Program / Course 18: World Religions / Lesson 4.1
What you will learn
- Define deism and distinguish it from theism, pantheism and atheism.
- Describe the history of deism in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe and America.
- State the main deist arguments against revealed religion and the main Christian replies.
- Correct the common claim that all the American founders were deists.
The big idea
Deism is the view that a Creator exists and can be known by reason and the study of nature, but that God does not reveal himself in special ways, such as through miracles, inspired scripture or an incarnation. Deists typically hold that God made the world and left it to run by its own laws. The movement flourished in England and France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is a belief about God, not a church. Deists differ widely, and the label is often misapplied to people who were in fact Christians.
Key terms
- Deism
- Belief in a Creator God known through reason and nature, usually together with the denial that God has given a special revelation.
- Theism
- Belief in a God who made the world and also acts in it, including by revelation and providence.
- Natural religion
- The body of religious truths that deists say can be known by reason alone: a God, moral duty and a future reward or punishment.
- Revealed religion
- Religion based on God’s self-disclosure in history, such as through the Bible, the prophets or Christ.
- Providence
- God’s continuing care and governance of the world. Many deists denied or limited it.
- Miracle
- An event that God brings about that goes beyond the ordinary course of nature, as in the Gospel accounts of healing and the resurrection.
- Natural theology
- The attempt to know about God by reason and observation of the world, without appeal to revelation. Many Christians also use it.
Background
Deism arose in the age of the scientific revolution and of the wars of religion. Thinkers admired Newton’s discovery that the heavens obey simple laws, and were wearied by Christian fighting over doctrine. They proposed a simple religion of reason that every sensible person could accept. Lord Herbert of Cherbury (died 1648) is often called the father of English deism, and he named five common notions: that there is a God, that God should be worshiped, that virtue is the chief part of worship, that wrongdoing should be repented of, and that there are rewards and punishments after death.
In the early eighteenth century, writers such as John Toland and Matthew Tindal attacked traditional Christian claims, and in France Voltaire was a vigorous deist. Christian thinkers replied, including Bishop Joseph Butler, whose Analogy of Religion (1736) argued that difficulties found in revealed religion are matched by difficulties in natural religion. Deism faded as an organized movement by the end of the eighteenth century, though many of its ideas persisted.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: What deists believe
Deists begin with arguments from reason. They hold that the order and beauty of the world point to an intelligent cause, a design argument, and that every effect needs a cause, a cosmological argument. They add that moral duty is known by conscience. Both arguments are older than deism and are used by Christians, as in Thomas Aquinas’s Five Ways.
Where deists differ from Christians is in what they deny. Most deists deny that God has given a unique revelation in a book or a person, and many deny miracles and the Trinity. Some, like Voltaire, held that God judges the soul after death. Some taught that God does not intervene in the world. Others held that God cares for the world though through general law. Because the deists were so varied, historians warn against treating them as a single school.
Step 2: The arguments against revealed religion
Deists offered several arguments. First, that a revelation given to one people at one time would be unfair to all others, since a good God would give all people the same knowledge. Matthew Tindal argued that Christianity is as old as creation, meaning that its essential truths are known by reason to everyone. Second, they argued that miracle reports are unreliable, and David Hume’s essay on miracles, though Hume was not a deist, gave this a famous form. Third, they criticized the Bible’s moral difficulties, such as the commands of violence in the Old Testament. Fourth, they said that the creeds are human inventions added to a simple teaching of Jesus.
These arguments are still used today, in other forms, by skeptics and by some liberal Christians.
Step 3: Christian replies
Christians replied first that if God exists and is personal, revelation is not unlikely: a God who made persons can speak to them. They replied that God’s choice of one people for a particular history does not prevent him from blessing all nations (Genesis 12:3), and the gospel is offered to all. On miracles, they argued that if God exists, he can act, and that the evidence for events such as the resurrection can be weighed on its merits, not ruled out in advance. Butler argued that the deist relies on the same kind of probable reasoning that the Christian does.
They also noted that the deist God is often vague, and that without revelation the doctrines of forgiveness, grace and God’s own character may be unsure. Pascal, writing earlier, made a related point, that reason alone finds God distant and leaves the human person in a state of misery without a mediator.
Step 4: The founders and the facts
The claim that the American founders were deists is common and needs care. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson held views close to deism, with Jefferson editing the Gospels to remove miracles. Thomas Paine, who wrote The Age of Reason, was a clear deist. But many founders, including John Jay, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams and John Witherspoon, were professing Christians, and George Washington and John Adams attended church and used language of Providence, though their private beliefs are debated by historians.
A fair statement is that the founding generation included deists, orthodox Christians and many in between, and that scholars disagree about where to place figures such as Washington and Adams. It is a mistake to say either that all were deists or that all were orthodox.
Step 5: Deism today
Few people today call themselves deists, though the view lives on among those who say they believe in a higher power but reject organized religion. Surveys using the phrase spiritual but not religious capture many who hold views near deism. Some philosophers defend a form of deism or a minimal theism, and a modern movement known as World Union of Deists exists.
For a Christian, deism offers a point of contact: it agrees that God exists and can be known in part by reason. It also marks a limit: a God who never speaks or acts is not the God of Abraham, of Moses or of the apostles, who is called a living God (Matthew 16:16).
- What does a deist accept that an atheist does not, and what does a deist reject that a Christian accepts?
- Why would a good God give revelation to one people and not to all, and how do Christians answer?
