Deism

For other uses, see Deism (disambiguation). Not to be confused with Theism.

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Deism (/ˈdiːɪzəm/ DEE-iz-əm [1][2] or /ˈdeɪ.ɪzəm/ DAY-iz-əm; derived from the Latin term deus, meaning "god")[3][4] is the philosophical position and rationalistic theology[5] that generally rejects revelation as a source of divine knowledge and asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a Supreme Being as the creator of the universe.[11] More simply stated, Deism is the belief in the existence of God—often, but not necessarily, an impersonal and incomprehensible God who does not intervene in the universe after creating it,[8][12] solely based on rational thought without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authority.[13] Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology—that is, God's existence is revealed through nature.[14]

Since the 17th century and during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in 18th-century England, France, and North America,[15] various Western philosophers and theologians formulated a critical rejection of the several religious texts belonging to the many organized religions, and began to appeal only to truths that they felt could be established by reason as the exclusive source of divine knowledge.[17] Such philosophers and theologians were called "Deists", and the philosophical/theological position they advocated is called "Deism".[18]

Deism as a distinct philosophical and intellectual movement declined toward the end of the 18th century[5] but had a revival in the early 19th century.[19] Some of its tenets continued as part of other intellectual and spiritual movements, like Unitarianism,[4] and Deism continues to have advocates today,[3] including with modern variants such as Christian deism and pandeism.

