Who were the Deists? Why Deism?

[Charlemagne_II]

“…deism not only distinguishes the world and God as effect and cause; it emphasizes the transcendence of the Deity at the sacrifice of His indwelling and His providence. He is apart from the creation which He brought into being, and unconcerned as to the details of its working. Having made Nature, He allows it to run its own course without interference on His part. In this point the doctrine of deism differs clearly from that of theism.” Catholic Encyclopedia, 1914 edition

Apparently this movement appeared in the 16th century with the rise of science. It was a rebellion against the Judaeo-Christian God but not an adoption of atheism. Dr. Johnson opined that a deist was “a man who follows no particular religion but only acknowledges the existence of God, without any other article of faith.” Voltaire is famous for attacking both Christianity and Atheism, so it must be that he fell into the category of Deist. Others who spoke of God, but not of a personal god, came to be called Deists … such as Spinoza and later Einstein, who, like Spinoa, repudiated traditional religion and atheism.

What I don’t understand is why the Deists even exist. Why did the Deists subscribe to the idea of God, even use the name of God, as both Spinoza and Einstein did, but deny that God has any personal interest in the affairs of men? Deism contains a peculiar and barren theology for which I am not aware of any parallel anytime in human history.

 

[SedesDomi]

What I don’t understand is why the Deists even exist. Why did the Deists subscribe to the idea of God, even use the name of God, as both Spinoza and Einstein did, but deny that God has any personal interest in the affairs of men?

God does have a personal interest in the affairs of men, according to deists. What deists deny is that God would violate the laws of nature, laws that He Himself created. Why would God violate what He created? Makes no sense.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

God does have a personal interest in the affairs of men, according to deists.

I’m not aware of any Deist who has said this, though there have been several varieties of deism. Can you please name a deist who believed in a personal God?

 

[SedesDomi]

God does have a personal interest in the affairs of men, according to deists.

I’m not aware of any Deist who has said this, though there have been several varieties of deism. Can you please name a deist who believed in a personal God?

A personal God is a God who can be experienced to be a person, an individual of some sort. Deism simply says that God (whoever God might be) does not interfere with His Creation by violating the laws of physics.

Thomas Paine believed that God cares for men. He was even open to the idea of God revealing Himself to men, but Paine also believed that whatever revelation God reveals to a person, is a revelation meant only for that person, and no one else.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

I know Paine was not an atheist (though atheist websites love to tout him as one of their own).

Do you happen to have a quote or know of a website where I can find Paine’s views on God well developed? If not, thanks for your heads up anyway.

 

[SedesDomi]

I know Paine was not an atheist (though atheist websites love to tout him as one of their own).

Do you happen to have a quote or know of a website where I can find Paine’s views on God well developed? If not, thanks for your heads up anyway.

The Age of Reason is his classic text.

 

[Contarini]

“…deism not only distinguishes the world and God as effect and cause; it emphasizes the transcendence of the Deity at the sacrifice of His indwelling and His providence. He is apart from the creation which He brought into being, and unconcerned as to the details of its working. Having made Nature, He allows it to run its own course without interference on His part. In this point the doctrine of deism differs clearly from that of theism.” Catholic Encyclopedia, 1914 edition

Apparently this movement appeared in the 16th century with the rise of science. It was a rebellion against the Judaeo-Christian God but not an adoption of atheism. Dr. Johnson opined that a deist was “a man who follows no particular religion but only acknowledges the existence of God, without any other article of faith.” Voltaire is famous for attacking both Christianity and Atheism, so it must be that he fell into the category of Deist. Others who spoke of God, but not of a personal god, came to be called Deists … such as Spinoza and later Einstein, who, like Spinoa, repudiated traditional religion and atheism.

What I don’t understand is why the Deists even exist. Why did the Deists subscribe to the idea of God, even use the name of God, as both Spinoza and Einstein did, but deny that God has any personal interest in the affairs of men? Deism contains a peculiar and barren theology for which I am not aware of any parallel anytime in human history.

Actually a number of ancient philosophers could be called Deists–Aristotle most obviously, though Aristotle (unlike the Enlightenment Deists) denied that God created the world.

It seems to me that based on reason alone Deism is a fairly plausible position. It makes sense that there is some kind of ultimate Being, but the existence of evil and the mutual contradiction and internal problems of all religious systems claiming divine intervention make it much less plausible that this ultimate Being cares about and directly interferes in human affairs. Deism is rather cold, though–it doesn’t satisfy the whole person. And it doesn’t do justice to the mystery and wildness of the universe–at least the Enlightenment versions certainly don’t.

Edwin

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Edwin

Yes, that is my own reaction to Deism. It is cold. Why bother to create the universe, endow it with laws, and then take off? This God seems to have been created by people who may have the feeling themselves … of not being cared for and loved? Yet they recognize some kind of Absolute to which they feel obliged, at the very least, to tip their hat.

