Plato in his cosmology sees the universe as being organismic, that is as a living being, rather than as matter. Alfred North Whitehead adopted a similar position in the twentieth century, describing the world, including matter, in terms of the relationships organisms have. By adopting an organismic view of reality the nature of God may change from something more theistic towards something closer to pantheistic, but much of the impact on our lives remains.
Traditional western religion and thought has seen God as all powerful and often transcendent to the world. There is certainly no reason why many of the attributes of a God would not be consistent with an organismic universe. The concept of God when seen in organismic terms, that is as the unification of the cosmic will and consciousness with the cosmos may be seen more clearly as limited in its considerable power.
The cosmic force, that is God, is not omniscient. From its perspective the future holds potentialities, and therefore probabilities for future events. This is in agreement with quantum theory. The cosmic force evolves with the world. It is the recipient of these probabilities rather than their initiator. The cosmic force is never fully realized. That would be a lesser state of being for it than with a future of options. In the present the cosmic consciousness is all knowing of everything past and present.
There is a relationship between the cosmic unity and mortal organisms, a nexus between the two. There is more reason to believe that the nature of the eternal universal organism, the cosmic unity, is consistent with and similar to mortal microscale organisms than not. From this perspective we can examine certain aspects of the cosmic force and mortal organisms and how they relate to each other.
Existence is the primary statement of what an infinite reality implies, and survival follows from existence as the purpose of life. In fact existence is the only purpose that can follow from an infinite reality and therefore survival must become the driver of life, ultimately determining what is internalized as good. Spinoza follows a similar line of reasoning that the innate purpose of everything in the universe is to “persist,” including both organisms and matter in each of their separate ways.
All organisms have the ability to survive to varying degrees based on their development. Their survival is based on the nature of the threats they face. Their survival as individual organisms becomes a part of the enduring nature of the cosmic unity.
Survival is the guiding principle for activity of all organisms. More highly developed organisms will adopt better behaviors to promote survival. These behaviors become codified and, internalized. Organisms increase their survival by developing more and better ways to respond to different situations. This increased complexity is a byproduct of the organism’s increased ability to survive because it can respond to a greater variety of situations. We refer to the process of increasing complexity as evolution. God, as part of the cosmic unity evolves with this evolution.
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*Author Bio: Barry’s background includes studying philosophy at the University of Maine. Metaphysics has been his avocation his entire life, especially the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. He tells us he has spent most of his life trying to make sense of this reality we find ourselves in. Professionally he was a financial analyst and economist as well as a business executive, and is currently retired. He is married and has two children.
Consider Einstein’s theory of relativity which began as a thought experiment imagining the experience of being inside and outside a train moving at or near the speed of light. He visualized the consequences and developed equations which led to his theory of relativity and the equivalence of matter and energy. Empirical proof came from the gravitational effect on starlight detected during an eclipse and from the explosion of an atomic bomb.
The second is more difficult. We have no problem finding things which do not come from something else – a perfect circle, numbers such as 2 or π, natural laws, nothingness, darkness, etc. – but none seem to be causal in the usual sense. Most are ideas while the remainder are inert.
“It is a perversion of language to assign any law as the efficient, operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, for it is only the mode of according to which an agent proceeds; it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law does nothing, is nothing.” – William Paley, Natural Theology. 
We also may want to address miracles, revelation, and God’s appearance on Earth as mitigating factors that encourage prudent belief. Next time I will produce a narrative of both sides hoping to land on the most tenable position.
“I would add the qualification that I believe in God…the most immediate thing I feel is relieved of the burden of responsibility for my own life, putting it back where it belongs, giving it back to whoever or whatever hatched me. I feel a great sense of relief and trust that eggs are not hatched in vain.” –Ernest Becker1
The medieval philosopher, Maimonides, in his book, The Guide for the Perplexed, points this out, arguing that biblical passages about God’s traits and behavior are metaphorical not literal, which I believe should be the approach to reconciling traditional descriptions of God’s features and actions. More importantly curiosity to understand and relate to God does not require a complete knowledge of divine properties.
“Both religion and science need for their activities the belief in God, and moreover God stands for the former in the beginning, and for the latter at the end of the whole thinking. For the former, God represents the basis, for the latter – the crown of any reasoning concerning the world-view.”- Max Planck, physicist and Nobel laureate
Alternatively stated, if we define God as the origin of the universe, then God is either (1) the quantum flux or its cause, (2) the universe (or multiverse) itself, or (3) an eternal, unexplained, and unverifiable creator. For now, each reader will have to come to terms with these choices. It seems to me that each is reasonable and for the near future at least unprovable.
“Why is there something rather than nothing?” – Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Finally there is the naturalistic reformulation of religion where one believes there is no supernatural reality, but one can substitute it with worship of nature meaning either (1) man’s prior achievements and ability – known as religious humanism, or (2) nonhuman nature. August Comte, the famous 19th century Positivist, following the former approach developed a religion modeled on Roman Catholicism, but based on service to humanity as the noblest ideal and universal love as the highest happiness. John Dewey embraced a less structured religious humanism where God can be seen as “the unity of all ideal ends arousing us to desire and action.”
“Reason does not prove to us that God exists, but neither does it prove that he cannot exist.” – Miguel de Unamuno