  1. ^ R. E. Allen, ed. (1990). The Concise Oxford Dictionary. Oxford University Press.
  2. ^ "Deist – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary". Merriam-webster.com. 2012. Archived from the original on 12 January 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2012.
  3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Leland Royce (2020). "Attributes of a Deistic God". Multiverse Deism: Shifting Perspectives of God and the World. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 47–68. ISBN 978-1-7936-1475-9. LCCN 2020935396.
  4. ^ a b Peters, Ted (2013). "Models of God: Deism". In Diller, Jeanine; Kasher, Asa (eds.). Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities. Dordrecht and Heidelberg: Springer Verlag. pp. 51–52. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-5219-1_5. ISBN 978-94-007-5219-1. LCCN 2012954282.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Smith, Merril D., ed. (2015). "Deism". The World of the American Revolution: A Daily Life Encyclopedia. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Publishing Group, imprint of ABC-Clio. pp. 661–664. ISBN 978-1-4408-3027-3. LCCN 2015009496.
  6. ^ a b c d e Bristow, William (Fall 2017). "Religion and the Enlightenment: Deism". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. ISSN 1095-5054. OCLC 643092515. Archived from the original on 11 December 2017. Retrieved 3 August 2021. Deism is the form of religion most associated with the Enlightenment. According to deism, we can know by the natural light of reason that the universe is created and governed by a supreme intelligence; however, although this supreme being has a plan for creation from the beginning, the being does not interfere with creation; the deist typically rejects miracles and reliance on special revelation as a source of religious doctrine and belief, in favor of the natural light of reason. Thus, a deist typically rejects the divinity of Christ, as repugnant to reason; the deist typically demotes the figure of Jesus from agent of miraculous redemption to extraordinary moral teacher. Deism is the form of religion fitted to the new discoveries in natural science, according to which the cosmos displays an intricate machine-like order; the deists suppose that the supposition of a God is necessary as the source or author of this order. Though not a deist himself, Isaac Newton provides fuel for deism with his argument in his Opticks (1704) that we must infer from the order and beauty in the world to the existence of an intelligent supreme being as the cause of this order and beauty. Samuel Clarke, perhaps the most important proponent and popularizer of Newtonian philosophy in the early eighteenth century, supplies some of the more developed arguments for the position that the correct exercise of unaided human reason leads inevitably to the well-grounded belief in a God. He argues that the Newtonian physical system implies the existence of a transcendent cause, the creator a God. In his first set of Boyle lectures, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God (1705), Clarke presents the metaphysical or "argument a priori" for God's existence. This argument concludes from the rationalist principle that whatever exists must have a sufficient reason or cause of its existence to the existence of a transcendent, necessary being who stands as the cause of the chain of natural causes and effects.
  7. ^ a b c d e Manuel, Frank Edward; Pailin, David A.; Mapson, K.; Stefon, Matt (13 March 2020) [26 July 1999]. "Deism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Edinburgh: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Archived from the original on 9 June 2021. Retrieved 3 August 2021. Deism, an unorthodox religious attitude that found expression among a group of English writers beginning with Edward Herbert (later 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury) in the first half of the 17th century and ending with Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, in the middle of the 18th century. These writers subsequently inspired a similar religious attitude in Europe during the second half of the 18th century and in the colonial United States of America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In general, Deism refers to what can be called natural religion, the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge that is inborn in every person or that can be acquired by the use of reason and the rejection of religious knowledge when it is acquired through either revelation or the teaching of any church.
  8. ^ a b c Gomes, Alan W. (2012) [2011]. "Deism". The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9780470670606.wbecc0408. ISBN 9781405157629. Deism is a rationalistic, critical approach to theism with an emphasis on natural theology. The deists attempted to reduce religion to what they regarded as its most foundational, rationally justifiable elements. Deism is not, strictly speaking, the teaching that God wound up the world like a watch and let it run on its own, though that teaching was embraced by some within the movement.
  9. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference DHS 2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ^ a b c d Kohler, Kaufmann; Hirsch, Emil G. (1906). "Deism". Jewish Encyclopedia. Kopelman Foundation. Archived from the original on 15 January 2013. Retrieved 3 August 2021. A system of belief which posits a God's existence as the cause of all things, and admits His perfection, but rejects Divine revelation and government, proclaiming the all-sufficiency of natural laws. The Socinians, as opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity, were designated as deists [...]. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries deism became synonymous with "natural religion," and deist with "freethinker." England and France have been successively the strongholds of deism. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the "father of deism" in England, assumes certain "innate ideas," which establish five religious truths: (1) that God is; (2) that it is man's duty to worship Him; (3) that worship consists in virtue and piety; (4) that man must repent of sin and abandon his evil ways; (5) that divine retribution either in this or in the next life is certain. He holds that all positive religions are either allegorical and poetic interpretations of nature or deliberately organized impositions of priests.
  11. ^ [3][5][6][7][8][9][10]
  12. ^ Doniger, Wendy; Eliade, Mircea, eds. (1999). "DEUS OTIOSUS". Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster. p. 288. ISBN 9780877790440. OCLC 1150050382. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023. Retrieved 15 March 2023. DEUS OTIOSUS (Latin: "inactive god") in the history of religions and philosophy, a High God who has withdrawn from the immediate details of the government of the world. [...] In Western philosophy, the deus otiosus concept has been attributed to Deism, a 17th–18th century Western rationalistic religio-philosophical movement, in its view of a non-intervening creator of the universe. Although this stark interpretation was accepted by very few Deists, many of their antagonists attempted to force them into the position of stating that after the original act of creation God virtually withdrew and refrained from interfering in the processes of nature and human affairs.
  13. ^ [3][5][6][7][9][10]
  14. ^ [3][5][6][7][8][9]
  15. ^ Rowe, William L. (2022) [2017]. "Deism". In Craig, Edward (ed.). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780415249126-K013-1. ISBN 9780415250696. In the popular sense, a deist is someone who believes that God created the world but thereafter has exercised no providential control over what goes on in it. In the proper sense, a deist is someone who affirms a divine creator but denies any divine revelation, holding that human reason alone can give us everything we need to know to live a correct moral and religious life. In this sense of 'deism' some deists held that God exercises providential control over the world and provides for a future state of rewards and punishments, while other deists denied this. However, they all agreed that human reason alone was the basis on which religious questions had to be settled, rejecting the orthodox claim to a special divine revelation of truths that go beyond human reason. Deism flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, principally in England, France, and America.
  16. ^ a b Herrick, James A. (1997). "Characteristics of British Deism". The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680–1750. Studies in Rhetoric/Communication. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. pp. 23–49. ISBN 978-1-57003-166-3.
  17. ^ [5][6][7][9][10][16]
  18. ^ [5][6][7][10][16]
  19. ^ Claeys, Gregory (1989). "Revolution in heaven: The Age of Reason (1794-95)". Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought (1st ed.). New York and London: Routledge. pp. 177–195. ISBN 9780044450900.