 

[SedesDomi]

Edwin

Yes, that is my own reaction to Deism. It is cold. Why bother to create the universe, endow it with laws, and then take off? This God seems to have been created by people who may have the feeling themselves … of not being cared for and loved? Yet they recognize some kind of Absolute to which they feel obliged, at the very least, to tip their hat.

Paine would say that God has taken very good care of us. Is it necessary for God to violate His own laws in order to demonstrate care and concern? From Paine’s Reason, chp. 9:It is only in the CREATION that all our ideas and conceptions of a word of God can unite. The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they be. It is an ever existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God.

Do we want to contemplate his power? We see it in the immensity of the creation. Do we want to contemplate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order by which the incomprehensible Whole is governed. Do we want to contemplate his munificence? We see it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his not withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not the book called the scripture, which any human hand might make, but the scripture called the Creation.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Paine would say that God has taken very good care of us. Is it necessary for God to violate His own laws in order to demonstrate care and concern? From Paine’s Reason, chp. 9:

I don’t see, based on that passage, how it can be said that God takes very good care of us any more than he cares for any other animal. To rest satisfied with that passage of balderdash is to be a pantheist and nothing more.

The typical charge brought against all the Deists is that they do not believe in a personal God. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but it would be true if we took the passage you cite and that passage alone from Paine.

In the first Chapter of The Age of Reason Paine says this:

*I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.*

This is strange to me. First we have your passage, that says nothing about a personal relationship with God; then we have my passage which disavows recognition of any creed; then we have Paine hoping for happiness beyond this life.

How do you hope for happiness beyond this life when your Church is in your own mind and you say nothing about any personal relationship with God with a loving God?

Slightly solipsist?

 

[SedesDomi]

Paine would say that God has taken very good care of us. Is it necessary for God to violate His own laws in order to demonstrate care and concern? From Paine’s Reason, chp. 9:

I don’t see, based on that passage, how it can be said that God takes very good care of us any more than he cares for any other animal. To rest satisfied with that passage of balderdash is to be a pantheist and nothing more.

The typical charge brought against all the Deists is that they do not believe in a personal God. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but it would be true if we took the passage you cite and that passage alone from Paine.

In the first Chapter of The Age of Reason Paine says this:

*I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.

I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.

But, lest it should be supposed that I believe in many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.*

This is strange to me. First we have your passage, that says nothing about a personal relationship with God; then we have my passage which disavows recognition of any creed; then we have Paine hoping for happiness beyond this life.

How do you hope for happiness beyond this life when your Church is in your own mind and you say nothing about any personal relationship with God with a loving God?

Slightly solipsist?

A personal relationship to God? What does that mean, precisely, in terms of what you do in that relationship? Does it mean prayer? Meditation? Talking to God verbally?

For Paine, meditating on nature – especially in the form of Science – is meditating on God’s Word, and thus entering into a personal relationship with God:
The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of science in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to imitation. It is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe that we call ours, “I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, AND LEARN FROM MY MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO EACH OTHER.”
But Paine doesn’t deny that God could directly reveal Himself to someone, but if God does so, such revelation would be only meant for that person, because only that person experienced it. God would not demand others to believe in something they did not themselves experience:
No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

The Almighty lecturer, by displaying the principles of science in the structure of the universe, has invited man to study and to imitation. It is as if he had said to the inhabitants of this globe that we call ours, “I have made an earth for man to dwell upon, and I have rendered the starry heavens visible, to teach him science and the arts. He can now provide for his own comfort, AND LEARN FROM MY MUNIFICENCE TO ALL, TO BE KIND TO EACH OTHER.”

To be kind to each other? That’s it? Don’t turn to me for strength or consolation or gratitude or love. Paine sounds like a lazy ingrate to me. He cannot want a personal relationship with God, and will not stretch himself to find one, or he would surely find one and would not believe that only certain people are entitled to such relationships and that they are not able or allowed to share them with others.

No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication if he pleases. But admitting, for the sake of a case, that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and, consequently, they are not obliged to believe it.

Then why is Paine’s God so stingy with His revelations if they go to certain persons and cannot be shared?

Are we supposed to believe that God in his munificence revealed *relativity *to Einstein and Einstein alone, not to be shared with the rest of humanity? I don’t think Paine would take that position. But when it comes to God revealing things about Himself, that’s altogether different?

“To be kind to each other.” That’s it? And we have only Paine’s word for it (presumably revealed to him by God) that this is all God requires? I got that same revelation from God, only I got it through the Church. And if I didn’t get it from the Church, I wonder if I would ever have gotten it.

