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Deism is a religious philosophy and movement that became prominent in England, France, and the United States in the 17th and 18th centuries. Deists typically reject supernatural events (prophecy, miracles) and divine revelation prominent in organized religion, along with holy books and revealed religions that assert the existence of such things. Instead, deists hold that correct religious beliefs must be founded on human reason and observed features of the natural world, and that these sources reveal the existence of one God or supreme being. Overview The concept of "deism" covers a wide variety of positions on a wide variety of religious issues. See the section ''Features of Deism'', below. The words "deism" and "theism" are both derived from the word "god": A helpful discussion of deism, theism, and other positions on divine beings can be found in the theism article. Perhaps the first use of the term "deist" is in Pierre Viret's Instruction Chrestienne (1564), reprinted in Bayle's Dictionnaire entry Viret. Viret, a Calvinist, regarded Deism as a new form of Italian heresy. In England, the term "deist" first appeared in Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621).• Lord Herbert of Cherbury (d. 1648) is generally considered the "father of English Deism", and his book De Veritate (1624) the first major statement of Deism. Deism flourished in England between 1690 and 1740 at which time Matthew Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), or 'the deist's Bible', gained much attention. Later Deism spread to France, notably via the work of Voltaire, to Germany, and to America. Today, the most accessible statement of deism is Thomas Paine's book The Age of Reason (1795). It is short, readable, and witty. It is still in print, and is also downloadable in electronic format from various Web sites. Historical Background Deistic thinking has existed since ancient times (e.g. in philosophers such as Heraclitus) and in many cultures. The word deism is generally used to refer to the movement toward natural theology or freethinking that occurred in 17th-century Europe, and specifically in Britain. Natural theology is a facet of the revolution in world-view that occurred in Europe in the 17th century. To understand the background to that revolution is also to understand the background of deism. Several cultural movements of the time contributed to the movement. The Discovery of Diversity The humanist tradition of the Renaissance included a revival of interest in Europe's classical past in Greece and Rome. With study of the past came a growing awareness that the world in which the classical authors lived was quite different from the present. In addition, study of classical documents led to the realization that some historical documents are less reliable than others, which led to the beginnings of biblical criticism. In particular, as scholars worked on Biblical manuscripts, they began developing the principles of textual criticism and a view of the New Testament as the product of a particular historical period different from their own. In addition to discovering diversity in the past, Europeans also discovered diversity in the present. The voyages of discovery of the 16th and 17th centuries acquainted Europeans with new and different cultures in the Americas, in Asia, and in the Pacific. They discovered a greater amount of cultural diversity than they'd ever imagined, and the question arose as to how this vast amount of human cultural diversity could be compatible with the Biblical account of Noah's descendants. In particular, cultural diversity with respect to religious beliefs could no longer be ignored. As Herbert wrote in De Religione Laici (1645)... This new awareness of diversity led to a feeling that Christianity was just one religion among many, with no better claim than any other to correctness. Religious Conflict Europe had been plagued by vicious sectarian conflicts and religious wars since the beginning of the Reformation. In 1642, when Lord Herbert of Cherbury's De Veritate was published, the Thirty Years War had been raging on continental Europe for nearly 25 years. It was an enormously destructive religious war that (it is estimated) destroyed 15-20% of the population of Germany. Closer to home, the English Civil War pitting King against Parliament was just beginning. Such massive sectarian violence inspired a visceral rejection of the sectarianism that had led to the violence. It also led to a search for natural religious truths — truths that could be universally accepted, either because they had been "written in the book of Nature" or "engraved on the human mind" by God. Advances in Scientific Knowledge The 17th century saw a remarkable advance in scientific knowledge: the scientific revolution. The work of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo destroyed the old notion that the earth was the center of the universe, and showed that the universe was incredibly larger than ever imagined. These discoveries posed a serious challenge to Biblical authority and to the religious authorities, the case of Galileo's condemnation for heresy being an especially visible example. This led to a situation in which the Bible came to be seen as authoritative on matters of faith and morals, but no longer authoritative (nor meant to be) on matters of science. Isaac Newton's discovery of universal gravitation explained the behavior both of objects here on earth and objects in the heavens, and promoted a world-view in which the natural universe is controlled by laws of nature. This in turn suggested a theology in which God created the universe, set it in motion controlled by natural law, and retired from the scene. (See the Watchmaker analogy) The new awareness of the explanatory power of universal natural law also produced a growing skepticism about such religious staples as miracles (i.e. violations of natural law) and about books such as the Bible that reported them. Critical and Constructive Deism The concept of "deism" covers a wide variety of positions on a wide variety of religious issues. Following