| “From the position
that any religion’s claim to ‘unique truth’
is a contradiction in terms, a former Christian clergyman with
degrees in philosophy and theology emphasizes looking inward
to cultivate spirituality defined as an awareness of God or
‘intelligent universal energy’ in all things. In
an eclectic argument against theism and Christian myths of incarnation,
Ackroyd draws from Nietzsche and Sartre as well as Taoist philosophy
and Western science.” Reference & Research Book
News Review
by Jeaneane Fowler
Eric Ackroyd’s thesis is encapsulated in
a statement late in his book:
“A universe in process requires us
to justify our existence within it by transcending ourselves
and thereby assisting in the spiritual self-transcendence
of the universe, the great cosmic organism of which we are
intelligent cells, cells which, like those within our own
body, die and have to be replaced. What we can be reasonably
sure of is that the life-force within those cells is everlasting.
That life-force is the divinity I speak of, which is our own
true self and the true essence of everything.” (p. 170)
Leading up to this point, Ackroyd dismantles
the basic tenets of Christianity brick by mythological brick,
berating and annihilating foundational concepts such as God
the Father and God the Son, though as the book proceeds we
find him accepting God the Holy Spirit. Indeed, he begins
by abandoning the term God but later taking it up again. It
is a brave book and in many ways is very refreshing: many
of the author’s thoughts would readily resonate with ordinary
people, especially since it is so clearly written and, hence,
very readable. The book would not be out of place in the realm
of religious pluralism given its openness and non-dogmatic
approach as well as its constant gleaning of ideas from other
cultures both past and present.
Chapter 1, Is God Dead?, eschews
theism in any religion as outmoded and removes God to an a-theistic
(as opposed to atheist) presence within rather than “out there”
or “beyond” the human sphere. Ackroyd thus radically denies
any possibility of an anthropomorphic God. So he claims that
theism is “no longer a viable option for any thinking person
in the 21st century CE” (p. 3): the theistic god “is not big
enough for the job” (p. 3). It would have to be said that
the chapter upholds individualism, is bravely anti-theistic,
and articulates frankly what has probably become the view
of many.
Chapter 2 contrasts patriarchal religion
that has elevated a transcendent male God at the expense of
the feminine in nature bringing about the complete divorce
of God from all nature. Again, his thesis that God is within
nature as much as within humanity and that this is the essence
of religion rather than belief in a supernatural God will
resonate with many. It is the desacralization of nature that
has led to its abuse. So the author posits a new understanding
of divinity as “the intelligence and wisdom and energy of
the cosmos” – that is immanent in one’s physical (but also
spiritual) self (p. 25). In short, he believes that the loss
of reverence for fellow beings and nature stems from the elevation
of a superior being as God beyond both. Thus, chapter 3 extends
the idea that the “otherness” of God degrades humanity. Christianity
has always eschewed pantheism, the belief that God is in all
things, but this is actually the tenet that Ackroyd upholds
and, yet again, it will chime with the thoughts of many others.
For the author, a true religion “is one that sees, experiences
and responds to the divinity that is in all things”
(p. 29) and the human being has the conscious capacity to
experience this indwelling divinity. He defines divinity as
“whatever is the ultimate reality that is manifest in the
energy, intelligence, beauty and rightness of the universe”
(p. 31). While immanent divinity may be better than supernatural
theism, however, it seems to me that seeing nature as divinity
(p. 32) cannot but beg the question that nature is so often
ruthlessly cruel: nature may well inspire “spiritual passions”
(p. 34), but in my view it cannot be consistently divine.
Chapter 4 examines the issue of gender
discrimination. Here, Ackroyd argues that the cosmos is organic,
that is to say “a whole whose parts interact in such a way
as to maintain (or, indeed, transform) both it and themselves”
(p. 36). He therefore argues for a masculine/feminine wholeness
and harmony within each individual and a spiritual goal of
experiencing the “union of opposites (but without forfeiting
their interplay)” within – a unity but not identity with divinity,
a becoming “at one” with the divinity within. Again, his thesis
here would resonate with many, as would his criticism of the
notable absence of the feminine element in Christianity and
its historical attitude to women as the evil products of a
sinful Eve, even if the Roman Catholic view of the Virgin
– a tenet that he finds unacceptable – Mary has filled a needed
theological gap. The facts here given by the author are readily
acceptable though the chapter tends to flit unnecessarily
across time spans and from culture to culture to support what
is really an acceptable and incontrovertible thesis.