- What makes a miracle credible or incredible, and who decides?
- Is it fair to say the God of deism is a God who does nothing?
- How much of Christian doctrine can be known by reason alone, according to Aquinas?
- What historical evidence would you need to say whether a given person was a deist?
Examples
Jefferson’s edited Gospels
Thomas Jefferson cut from the Gospels the passages he took to be miracles and supernatural claims, leaving the moral teaching of Jesus, whom he admired as a teacher. The resulting work, known as the Jefferson Bible, shows how a deist could honor Jesus’ ethics while rejecting the accounts of his divine power.
The watchmaker
A common picture, drawn from William Paley’s design argument, compares the world to a watch that implies a watchmaker. A deist might add that the watchmaker wound it and left. A Christian, using the same picture, says that the maker continues to hold it in being and to act. The picture serves both sides.
A modern deist
A woman says she believes that a creator made the universe and that goodness matters, but that no religion has special knowledge of God, and she finds prayer for particular needs unlikely to work. She calls herself a deist. Her view, though called by an old name, is much like the older deism. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Deist
Deists hold that God is known through reason and the world, that morality is knowable, and that special revelation is unneeded or doubtful. They commonly argue that this faith is more peaceful and fairer to all people than religions that claim exclusive truth.
Catholic
The First Vatican Council taught that God can be known with certainty by natural reason from created things, and also that revelation is morally necessary so that the truths of faith can be known by all with firm certainty. Catholics thus affirm the part of deism that is true while insisting on revelation (Dei Filius).
Orthodox
Orthodox theology holds that God is known first by participation in his life, through worship and the Church, and that the God of the philosophers is not enough. Many Orthodox writers regard deism as a reduction of God to an idea, in contrast to the God who meets people in Christ.
Protestant
Protestants answered deism in different ways. Evangelical revival preachers such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield stressed the experience of grace, and apologists such as Butler and Paley defended revelation with reasoned argument. Many Protestants affirm general revelation in nature (Romans 1:20) while holding that saving knowledge comes by the gospel.
Scholarly
Historians debate whether deism was a distinct movement or a mood. Some argue that the term was a hostile label used by opponents, and that few people called themselves deists. Others point to a significant body of writing. The question of which figures to classify as deists is disputed.
Why it matters
Deism is the middle position between historic Christianity and atheism. It shows that belief in God does not by itself lead to Christian belief, and it poses the question that the gospel answers: if God exists, has he spoken? Many people today hold views close to deism, so Christians who know its arguments can speak to them honestly.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Deism is atheism with a polite name.
Correction: Deists believe in a real Creator and in moral duty. They differ from atheists on the central question of whether God exists.
Misunderstanding: All the founding fathers were deists.
Correction: Some were close to deism, but many were orthodox Christians, and historians disagree about others. The claim is an oversimplification.
Misunderstanding: Deists think God is absent or uncaring.
Correction: Many deists held that God cares for his creatures and judges them. What they denied was special intervention and revelation.
Misunderstanding: Christians reject all natural knowledge of God.
Correction: Catholic and Orthodox teaching and the great Protestant confessions affirm that something of God can be known from creation (Romans 1:20). They differ from deists in holding that this is not the whole.
Knowledge check
What is the central claim of deism?
Deism holds that a Creator exists and can be known by reason and the study of nature, while denying or doubting special revelation, miracles and the incarnation. It often portrays God as having made the world and left it to run by its own laws, and it stresses moral duty.
Give two arguments deists made against revealed religion.
They argued that a revelation to one people is unfair to others, that reports of miracles are unreliable, that parts of the Bible are morally troubling, and that Christian doctrines are later human additions. Any two of these are correct, and each has been answered by Christian writers.
How did Joseph Butler answer the deists?
In The Analogy of Religion, Butler argued that the difficulties deists find in revealed religion have parallels in natural religion and in ordinary life. Because both rest on probable reasoning, the deist cannot reject revelation on grounds that would equally undercut natural religion.
Why is it inaccurate to say all the American founders were deists?
The founding generation included people close to deism, such as Jefferson and Paine, and many orthodox Christians, such as Jay and Witherspoon. Historians also disagree about figures like Washington and Adams. The group cannot be reduced to one belief.
Think it through
- What would count for you as evidence that God has spoken in a particular way?
- Is a God who has revealed himself in one nation more fair or less fair than one who has not spoken at all?
- What do you admire in the deist wish for a reasonable, peaceful religion?
- How would you explain the difference between deism and Christianity to a friend who says she is spiritual but not religious?
Independent assignment
Deism and the Christian reply
In your notebook, write about 250 words setting out the deist case against revealed religion in terms a deist would accept. Then write about 250 words giving a Christian reply, drawing on Butler, on Romans 1:20 and on the Gospel accounts. End with 100 words on which side you find stronger and what question remains.
Further study
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hume on Religion Read for Hume’s critique of natural and revealed religion.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, Q. 2: The Existence of God Read the Five Ways as classical arguments from reason that Christians share with many deists.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Cosmological Argument Read for the argument that every contingent thing needs a cause.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Teleological Arguments for God’s Existence Read for the design argument that deists prized.
- Blaise Pascal, Pensées Read selectively for Pascal’s view that reason alone leaves the human person uncertain.
- Romans 1:20 God’s invisible qualities are understood through what has been made.
- Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God.
- Hebrews 1:1 God has spoken in his Son.