Sir Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, most commentators agree that two features constituted the core of deism: Deist authors advocated a combination of both critical and constructive elements in proportions and emphases that varied from author to author. Critical elements of deist thought included: Constructive elements of deist thought included: Individual deists varied in the set of critical and constructive elements for which they argued. Some deists rejected miracles and prophecies but still considered themselves to be Christians — because they believed in what they felt to be the pure, original form of Christianity, i.e. Christianity as it existed before it was corrupted by additions of such superstitions as miracles, prophecies, and the doctrine of the Trinity. Some Deists rejected the claim of Jesus's divinity, but continued to hold him in high regard as a moral teacher (see, for example, Thomas Jefferson's famous Jefferson Bible). Other, more radical, Deists rejected Christianity altogether, and expressed hostility toward Christianity which they regarded as pure superstition. In return, Christian writers often charged radical Deists with atheism. Note that the terms constructive and critical are used to refer to aspects of deistic thought, not sects or subtypes of deism — it would be incorrect to classify any particular deist author as "a constructive deist" or "a critical deist". As Peter Gay notes: It should be noted, however, that the constructive element of deism was not unique to deism. It was the same as the natural theology that was so prevalent in all English theology in the 17th and 18th centuries. What set deists apart from their more orthodox contemporaries was their critical concerns. One of the remarkable features of deism is that the critical elements did not over-power the constructive elements. As E. Graham Waring observed,• "A strange feature of the deist controversy is the apparent acceptance of all parties of the conviction of the existence of God." And Basil Willey observed • Concepts of "Reason" "Reason" was the ultimate court of appeal for deists. Tindal's Lockean definitions of reason, self-evident truth, and the light of nature, are especially lucid. Deists did appeal to "the light of nature" to support the self-evident nature of their positive religious claims. Once a proposition is asserted to be a self-evident truth, there's not much more to say about it. Consequently, deist authors expended most of their ink using reason as a critical tool for exposing and rejecting what they saw as nonsense. Here are two typical examples. The first is from John Toland's Christianity not Mysterious. Arguments for the Existence of God Thomas Hobbes— an early deist and important influence on subsequent deists— used the cosmological argument for the existence of God at several places in his writings. History of Religion and the Deist Mission Most deists saw the religions of their day as corruptions of an original, pure religion that was simple and rational. They felt that this original pure religion had become corrupted by "priests" who had manipulated it for the priests' own personal gain and and for the class interests of the priesthood in general. According to this world-view, over time "priests" had succeeded in encrusting the original simple, rational religion with all kinds of superstitions and "mysteries" — irrational theological doctrines. Laymen were told by the priests that only the priests really knew what was necessary for salvation, and that laymen must accept the "mysteries" on faith and on the authority of the priests. This kept the laity baffled by the nonsensical "mysteries", confused, and dependent on the priests for information about the requirements for salvation. This put the priests in a position of considerable power over the laity, which they strove to maintain and increase. Deists referred to this kind of manipulation of religious doctrine as "priestcraft", a highly derogatory term. Deists saw their mission as the stripping away of "priestcraft" and "mysteries" from religion, thereby restoring religion to its original, true condition — simple and rational. In many cases, they considered true, original Christianity to be the same as this original natural religion. As Matthew Tindal put it: One implication of this deist origin myth was that primitive societies, or societies that existed in the distant past, should have religious beliefs that are less-encrusted with superstitions and closer to those of natural theology. This became a point of attack for thinkers such as David Hume as they studied the "natural history of religion". Freedom and Necessity Enlightment thinkers, under the influence of Newtonian science, tended to view the universe as a vast machine, created and set in motion by a Creator Being, that continues to operate according to natural law, without any divine intervention. This view naturally led to what was then usually called necessitarianism: the view that everything in the universe — including human behavior — is completely causally determined by antecedent circumstances and natural law. (See for example La Mettrie's ''L'Homme machine'') As a consequence, debates about freedom vs. determinism were a regular feature of Enlightenment religious and philosophical discussions. Because of their high regard for natural law and for the idea of a universe without miracles, Deists were especially susceptible to the temptations of Necessitarianism. Reflecting the intellectual climate of the time, there were differences among Deists about freedom and necessity. In addition, Deists were often attacked as proponents of Necessitarianism. Beliefs about Immortality of the Soul Deists held a variety of beliefs about the soul. Some such as Lord Herbert of Cherbury held that souls exist, survive death, and in the afterlife are rewarded or punished by God for their behavior in life. Others such as Thomas Paine were agnostic about the immortality of the soul: Still others such as Bolingbroke, Thomas Chubb, and Peter Annet were materialists and either denied or doubted the immortality of the soul.