It is precisely the tendency of the author
to embrace wide-ranging cultures and different periods of
time to support his views that detracts from some of his pointedly
strong tenets. And this becomes a facet of the material from
chapter five onwards leading to over-simplification. Many
of the examples he gives are interesting, but the moment he
strays into one’s own areas of expertise it is all too easy
to see that his facts are wanting in accuracy. For example,
his opinion in chapter 6 that Hinduism does not tolerate monotheism
(p. 78) is totally erroneous and his knowledge of Hinduism
tends to rely solely on Advaita Vedanta, excluding the whole
realm of devotional Hinduism where monotheism prevails, though
not exclusively so. He gives ample examples to support his
beliefs, even if they are rather carefully sifted. Dynamic
energy as a vital force pervading all the cosmos is the subject
matter of chapter 5: it is a force that is One and the ultimate
Reality in the many. Again, the pantheistic tone is clear
and again, will find acceptance by many despite the historical
antipathy of Christianity to any attempts at bringing divinity
into the world. An important subject matter emerges in this
chapter and that is his view that everything in the cosmos
is dynamic, a creative energy, which Ackroyd sees as spirit
and divinity and the same energy in the human being as in
the universe. This energy he maintains is the starting point
for any religion: “It lacks the rigidity and dubiousness of
Western anthropomorphic and mythological concepts of God.
It is an intuitive, immediate and totally appropriate response
to experience that is both universal and truly spiritual –
mystical, yet compatible with a strictly empirical understanding
of things” (p. 54). He believes this fundamental experience
– “inborn spirituality unburdened by religious dogma” (p.
53) – can unite not only religion and science but also different
religious traditions. Getting rid of the anthropomorphic God
the Father as like Father Christmas, he thinks it is better
to relate to God as Spirit in the form of energy.
Chapter 6, Divinity Within, brings
us to the heart of Ackroyd’s book. Here, he eschews the word
“God” and again courts pantheism in view of the omnipresence
of energy. He believes that the universality of religious
concepts is essential and that it is energy that will provide
such a universal aspect. In contrast to the love of and fear
of the Western Christian God, whom he terms “schizophrenic”
(p. 63), he suggests that energy, when combined with beauty,
can provide blissful experience, and his view of reality equates
energy with divinity as “scientific”. Less credible, however,
is the author’s contention that there is a “sophisticated
intelligence” (p. 66) in nature because: “It is generally
assumed that every kind of creativity requires intelligence
as well as energy” and nature has self-creativity (p. 65).
But this evidence for intelligence in nature is thin. “Nature-divinity
‘knows best’”, he writes, and then adds “rightness” to the
energy and intelligence in nature (p. 71). Here, Ackroyd is
on thin ice. Intelligence is dependent on energy but that
correlation cannot be turned around to say that energy is
dependent on intelligence and it is a theme that is not developed
satisfactorily in the chapter and yet taken as fact from here
on. And then to add “rightness” to nature is bizarre: there
is too much proof to the contrary that nature does not always
know best – take, for example the beauty of the cancerous
growth with its devastating effects. The definition of rightness
as “being just as it ought to be” (p. 72) is better, but I
doubt that nature can be wholly trusted even if we can lift
our sights to the universal as opposed to the egocentric and
anthropocentric. Belief that nature “destroys only what hinders
further creativity” (p. 74) is very suspect – again, tell
that to the being with terminal cancer. But, like nature,
Ackroyd’s divinity is totally impartial, and he is right to
“pension off” anthropomorphic deities (pp. 75–6) and to decry
the fruits of theism. Less to argue with is his tenet that
religion should be “a feeling, in response to a
perceived property or quality in things” (p. 80) – a
positive property.