For a man so enamored of Reason, I don’t find Paine all that reasonable.

 

[Squishy]

I think the idea of Deism is far more logical than traditional teachings of the catholic church with regards to god. The idea that out their is some supernatural being. An engineer perhaps who creates the universe, and lets it flourish. Then goes about doing what ever else it is supreme beings do. Probebly going bowling.

This seems to me much more likley [edited] Well except mabey the bowling part.

 

[SedesDomi]

“To be kind to each other.” That’s it?

That, and to love God, which for Paine, is loving God’s creatures. Yep, that’s about it.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

That, and to love God, which for Paine, is loving God’s creatures. Yep, that’s about it

But that would be to suppose a personal relationship, and Paine says nothing about loving God. Unless you can show me the passage. I may have missed it?:ehh:

 

[severntofall]

God does have a personal interest in the affairs of men, according to deists.

I’m not aware of any Deist who has said this, though there have been several varieties of deism. Can you please name a deist who believed in a personal God?

Almost certainly a deistic god would have an interest in that which it created, otherwise why create? A deistic god may realistically lack the ability to provide the level of oversight and intervention that theists assume their god(s) possess.

 

[Contarini]

Edwin

Yes, that is my own reaction to Deism. It is cold. Why bother to create the universe, endow it with laws, and then take off? This God seems to have been created by people who may have the feeling themselves … of not being cared for and loved?

I think it’s dangerous to speculate about the psychology of other people based on their ideas. And it’s not really helpful.

In the Deist understanding God doesn’t “take off.” God is the kind of Being who works by laws and rationality. A Deist might retort: “why bother making a universe that was so flawed that you had to keep intervening all the time.” Both your statement and this retort (which is more or less what Deists have said about miracles) are caricatures of the opposing point of view.

In Aristotle’s view, God doesn’t even create. God just eternally knows Himself (or perhaps Itself?).

I think the problem I’m having with your posts is that you presuppose a very anthropomorphic view of God. To me the attraction of Deism (broadly defined) is that it recognizes that if God exists He is hardly likely to be very much like us. In the end I think that Thomism and other major Christian philosophical traditions do justice to this while also insisting that God is in some sense personal. But it seems to me that most modern popular Christian language about God as “personal” (and much philosophy of religion, at least that emanating from evangelical Protestants) does not do justice to the “trans-personality” of God.

Edwin

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*Almost certainly a deistic god would have an interest in that which it created, otherwise why create? *

Very good.

A deistic god may realistically lack the ability to provide the level of oversight and intervention that theists assume their god(s) possess.

Aside from the difficulty of bridging the gap between the finite and the Infinite, why would a God powerful enough to create the universe and put us into it be unable to develop a personal relationship with us?

Christianity says he has bridged that gap in the person of Jesus Christ.

Leaving all the other religions aside for the sake of argument, why would deists take offense at, or be unable to believe, the way Christ bridged the gap?

 

[Contarini]

*Almost certainly a deistic god would have an interest in that which it created, otherwise why create? *

Very good.

A deistic god may realistically lack the ability to provide the level of oversight and intervention that theists assume their god(s) possess.

Aside from the difficulty of bridging the gap between the finite and the Infinite, why would a God powerful enough to create the universe and put us into it be unable to develop a personal relationship with us?

Christianity says he has bridged that gap in the person of Jesus Christ.

Leaving all the other religions aside for the sake of argument, why would deists take offense at, or be unable to believe, the way Christ bridged the gap?

Because the 18th-century Deists worked with the assumption that a God “powerful enough to create the universe” would do everything on a universal level. They would ask: “why would such a God reveal Himself in one particular person only, or to one particular group?” Generally they argued that nature was enough–why would you ask or God need to provide any other revelation or any other basis for knowing and loving God?

My own religious intuitions go very much in the other direction, which is why I find Deism “cold,” I think. But then, I’m a local-food eater too when I can manage it, which some folks on here no doubt find silly!

Edwin

 

[severntofall]

A deistic god may realistically lack the ability to provide the level of oversight and intervention that theists assume their god(s) possess.

Aside from the difficulty of bridging the gap between the finite and the Infinite, why would a God powerful enough to create the universe and put us into it be unable to develop a personal relationship with us?

Why would it feel it necessary to develop a personal relationship all each of the tens of billions of humans who have called this planet home (not to mention the possible trillions of sentient beings that may have existed on other planets)? Even if he could (something one assumes on no evidence) why would he want to?

Christianity says he has bridged that gap in the person of Jesus Christ.
Leaving all the other religions aside for the sake of argument, why would deists take offense at, or be unable to believe, the way Christ bridged the gap?

As a borderline deist myself I take no offense, I just do believe it to be the case. I’m not saying its not something a god could do, I just don’t see any evidence that it in fact did.