• Deist terminology Deist authors — and 17th- and 18th-century theologians in general — loved to refer to God using a variety of vivid circumlocutions such as: Precursors of Deism Early works of biblical criticism, such as Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan and Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, as well as works by lesser-known authors such as Richard Simon and Isaac La Peyrère, paved the way for the development of critical Deism. Early Deism Lord Herbert of Cherbury (d. 1648) is generally considered the "father of English Deism", and his book De Veritate (On Truth, as it is Distinguished from Revelation, the Probable, the Possible, and the False) (1624) the first major statement of Deism.• • Like his contemporary Descartes, Herbert searched for the foundations of knowledge. In fact, the first two-thirds of De Veritate are devoted to an exposition of Herbert's theory of knowledge. Herbert distinguished truths obtained through experience, and through reasoning about experience, from innate truths and from revealed truths. Innate truths are imprinted on our minds, and the evidence that they are so imprinted is that they are universally accepted. Herbert's term for universally accepted truths was notitiae communes — common notions. In the realm of religion, Herbert believed that there were five common notions. It is worth quoting Herbert at some length, to give the flavor of his writing. A sense of the importance that Herbert attributed to innate Common Notions will help in understanding how devastating Locke's attack on innate ideas was for Herbert's philosophy. According to Gay, Herbert had relatively few followers, and it was not until the 1680 that Herbert found a true successor in Charles Blount (1654-1693). Blount made one special contribution to the deist debate: "by utilizing his wide classical learning, Blount demonstrated how to use pagan writers, and pagan ideas, against Christianity. ... Other deists were to follow his lead." • John Locke The publication of John Locke's An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689, but dated 1690) marks a major turning point in the history of deism. Since Herbert's De Veritate, innate ideas had been the foundation of deist epistemology. Locke's famous attack on innate ideas in the first book of the Essay effectively destroyed that foundation and replaced it with a theory of knowledge based on experience. Innatist deism was replaced by empiricist deism. Locke himself was not a deist. He accepted both miracles and revelation, and regarded miracles as the main proof of revelation.• After Locke, constructive deism could no longer appeal to innate ideas for justification of its basic tenets such as the existence of God. Instead, under the influence of Locke and Newton, deists turned to natural theology and to arguments based on experience and Nature: the cosmological argument and the argument from design. The Flowering of British Deism (1690-1740) Peter Gay places the zenith of deism "from the end of the 1690's, when the vehement response to John Toland's Christianity Not Mysterious (1696) started the deist debate, to the end of the 1740's when the tepid response to Middleton's Free Inquiry signalized its close." • Other prominent British Deists included Charles Blount, Shaftesbury (who did not think of himself as a deist, but shared so many attitudes with deists that Gay calls him "a deist in fact, if not in name"•) and Bolingbroke. Matthew Tindal Especially noteworthy is Matthew Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), which "became, very soon after its publication, the focal center of the deist controversy. Because almost every argument, quotation, and issue raised for decades can be found here, the work is often termed 'the deist's Bible'."• Due to Locke's successful work of replacing innatist deism by empricist deism, Tindal's 'deist Bible' redefined the foundation of deist epistemology as knowledge based on experience or human reason. This effectively widened the gap between traditional Christians and what he called "Christian deists" since this new foundation required that "revealed" truth be validated through human reason. In Christianity as Old as the Creation, Tindal articulates many prominent facets of deism that held true through the subsequent centuries and still hold true among many deists today: David Hume The writings of David Hume are sometimes credited with causing or contributing to the decline of deism. As a matter of historical fact, this is incorrect. For one thing, English deism was already in rapid decline before Hume's works were published. Furthermore, Hume's writings on religion were not very influential at the time that they were published.• Nevertheless, modern scholars find Hume a brilliant and thought-provoking philosopher, and find it interesting to study the implications of his thoughts for deism. In its implications for deism, the Natural History of Religion (1757) may be Hume's most interesting work. In it, Hume contends that polytheism, not monotheism, was "the first and most ancient religion of mankind". In addition, contends Hume, the psychological basis of religion is not Reason, but fear of the unknown. As E. Graham Waring observed:• So much for deism's image of the primary religion of mankind as a rational monotheism. Experts dispute whether Hume was a deist, an atheist, or something else. Hume himself was uncomfortable with the terms 'deist' and 'atheist', and Hume scholar Paul Russell has argued that the best and safest term for Hume's views is 'irreligion'. Continental Deism English deism, in the words of Peter Gay, "travelled well. ... As deism waned in England, it waxed in France and the German states." • France had its own tradition of religious skepticism and natural theology in the works of Montaigne, Bayle, and Montesquieu. The most famous of the French deists was Voltaire, who acquired a taste for Newtonian science, and reinforcement of deistic inclinations, during a two year visit to England starting in 1726. French Deists also included Maximilien Robespierre and Rousseau. Briefly, the Cult of the Supreme Being was the state religion of Revolutionary France. Kant's identification with deism is controversial. An argument in favor of Kant as deist is Alan Wood's "Kant's Deism," in P. Rossi and M. Wreen (eds.) Kant's Philosophy of Religion Re-examined (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); an argument against Kant as deist is Stephen Palmquist's "Kant's Theistic Solution" Deism in America In America, deists played a major role in creating the principle of separation of church and state, and the religious freedom clauses of the First Amendment of the Constitution. American deists include John Quincy Adams, Ethan Allen, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison. Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason, a treatise that helped to popularize deism throughout America and Europe. Elihu Palmer (1764-1806) wrote the "Bible" of American deism in this Principles of Nature (1823), and attempted to organize deism by forming the "Deistical Society of New York." Currently in the United States, there is an ongoing controversy as to whether or not America is a "Christian nation". This has spawned a subsidiary controversy over whether or not the Founding Fathers were Christians or deists or something in between. * * David L. Holmes's The Faiths of the Founding Fathers is a recent study of the subject. In particular, there is debate over the beliefs of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, for all of whom the evidence is mixed. The Waning of Deism Deism is generally considered to have died out as an influential school of thought by around 1800. It is probably more accurate, however, to say that deism evolved into, and contributed to, other religious movements. The term "deism" fell into disuse, but deist ideas and influences did not. They can be seen in 19th-century liberal British theology and in the rise of Unitarianism, which adopted many of its ideas. Even today, there are a significant number of Deist Web sites. Several factors contributed to a general decline in the popularity of deism, including: Deism Today The modern Deist movement attempts to integrate classical deism with modern philosophy as well as the current state of scientific knowledge. This attempt has produced a wide variety of personal beliefs under the broad classification/category of belief of "deism". Classical Deism held that a human's relationship with God was impersonal: God created the world by setting it into motion, but does not actively intervene in it by creating miracles, governing instead through Divine Providence. Modern Deism has expanded this classical view to state that humanity's relationship with God is transpersonal, and that any actions God might take to intervene are subtle and beyond human understanding. The Modern Deism web site includes one list of the unofficial tenets of modern deism. Some well known modern deists include Paul Davies and Antony Flew. Modern Deism on the Web In 1993 Robert L. Johnson established the first Deist organization since the days of Thomas Paine and Elihu Palmer with the World Union of Deists. The WUD offered the monthly hardcopy publication THINK!. Currently the WUD offers two online Deist publications, THINKonline! and Deistic Thought & Action!. As well as using the internet for spreading the Deist message, the WUD is also conducting a direct mail campaign. 1996 saw the first web site dedicated to Deism with the WUD site www.deism.com From this effort, many other Deist sites and discussion groups have appeared on the internet. Opinions about the nature of God Modern deists hold a wide range of views on the nature of God and on whether God intervenes in the world. Classical Deism has tended to define God as separate from his creation (only transcendent); however, Modern Deism does not define God in any appreciable way. This is because Reason is limited in its ability to fully comprehend and define God, which produces different views on what individuals believe the nature of God to be. Some Deists see design in nature and through this design they also see purpose in the universe and in their lives (Prime Designer). Others see God and the universe in a co-creative process (Prime Motivator). There are Deists who view God in classical terms and see God as viewing humanity but not directly intervening in our lives (Prime Observer). While others see God as a subtle and persuasive spirit (Prime Mover). Of course, there are many other views as well. It should be noted that some Deists do not believe that God intervenes because it makes no sense to think of God in such human terms. The overall view of Deism is to use Reason as the foundation and Experience and Nature as the basis of belief. As can be seen, some Deists are classical while others are not but each is respected and finds a home in the modern movement. Under the umbrella of Modern Deism, one can find many different sub-categories. Here are some examples: Monodeism, Pandeism, Process Deism, Panendeism, Polydeism, Christian Deism, Scientific Deism, Humanistic Deism and many more. No religions exist within the category of Deism as of yet and only time will tell if that is to occur. Deism remains the smallest of the categories and it is impossible to know if it will gain in popularity or stay a very small movement. Opinions about prayer Due to the belief "that God endowed the world at creation with self-sustaining and self-acting powers and then abandoned it to the operation of these powers acting as second causes," as Orr stated, Classical deists saw no need for prayer. In Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation he states that it is "gross to imagine" that mankind can persuade "infinite wisdom" to alter the "regular course" of the world which was set in in its path from the beginning. Today, not surprisingly, Modern deists have moved away from this strict view and hold a variety of opinions about prayer: See also Informational Links Works by Thomas Paine Deism Advocacy on the Web Bibliography Good anthologies of deist writings include: The most comprehensive study of English deism is: Important discussions of deism can be found in: Other studies of deism include: | |||||||
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