to the events that have taken place, are taking place, and will take place throughout existence as we know it.
We humans started out as a population of species that inhabited Africa some 200,000 years ago. Since then we have migrated across the globe, separated ourselves in terms of geography, culture, language and philosophy. We each developed our own ways as individual societies to protect ourselves from one another. With the advancement in technology concerning communication, we were eventually able to come together more closely as a whole. With the internet and other manners of information exchange, we are able to communicate with one another so rapidly and with so much ease, that it almost rivals that in comparison to the way in which we each individually sequentially think our own thoughts. If we give communication technology another two thousand years, or even one million years, what will we have then? Would it be possible to think a thought and automatically have it be thought in the mind of another individual across the globe? Could that be described as one collective consciousness? Is that science fiction? Or would it be the results of an evolving species in an ever-evolving universe, the results of the death and re-birth of a conscious God?
This timeline of human activity; birth, evolving, migrating, coming together, is much like the universe’s own timeline; birth, evolving, expanding, coming together. According to the Big Crunch theory, the average density of the universe is enough to stop expansion and begin collapsing. What that basically means, is that one day the universe will start to slowly (in the same amount of time that it had expanded) condense in on itself. Although many scientists believe the universe will continue expanding infinitively, either theory has not yet been proven to be true.
Suppose the universe does continue to expand. If the universe can infinitely expand, than the matter and energy existing in the universe will infinitely evolve. Just like planets are made of different forms of matter condensing into one entity, so the universe is evolving over time to form together as one entity. The evidence can be seen throughout the universe by understanding that each and every part of the universe, every form of matter and energy, is essential to the existence of it’s counter-part or it’s co-exister.
Whether you believe the universe is condensing in on itself or you believe the universe will grow forever, one thing remains clear; the universe and everything that exists within it, is coming together more and more as the years go on.
After reviewing the timelines and potential futures of the human consciousness and it’s universe in which it exists, and understanding that the universe and all that exists within it are remnants of a once self-aware, omnipotent being, we can then suppose that God is reconfiguring Himself within the boundaries of existence as we know it.
Pandeism Phase 4: An Oscillating Existence
Assuming that God will one day piece Himself back together by means of a universe and active consciousness coalescing in on itself, would He then be the same God He was before his initial destruction? If He is the same God as He was before the birth of the universe, then He would again be plagued by the only question that can exist in his mind; would I know what happens if I cease to exist?
The problem with assuming He would ask Himself that same question would be that since He had already existed as a universe and a separate consciousness as a result from His first attempt at self destruction, then wouldn’t He already know that answer? He’s been there and done that. So now what?
There is another possible explanation. If God, after ceasing to exist as he knew himself to exist, became the universe and a separate consciousness, He would not be aware of any other form of existing. Due to his present state, it would be impossible for him to know his previous state if He is not yet fully aware of himself in his current state. Supposing that the entirety of existence will one day coalesce (God piecing himself back together), the consciousness that God will re-possess is not the same consciousness that existed while He wasn’t “fully complete”. It’s not that God will forget that He was once a universe filled with stars, moons, and people. The very act of remembering a moment in time is only possible if time were to exist (the very act of remembering is an event being executed, time is a series of events being executed one after another…). Since time only exists while the universe is in motion, then time would cease to exist once the fully completed and fully revived God exists. An omnipotent God and the concept of time cannot co-exist; therefore God would not execute the action of remembering that He was once a living universe, which brings us back to square one; what would be the only logical option for an omnipotent God? Thus we have the oscillating existence.
11 comments:
Should have posted on this long ago, dude.... but never too late to say, this is beautiful.... this is just what it is, my friend, this is just what it is....
This is the biggest load of baloney I've seen in a long time. There is one God and that God is the one who has told you of Himself in the Holy Bible. That God is the one whose blood-bought mercy you must accept if you hope to see the gates of Heaven.
How does this Pandeism God of yours explain the witness given to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? I will answer it for you, it can not. This story you have woven, it will only lead people astray, and you would surely be wise, in the eyes of the Lord, to be rid of it.
Time for a new post already. Ya think?
Very interesting post, I really enjoyed it. I used to be atheistic but over the last few years have experienced evidence of a divine plan moving every aspect of my life.