In chapter 7 the author divorces himself
from traditional beliefs in the Christian Incarnation, the
virgin birth, Jesus as the Son of God or as God. Here, he
uses now well-documented critiques of foundational Christian
doctrines based on the New Testament. He continues his attack
in chapter 8, depicting the Atonement and doctrine of Redemption
as myths, the doctrines surrounding the Crucifixion as “revolting”
(p. 99) and the doctrine of original sin as “absurd and horrific”
(p. 100) – “better no God than this one”, he writes (p. 100),
describing Christianity as “sin-centred” (p. 101). His view
of salvation is as an internalized process of recognition
of the divinity within, and here he uses the term Holy Spirit,
the third aspect of the Christian Trinity, having eschewed
totally God the Father and God the Son as the first two, and
his pantheistic beliefs return with his view that each being
is a part of the wholeness of divinity. Spirit, he says, “is
the inward presence of the living God and, as such, supersedes
both Old Testament and New Testament, both Father and Son.
God has not died or disappeared; God lives in the cosmos and
in the microcosmic human spirit, or mind” (p. 107). He returns
to his belief that spirit includes intelligence, that is to
say, cosmic intelligence, though this is not a theme that
has been satisfactorily developed in earlier chapters. Jesus,
he thinks, was led and motivated by the Spirit within and
he accepts that “Christ manifests the divine creative intelligence
in the physical universe” (p. 108), which presumably means
that Jesus successfully integrated and harmonized his conscious
and subconscious being, so experiencing the immanence of divinity.
We, too, he believes, must “develop our conscious existential
oneness” with divinity (p. 109) by diminished ego and discovery
of Self with involvement in the world from that perspective.
In a very meaningful statement he says: “Spirituality (as
distinct from piety or religiosity) is essentially an individual
experience and consists in developing an interior relationship
with the divinity, in everything one does. This means living
fully and intently – not necessarily tensely, but mindfully
– in every present moment. This is not a relationship to God
as Father, but an adult co-creative relationship in which
one may say that divinity and humanity are interdependent”
(p. 111).
Divine and human creativity is the subject
of chapter 9, which begins with a sound and positive view
of an evolving universe. Salvation according to Ackroyd is
“spiritual fulfilment” (p. 112), full development of our potential
and a “transfiguration” of the self to reveal the inborn divinity,
which he equates with creative potential. Less sound, however,
is the linking of the indwelling divinity with conscience
(p. 115). He says “conscience is that conscious relationship
with divinity” (p. 115), linking conscience with imagination.
But conscience has far more to do with guilt-ridden conditioning
and can be more of an inhibitor of personal evolution and
self-transformation than a positive creative stimulus within.
Notable, however, is the fluidity of relationship with the
God within, since divinity is energy it makes possible a “universal
drive towards further growth, further development” (p. 122).
Presumably, this drive is the intelligence of energy
that he accepts.
Chapter 10 takes up the theme of ethics.
The divinity that is energy within is the source of religious
ethics but Ackroyd does not equate ethics with religion. Divinity
is “a primal human awareness of a One within the many, an
immanent dynamic and intelligent source and sustainer of all
things” (p. 125). Again, the intelligence of that source is
the weakness of the statement. The definition of his concept
of religion is more acceptable: “Religion is a certain kind
of attitude towards the universe – including oneself – that
has both an emotional and an intellectual component, the emotional
component consisting in reverence and respect and wonder (love)
and a feeling of oneness with the universe, and the intellectual
component presenting the empirical grounding for the emotional
component” (p. 125). His view of ethics, then, is as a creative
activity informed by empathetic love. He believes it is a
“moral imperative” to act creatively (p. 130) in order to
move towards a more perfect world. He concludes that we can
do without the theistic God but not without “immanent divinity
that is cosmic energy” (p. 133), without which we cannot exist.
Then he makes a great leap to link, in pure pantheistic tone,
the cosmic intelligence with consciousness and mind. It is
a leap that may be metaphysically justified, but little evidence
can, or is, given here for the premise. Nevertheless, he ends
the chapter with “divinity being the intelligence or mind
of the universe” and states that: “Mind – and likewise intelligence
or consciousness – is a dynamic property of the universe.
In dealing with the relationship between
religion and science in chapter 11, the author claims that
divinity as energy in the cosmos is an empirical fact and
so religion and science need not be so disparate. This thesis,
of course, is totally dependent on the equation energy = divinity.
