Difference between revisions of "Deism" - New World Encyclopedia

Revision as of 02:25, 25 April 2006

The definition of the term "deism" is two-fold. Firstly, in the context of religious classification, it refers to a theological philosophy which conceives of God as a detached creator who designed the universe and the laws which govern it, but has little impact upon the day to day workings of the world. In the second sense, historical and modern deism refers to a religious movement which peaked during the eighteenth century. These individuals are of the belief that reason, rather than revelation or tradition, should be the basis of religion. The Deists do not necessarily accept the maxims of deism in the philosophical sense mentioned above, and this movement would now most likely be classified as adhering to a worldview more congruent with theism.

Deism as a Religious Classification

Deism Through History

Beginnings

Thinking which could be described as Deistic has existed since antiquity, and can be identified in the works of pre-Socratic philosophers such as Heraclitus. However, the foundations of Deist thought as it is known today were laid by Lord Herbert of Cherbury in his book de veritae, prout distinguir a Revelatione, Veristimilit, Probabili, et a False. This work distinguishes principles of primary character independent of all tradition, whether written or oral. These five primary truths are 1) that God exists, 2) it is the duty of humans to worship him, 3) virtuous practice involves doing him honour, 4) man is under obligation to repent his sins, and 5) that there will be rewards and punishments after death based on earthly deeds. Further, Lord Herbert asserted that human reason was sufficient for purposes of attaining certainty with regard to fundamental religious truths. He also insisted that religion should be deeply involved in practical duties. Deistic writers that that followed Lord Herbert enlarged these themes, particularly the postulation that natural reason should be the establishment for religion.

The independent works of other seventeenth century figures also had a hand in affecting the rise of Deism. Although Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was generally opposed to the concept of natural religion, he pioneered the movement for religious speculation which had been altogether absent within Christianity before his arrival. Therein, he removed one of the primary obstacles standing in the way of Deism, the intransigence of ecclesiastical authority. Furthermore, the Cambridge Platonists, reacting to the increase influece of anti-rationalist dogmatism among the Puritan divines and the narrowly materialist writings of Hobbes, put forward what they conceived to be a set of rational grounds for Christianity. Eschewing these philosophical pressures, they used Platonism to construe human reason as the paramount receptacle for Divine revelation.

Similar to Hobbes, John Locke (1632-1704) had an unintentional effect on Deistic thought. In his work Reasonableness of Christianity, he delineates the progression of Christian doctrine through history. In doing so he provides some discrimination between the valuable and worthless elements of the Creed, showing particular skepticism toward elements of the biblical texts which involve miracles and revelation; further, he conceived the Christian religion to be a powerful moral philosophy rather than means to invigorate the human will with spirit. Although each of these ideas had been formulated prior to Locke's publication, this was the first instance where they were combined systematically. Locke arrives at the conclusion that religion in form that it currently existed should be modified extensively. Hence, the foundations for the Deist movement had been laid.

Popularity in England

The height of Deist popularity occurred in Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The first explicitly Deistic work was John Toland's Christianity Not Mysterious, which was published in 1696 and drew upon some of Locke's postulations, stressing a process where Truth was inferred from nature rather than revelations directly from the divine. Anything a reader of the scriptures could not comprehend through common sense was to be considered false, in Toland's view. The "mystery" of Christianity, in Toland's understanding, was not to be something incomprehensible, but instead more like a secret which is revealed to the initiated. Toland meticulously perused the Gospels and clarified every part of them which seemed contrary to reason. From here he refigured the events of the Gospels into terms which allowed them to be reconciled with rational thought. Reason, Toland asserted, was to be of primary importance not only in everyday life, but in all matters religious, as well. Furthermore, Toland undermined the credibility of early Christian literature as a whole, suggesting that they were, for the most part, works of superstition.