I believe the motivation for gods decision to create the universe was not "what happens if I don't exist?" The answer to that likely being nothing at all, if nothing exists. I would consider it more likely that god wished to experience love, and appease her cosmic lonliness!!
How better for a Creator to experience love than to become the Creation, and share the love within it?
Tell it bro!
Let us yaw toward a fruitful discussion, for I fell we must reach much the same ground, if only by different paths....
So that we are clear on the fundament of what we are discussing, I will outline the pandeistic theorem from first principles -- we may agree, naturally, that we are thinking, and so thought is going on and the framework for thought must exist, and must have an origin.... having no more probable option than our physical Universe existing as it presents itself to us, we ought to proceed as though either what appears to exist, exists, or there is some reason for it appearing to us to exist, and so ought we to try to figure out why things appear as they do....
Our Universe exhibits order, and not just any sort of order, but order of the type which generates complexity, ie life, and not just complex life, but self accelerating complex life, ie evolving life forms (as Dr. Theobold has just this summer so aptly proved) which inevitably eventually develop the intelligence and use such intelligence to discern the governing dynamics of our Universe and use such knowledge to consciously self-advance-- we, humans, are near that stage, have not reached it yet, and are presently but an absurd fraction of what we might become-- will become if we survive long enough to do so.... and what we stand to evolve into in perhaps a thousand years is something of actual elucidatory use to the Creator of our Universe....
Now, consider, as Scott Adams did, if our Universe demonstrates order of a magnitude which suggests the hand of a Creator in its establishment (and does it not?) then what purpose is served by this Creation? What need on the part of the Creator is fulfilled by the exertion of setting forth what by chance has become us? (though it could have as readily yielded a different reality with different self-advancing intelligent life unrecognisable to our eyes, and perhaps it has done so in other galaxies, and elsewhere in our own).... well it is natural to observe that an entity, alone in its existence, and having such power as is necessary to set forth a Universe such as our own would be lacking in the knowledge of interaction, of facing and possibly overcoming obstacles, or dealing with the failure to overcome them.... it could not know such things as hope or triumph, fear or courage, grief, contentment, and love -- and so it would have to actually become a physical Universe (or as Einstein described it, a very persistent illusion of one) to obtain any of these experiences (that is, for the time that it exists, for ultimately all will fall into black holes, and then the evaporation of Hawking radiation approaching than the rate of c presages a universal perpetual information loss corresponding to the shrinkage of phase space volume, wherein trajectories converge towards singularities, counter-balanced only by the degree to which quantum information is regained, ameliorating root phase space volume; at which point the original Creator-entity would be restored from its experience of existing as our Universe....)
Anyway, the point there is that, yes, every rock and stream and ray of light and burst of radiation in deepest space is an aspect of our Creator, but while those aspects are attuned to existence as a physical energy, Man is on one level of which we are consciously unaware attuned to existence as exactly that, but on another level attuned to our conscious experience of the world, our troubles and toils and foibles.... this alone does not make us 'better' than anything else, but it does make us 'different' from all things which do not experience this and this difference brings a useful diversity to the experience of our Universe.... and though we are far from the 'pinnacle' of Creation, we are on the path for our future transhuman generations to achieve the capacity to set ourselves upon that pinnacle, IFF we may reconnect our conscious contemplation to our connectedness with all that exists beyond our crabbed claim of reality!!
Let us yaw toward a fruitful discussion, for I fell we must reach much the same ground, if only by different paths....
So that we are clear on the fundament of what we are discussing, I will outline the pandeistic theorem from first principles -- we may agree, naturally, that we are thinking, and so thought is going on and the framework for thought must exist, and must have an origin.... having no more probable option than our physical Universe existing as it presents itself to us, we ought to proceed as though either what appears to exist, exists, or there is some reason for it appearing to us to exist, and so ought we to try to figure out why things appear as they do....
Our Universe exhibits order, and not just any sort of order, but order of the type which generates complexity, ie life, and not just complex life, but self accelerating complex life, ie evolving life forms (as Dr. Theobold has just this summer so aptly proved) which inevitably eventually develop the intelligence and use such intelligence to discern the governing dynamics of our Universe and use such knowledge to consciously self-advance-- we, humans, are near that stage, have not reached it yet, and are presently but an absurd fraction of what we might become-- will become if we survive long enough to do so.... and what we stand to evolve into in perhaps a thousand years is something of actual elucidatory use to the Creator of our Universe....
