Deism

[Donaxtus]

Deism, as I elementally understand it, states something as follows. First, you cannot know God through divine revelation (primarily, scripture) although perhaps through nature and personal fantasy but not reason. Second, God exists but does not interfere in the mortal physical lives of humans; He is, so to say, benignly indifferent to our earthly lives, pray as you wish.

I reject the first but am troubled by the second. I do realize that Deism is a Catholic heresy and so I am on thin ice. The physical evidence seems to support the second element, doesn’t it? Most scriptural passages regarding petitioning God seem to refer to petitioning for ‘spiritual’ gifts and not mortal ones. As well, innumerable good persons pray in good faith for things not spurious or detrimental to their soul but don’t seem to see an answer. I cannot simply accept some of the more tedious answers to this question such as how your prayers have been answered but you just don’t know how so. Does or will God intervene, especially through prayer?

Donaxtus

 

[Ophelia23]

Deism, as I elementally understand it, states something as follows. First, you cannot know God through divine revelation (primarily, scripture) although perhaps through nature and personal fantasy but not reason. Second, God exists but does not interfere in the mortal physical lives of humans; He is, so to say, benignly indifferent to our earthly lives, pray as you wish.

I reject the first but am troubled by the second. I do realize that Deism is a Catholic heresy and so I am on thin ice. The physical evidence seems to support the second element, doesn’t it? Most scriptural passages regarding petitioning God seem to refer to petitioning for ‘spiritual’ gifts and not mortal ones. As well, innumerable good persons pray in good faith for things not spurious or detrimental to their soul but don’t seem to see an answer. I cannot simply accept some of the more tedious answers to this question such as how your prayers have been answered but you just don’t know how so. Does or will God intervene, especially through prayer?

Donaxtus

In short, yes.

 

[hazcompat]

Blessed Pope John Paul II
Crossing the Threshold of Hope

In prayer, then, the true protagonist is God. The protagonist is Christ, who constantly frees creation from slavery to corruption and leads it toward liberty, for the glory of the children of God. The protagonist is the Holy Spirit, who “comes to the aid of our weakness.” We begin to pray, believing that it is our own initiative that compels us to do so. Instead, we learn that it is always God’s initiative within us, just as Saint Paul has written. This initiative restores in us our true humanity; it restores in us our unique dignity. Yes, we are brought into the higher dignity of the children of God, the children of God who are the hope of all creation.

One can and must pray in many different ways, as the Bible teaches through a multitude of examples. The Book of Psalms is irreplaceable. We must pray with “inexpressible groanings” in order to enter into rhythm with the Spirit’s own entreaties. To obtain forgiveness one must implore, becoming part of the loud cries of Christ the Redeemer (cf. Heb 5:7). Through all of this one must proclaim glory. Prayer is always an opus gloriae (a work, a labor, of glory). Man is the priest of all creation. Christ conferred upon him this dignity and vocation. Creation completes its opus gloriae both by being what it is and by its duty to become what should be.

In a certain sense science and technology also contribute to this goal. But at the same time, since they are human works, they can lead away from this goal. In our civilization in particular there is such a risk, making it difficult for our civilization to be one of life and love. Missing is precisely the opus gloriae, which is the fundamental destiny of every creature, and above all of man, who was created in order to become, in Christ, the priest, prophet, and king of all earthly creatures.

Much has been written about prayer, and further, prayer has been widely experienced in the history of humankind, especially in the history of Israel and Christianity. Man achieves the fullness of prayer not when he expresses himself, but when he lets God be most fully present in prayer. The history of mystical prayer in the East and West attests to this: Saint Francis, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and, in the East, for example, Saint Serafim of Sarov and many others.

Peace

 

[DeusSalusNostra]

Deism, as I elementally understand it, states something as follows. First, you cannot know God through divine revelation (primarily, scripture) although perhaps through nature and personal fantasy but not reason. Second, God exists but does not interfere in the mortal physical lives of humans; He is, so to say, benignly indifferent to our earthly lives, pray as you wish.

I reject the first but am troubled by the second. I do realize that Deism is a Catholic heresy and so I am on thin ice. The physical evidence seems to support the second element, doesn’t it? Most scriptural passages regarding petitioning God seem to refer to petitioning for ‘spiritual’ gifts and not mortal ones. As well, innumerable good persons pray in good faith for things not spurious or detrimental to their soul but don’t seem to see an answer. I cannot simply accept some of the more tedious answers to this question such as how your prayers have been answered but you just don’t know how so. Does or will God intervene, especially through prayer?

