However, for Peirce, it was precisely this aspect of anthropomorphism that pointed toward theism as the least false idea of that which stood behind the universe (PSC 376). Peirce argued that human beings could not have an “idea of any cause or agency so stupendous that there is any more adequate way of conceiving it than as vaguely like a man” (CP 5.536) or a “vague idea of human likeness” (MS L390). In a sense, this anthropomorphic ‘God’ could be construed as a generalised sign of the highest human aspirations imaginable, and thus as closely aligned with the esthetic ideal of the summum bonum (see CP 8.262). In this respect, Peirce’s deity was infinite yet indefinitely comprehensible; but he also quipped that he preferred “an old-fashioned God” to “a modern patent Absolute” as a closer approximation to the truth (CP 5.47 n. 1)
If I were to attach a definite meaning to “anthropomorphism,” I should think it stood to reason that a man could not have any idea that was not anthropomorphic, and that it was simply to repeat the error of Kant to attempt to escape anthropomorphism.
— C. S. Peirce (@CSPeirceSpeaks) December 10, 2022