Now, consider, as Scott Adams did, if our Universe demonstrates order of a magnitude which suggests the hand of a Creator in its establishment (and does it not?) then what purpose is served by this Creation? What need on the part of the Creator is fulfilled by the exertion of setting forth what by chance has become us? (though it could have as readily yielded a different reality with different self-advancing intelligent life unrecognisable to our eyes, and perhaps it has done so in other galaxies, and elsewhere in our own).... well it is natural to observe that an entity, alone in its existence, and having such power as is necessary to set forth a Universe such as our own would be lacking in the knowledge of interaction, of facing and possibly overcoming obstacles, or dealing with the failure to overcome them.... it could not know such things as hope or triumph, fear or courage, grief, contentment, and love -- and so it would have to actually become a physical Universe (or as Einstein described it, a very persistent illusion of one) to obtain any of these experiences (that is, for the time that it exists, for ultimately all will fall into black holes, and then the evaporation of Hawking radiation approaching than the rate of c presages a universal perpetual information loss corresponding to the shrinkage of phase space volume, wherein trajectories converge towards singularities, counter-balanced only by the degree to which quantum information is regained, ameliorating root phase space volume; at which point the original Creator-entity would be restored from its experience of existing as our Universe....)
Anyway, the point there is that, yes, every rock and stream and ray of light and burst of radiation in deepest space is an aspect of our Creator, but while those aspects are attuned to existence as a physical energy, Man is on one level of which we are consciously unaware attuned to existence as exactly that, but on another level attuned to our conscious experience of the world, our troubles and toils and foibles.... this alone does not make us 'better' than anything else, but it does make us 'different' from all things which do not experience this and this difference brings a useful diversity to the experience of our Universe.... and though we are far from the 'pinnacle' of Creation, we are on the path for our future transhuman generations to achieve the capacity to set ourselves upon that pinnacle, IFF we may reconnect our conscious contemplation to our connectedness with all that exists beyond our crabbed claim of reality!!
You know how sometimes you're sitting in the middle of the bar.... and you notice a pretty girl who's looking your way -- and she's smiling at you, maybe even coyly waving? And you think, "wow, this girl is actually coming on to me!!" But then, just as you're about to get up to go talk to her, you realize that she was looking and smiling and waving at someone else, someone way behind you, the whole damn time -- she's never actually even noticed you!! She was (and remains) blissfully unaware and unconcerned with your very existence, and you, well you were simply so caught up in that moment, in the secret desire to be the target of that affection, that you were primed to believe that it was you she was looking at.
Now imagine you were at a table in middle of the bar with some buddies, and you all thought the pretty girl was looking in the direction of your table. You'd surely mention that amongst yourselves, give to one another affirmation and encouragement that you were collectively the targets of her observational affection -- your reassurance suggesting, if not outright declaring, how very worthy you are to be the subjects of this pretty girl's interest. And if one amongst your group were to have doubts, the rest of you might collectively try to talk him down from them.
Well now.... write that sentiment larger and consider the possibility that that's how certain amongst the theistic faiths, especially the believers in an interventionist personal deity, are about believing that they are the target of divine attention, all of the time. Like the man in the middle, they sense a divine presence underlying our Universe and immediately imagine that it's looking, smiling, waving right at them!! Joyously they erect the conceit that their Creator wants to be with them, and fulfill various of their scenarios for receiving happiness. And these people unknowingly looked beyond, they get together in groups to reassure each other that such is the case, that it is really they who are the targets of an unbound supply of love and attention. And they inspire the most self-certain amongst them to put on the haughtiness of faux authority and lecture to all the others that this is indeed the case. And wherever someone suggests otherwise, they try to convince, and failing that, denounce.
But who are we, who possibly feel the presence without even the capacity to gauge the gaze, to claim to be the target of what we perceive, wish, desire gutturally? Who, indeed, are we even to note the eyes of the pretty girl at the other end of the bar, and before ever hearing a word from her, to instantly assure ourselves that her gaze and her smile and her wave signify no less than her compelling wish to bestow undying love upon the subject of those motions? And, naturally, that it is we alone to whom they might be aimed?
If you are here, your next stop is The Institute For Pandeism Studies!!
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