Donaxtus

Yes, it seems you have summed it up pretty well.

I see Deism as a bit daft to be honest; all deists need is loyal, true and orthodox Catechesis technically speaking

 

[fredystairs]

Deism, as I elementally understand it, states something as follows. First, you cannot know God through divine revelation (primarily, scripture) although perhaps through nature and personal fantasy but not reason. Second, God exists but does not interfere in the mortal physical lives of humans; He is, so to say, benignly indifferent to our earthly lives, pray as you wish.

I reject the first but am troubled by the second. I do realize that Deism is a Catholic heresy and so I am on thin ice. The physical evidence seems to support the second element, doesn’t it? Most scriptural passages regarding petitioning God seem to refer to petitioning for ‘spiritual’ gifts and not mortal ones. As well, innumerable good persons pray in good faith for things not spurious or detrimental to their soul but don’t seem to see an answer. I cannot simply accept some of the more tedious answers to this question such as how your prayers have been answered but you just don’t know how so. Does or will God intervene, especially through prayer?

Donaxtus

You have got it right. Deism says that God started the universe somewhat like a clockmaker winds up a clock and then just sits back and watches it run. He does not interfere with creation.

Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. He made up a Bible that took out all of the miracles, etc. recorded in it. His thought, being a Deist, was that the miracles, which would have required that God intervene in the world, would not have been possible and were then the figment of someone’s imagination or something.

If I understand your use of the word “mortal” to mean our physical well being, then I think that God is interested in our material well being. I think that the Wedding Feast at Cana as recorded in the Gospels shows this. The wedding couple was out of wine, which would have been an embarrassment to them, and through the intercession of Mary, Jesus gave them the wine needed to avoid that embarrassment. The petition for our physical needs is also contained in the “Our Father” where it petitions “give us this day our daily bread” which is physical and which I think can mean any physical thing that we need.

This is not to say that we will get everything that we ask for. Our main goal in life is, or should be, to get to heaven. If some physical thing will detract from that goal, then God will not give it to us because it is not in our best spiritual interest.

I believe that when we get to heaven, God will let us know why we got the things that we did and why we didn’t get the things that we didn’t. Until then, we should trust to His will.

Peace

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Deism, as I elementally understand it, states something as follows. First, you cannot know God through divine revelation (primarily, scripture) although perhaps through nature and personal fantasy but not reason. Second, God exists but does not interfere in the mortal physical lives of humans; He is, so to say, benignly indifferent to our earthly lives, pray as you wish.

I reject the first but am troubled by the second. I do realize that Deism is a Catholic heresy and so I am on thin ice. The physical evidence seems to support the second element, doesn’t it? Most scriptural passages regarding petitioning God seem to refer to petitioning for ‘spiritual’ gifts and not mortal ones. As well, innumerable good persons pray in good faith for things not spurious or detrimental to their soul but don’t seem to see an answer. I cannot simply accept some of the more tedious answers to this question such as how your prayers have been answered but you just don’t know how so. Does or will God intervene, especially through prayer?

Donaxtus

Hi, welcome to the forums.

Yes, He will. There have been many miracles and apparitions, and countless more instances that are not obviously miraculous but easily could have been.

I suggest looking at it like this: God created the world to function pretty much how He wants it to, as far as physical laws are concerned. He can and does set these aside occasionally - sometimes to alleviate Earthly suffering and always to make a point and lead people closer to the truth - but given that He made the world as He did because He willed to, we shouldn’t expect that He would waive the rules as a matter of course.

But this is different from the absent watch-maker in a couple ways: First, when we manage to get grit in the gears He will intervene, and He does set aside His rules when He deems it appropriate - He just doesn’t set them aside all the time.

Second, a miracle (as in a direct action by God to bring something about) doesn’t actually have to break the rules - and arguably everything other than our choices (including our ability to make choices) is miraculous. But anyway: The entirety of the history of everything is known to God and under His control - He could easily arrange it from the beginning of time that it would snow on a certain in response to a desperate student’s prayer (that He knows from before creation will happen) that a test get delayed. Which is not to say that He often does this sort of thing, or that when this sort of thing happens that it’s because God was answering such a prayer, only to point out that all of creation is subject to God, and when He answers prayers in obviously miraculous ways it may be just as much because He wants the ways to be seen to be miraculous and not just that He wants the prayer to be answered.

So even “non-interference” with the laws of nature isn’t being absent, and isn’t even really non-interference, since the laws of nature exist at His pleasure and are made to accomplish His desires.