We have at the outset of this chapter a useful summary of
his position in the book:
“As
has already been said, I use the word ‘divinity’ to signify
that whatever it is applied to is held in reverence, with
wonder and awe and also with love and gratitude and joy, as
the ultimate source and sustainer of all things, and as omnipresent
so that human beings can consciously have access to the energy
and intelligence (or mind) and rightness of this omnipresent
divinity. In short, ‘divinity’ expresses a way of looking
at – an attitude towards – the universe and our life within
it, an attitude that fosters creative thinking and creative
activity that are not only a means of self-fulfilment for
the individual, but play a positive part in bringing the cosmos
closer to its fulfilment.” (p. 136)
In terms of the individual, then, he or
she needs to experience transcendence into immanent divinity
in such a way that there is an active and symbiotic process
between spirit and Spirit. This necessitates a moral response
to the way we view the world.
The “fulfilment” referred to in the quotation
above is somewhat modified in the context of evil and providence
in chapter 12. The universe is not perfect but is constantly
changing and evolving. Ackroyd believes that evolving towards
perfection without ever being perfect is the goal, so there
is no absolute perfection. Providence, he defines, is becoming
what you are, fulfilling potential. Again, divinity is portrayed
as creative energy, intelligence and rightness and this is
still the flaw in the thesis: though many may experience divinity
as creative energy (or even simply energy) the leap to intelligence
and rightness begs far too many questions. Either way, the
author believes that the expression of divinity in the universe
is informed also by randomness and freedom, making human beings
free to deal with problems in life, especially with suffering.
Thus, each human being is providentially in existence with
choices that are in no way predestined.
The final chapter, chapter 13, continues
the identification of divinity with nature in the context
of death and what may or may not lie beyond, if anything at
all. Ackroyd’s feelings for the universe in life are ones
of reverence, love and trust, and in death, what survives,
he believes, is energy separate from the body. He appears
to accept Barry Long’s view that we are “a point of consciousness”
after death; he surmises that “it is itself a further stage
in our self-transfiguration, or a doorway that leads to such
transfiguration” (p. 167). But he accepts that letting the
egoistic self die in this life is better than waiting
for it to be transformed in the next. Ultimately, he says:
“What survives is the One, the divinity that is within
us all; and who can say what new form or forms that divinity
– that energy – will assume?” (p. 168). He may have taken
away the word “God” at the beginning of the book, but he brings
it back forcefully and pantheistically at the end: “Thus,
God will be all in all, and all in God. This I accept. But
it is a mystery, and in the contemplation of which the tongue
must come to rest” (p. 170). And yet, his final word is that
he sees death as “the potentiality for something new” (p.
171).
So how does one assess this courageous
work? I think this has to be done on two levels. First, there
is the core material, the core beliefs that Ackroyd puts forward
in a very refreshing style. These beliefs are rather humanist
and would be attractive to those who feel that there “must
be something” but who do not wish to take up the theistic
stances that accept a God “out there” and removed from the
world in every possible way. The core beliefs border on the
mystical, with the experience of the best aspects of nature
providing the medium for indescribable wonder and awe, and
an acceptance that self-transcendence to a point of harmonized
balance of all dimensions of being is a proximate and ultimate
goal. The positive view of humanity is also a corollary of
the core beliefs as well as the juxtaposed goals of pursuing
personal potential and yet realization of oneself as a cosmic
particle – as stardust.
The second level is the more difficult
one. This is an author who draws widely on different cultures
and belief systems to support his views but this makes the
evidence surrounding his core statements very suspect. One
gains the impression that he is a casual visitor to some of
these fields and the experienced scholars within them will
find too much that is not accurate and much that is overstated
at the expense of deeper knowledge. This is a shame since
there is much to like in this book, even if the argument breaks
down occasionally over very important issues, like the assigning
of intelligence to energy and to nature. Any author who wishes
to make bold and brave statements as Eric Ackroyd has done
will want to support beliefs in a variety of ways, but such
support has to be valid rather than hypothetical.
Nevertheless, aside from scholastic
criticism, there is a sound fundamental message in this brave
book and that is that there is no guilt to be acquired by
questioning the basic tenets of a faith, and what amounts
to conditioned thinking about God – even to the extent of
getting rid of the word “God” itself. This book claims that
religious tenets that stretch the bounds of credibility and
have no logical relevance in today’s world should be abandoned
rather than maintained through conditioned faith. In their
place should arise a more flexible self-journeying analysis
of the depth and potential of one’s being, the outward expression
of that journey in how we view and relate to the world, along
with a deepening awareness of the profound and dynamic interconnectedness
that informs the universe. Such is a new definition of divinity.
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