Third, if God didn’t really care about us, we’d cease to exist or not have been created at all. The sort of creation and maintaining in existence that God does shows pretty clearly that he is not just a somewhat benign but mostly absent observer.

And fourth, the tedious answers (and I don’t really like them either) actually do have merit to them. God’s ways are not our ways, and from God’s perspective what seems like ages to us is like the life of a mayfly. God acts for what is best for us, not what will immediately gratify us, so the fact that a prayer does not appear to have been answered in no way actually means that God has ignored it or doesn’t care.

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Deism is basically a skeptics response to Scripture and Revelation. A Deist can only believe what he can empirically prove through nature. There is no proof that there is a loving, intervening God; witness the sufferings and human tragedies all around us. However Nature is proof that there is a creator.

This shaky sort of Faith will be blasted away by modern science which even pontificates that nature itself was self creating, only following natural laws. Where does this natural law come from? from nature! So Nature is self creating and created at the same time according to science. The mission of science is to prove that there is no need for a God in nature.

Therefore modern Deism is a total oxymoron. They claim to be scientific while rejecting scientific evidence.

Deism was exploded as an ideology/theology back in the 18th century at the very capable hands of Anglican Bishop Butler in his book THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION. Which uses the concept of probability along with the analogies that can be drawn between the natural order and religion. Only the mentally lazy (IMHO) are Deists today. Those who have no time to dig deeper than nice sounding propositions that comport with their feelings. Comments like " I cannot simply accept some of the more tedious answers to this question" are typical of the modern Deist mentality.

 

[Goya]

Blessed Pope John Paul II
Crossing the Threshold of Hope

In prayer, then, the true protagonist is God. The protagonist is Christ, who constantly frees creation from slavery to corruption and leads it toward liberty, for the glory of the children of God. The protagonist is the Holy Spirit, who “comes to the aid of our weakness.” We begin to pray, believing that it is our own initiative that compels us to do so. Instead, we learn that it is always God’s initiative within us, just as Saint Paul has written. This initiative restores in us our true humanity; it restores in us our unique dignity. Yes, we are brought into the higher dignity of the children of God, the children of God who are the hope of all creation.

One can and must pray in many different ways, as the Bible teaches through a multitude of examples. The Book of Psalms is irreplaceable. We must pray with “inexpressible groanings” in order to enter into rhythm with the Spirit’s own entreaties. To obtain forgiveness one must implore, becoming part of the loud cries of Christ the Redeemer (cf. Heb 5:7). Through all of this one must proclaim glory. Prayer is always an opus gloriae (a work, a labor, of glory). Man is the priest of all creation. Christ conferred upon him this dignity and vocation. Creation completes its opus gloriae both by being what it is and by its duty to become what should be.

In a certain sense science and technology also contribute to this goal. But at the same time, since they are human works, they can lead away from this goal. In our civilization in particular there is such a risk, making it difficult for our civilization to be one of life and love. Missing is precisely the opus gloriae, which is the fundamental destiny of every creature, and above all of man, who was created in order to become, in Christ, the priest, prophet, and king of all earthly creatures.

Much has been written about prayer, and further, prayer has been widely experienced in the history of humankind, especially in the history of Israel and Christianity. Man achieves the fullness of prayer not when he expresses himself, but when he lets God be most fully present in prayer. The history of mystical prayer in the East and West attests to this: Saint Francis, Saint Teresa of Avila, Saint John of the Cross, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and, in the East, for example, Saint Serafim of Sarov and many others.

Peace

Awesome excerpt!

I loved this book! I’ve had multiple [hard] copies of this book, which I have given away (most recently, just this Easter weekend!).

For anyone who’s interested, here is a link to it, online:

2heartsnetwork.org/Crossing.the.Threshold.ofHope-PopeJPII.pdf

 

[AmbroseSJ]

Donaxtus:

Your brief explanation of Deism was very well put. You don’t like the word ‘tedious’ I can see but tedious comments are the ones that one hears from people who don’t want to or cannot explore the subject or answer the question so they pull the easy old answer out and move on. In their case I would prefer a simple ‘I don’t know’ or, the one legitimately evasive one that ‘It is a mystery’, which often is the only honest answer. Thanks again.
Donaxtus

I’m sorry I was rather rude. I misunderstood your comment and ran with it. I DO get impatient with Deists though, as you can tell. I reread this thread, and realized you were just asking an innocent question. I hope some of the others were able to give you helpful answers.