Shortly after in 1713, Anthony Collins published Discourse of Freethinking occassioned by the Rise and Growth of a sect Called Freethinkers. Collins' work went beyond Toland's in attempting to justify the claim that rational inquiry made for virtually limitless freedom for human beings when compared to moral and religious ruminations. Collins ascertained that the Deistic argument rested upon a decision to place a focus on individual liberty in the pursuit of moral investigation, as well as a focus on the individual capacity to discover moral truth. Collins argued that all the great moral pedagouges such as the prophets, Paul, and Jesus Himself taught their disciples by appealing to reason, rather than fear. In contrast, the Church and the State had cultivated fear through superstitious beliefs in order to inspire humans to behave morally, and in the process had created what Toland viewed to be moral corruption. His prescription for religious reform was to excise such fear-inducing superstitions from religious teaching, and to concentrate of the development of morality through rationality in each individual. Moreover, in a later work, Discourse of the Grounds and Reason of Christian Religion, Collins turned the focus to the consideration of whether or not prophecy and miracle are credible phenomena. Specifically, this debate centered around the notion that the correspondence of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament events were adquate proof of Christianity's truth, an idea which had been widely accepted up until that time. Collins challenged this notion, as he questioned the authenticity and accuracy of events such as those in the Gospel which were supposedly dictated by New Testament writers such as the Apostles. If the miracles reported by these authors were to remain in religious discourse, Collins suggested they be reinterpreted as allegory or metaphor to propound the more reasonable contributions of Christ and other religious figures. Collins perpetuated suspicions toward the veracity of biblical documents, and provided further momentum for biblical criticism.

In 1730 Matthew Tindal published Christianity as Old as the Creator, a book which marked what was the culmination of all Deist thought. Tindal further shaped the Deist arguments developed by the thinkers who preceded him, though he managed to synthesize the various strands together and present them in more intelligible langauge than his predecessors had. He further repudiated the mysterious aspects of religion and promoted a general distrust toward religious authority. The ultimate value of religion, he contended, was to aid humans in fashioning their own personal beliefs and to cultivate their moral nature, rather than encouraging them to depend on revelation. He held that in the context of their moral faculties, all humans were equal in the eyes of God at all times. Further, through the gift of reason, humans held the ability to comprehend the consequences of their actions without the continual assistance of God. For Tindal, human duties are evident through the the reason behind things and their relationships with one another. It is upon these natural foundations that religions is constructed. Religion, in Tindal's view, was quite simply a law of nature adapted to accomodate the given circumstances of humankind; that is, religion was seen as what naturally arises from considerations of god. It was in such natural relations and very little else that religious edifices were to be constructed. Tindal held that no command communicated by revelation could be superior to the natural workings of nature, because no command was to be seen as obligatory unless the reasonableness of it was blatantly evident. Corollary with this point, placing anything in religion which is not demonstrable by reason Tindal considered to be an insult to the faculties of human beings and ultimately the honour of God.

Popularity in America

Deism was championed by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington are among the most well-known of the American founding deists. Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason, a treatise that popularized deism throughout America and Europe. Paine wrote that deism represented the application of reason to religion, finally settling problems that formerly were thought to be permanently controversial. Deists hoped to also settle religious questions permanently and scientifically by reason alone, without revelation. The first six and four later presidents of the United States had strong deistic or allied beliefs.

Thomas Jefferson, Edgehill Portrait of 1805 by Gilbert Stuart. National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC.

Decline in popularity

Several factors contributed to a general decline in the popularity of deism, including:

the writings of David Hume (and later, Charles Darwin) increased doubt about the first cause argument and the argument from design
several Christian Great Awakenings in the USA, especially those that taught a more personal relationship with a deity, and that prayer could alter events
loss of confidence that reason and rationalism could solve all problems
criticisms of excesses of the French Revolution
criticisms that deism was not significantly distinct from pantheism, and then that pantheism was not significantly different from atheism
criticisms that freethought would lead inevitably to atheism
frustration with the determinism implicit in "This is the best of all possible worlds."
rise of Unitarianism, which adopted many of its ideas
it remained a personal philosophy and never became an organized movement
an anti-deist and anti-reason campaign by some Christian clergymen to vilify and equate deism with atheism in public opinion

It was not until the modern era, during the European Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, with their respective emphases on rigorous skepticism, deductive logic, and empiricism (experience/induction), that deism came into its own as a subject of philosophical discourse, particularly in France (Descartes, the Philosophes), Germany (Kant†, Leibniz), Great Britain (Hobbes, Hume‡), and the United States (Paine, Franklin).

Deism developed from the expanding influence of scientism in Europe and European colonial intellectual life. Newtonian physics, the intellectual basis and the aesthetic model for Enlightenment scientism, spread the idea that matter behaves in a mathematically predictable manner that can be understood by postulating laws of nature. Objectivity, natural equality, the prescription to treat like cases similarly are central principles of the Enlightenment mentality, ideas borrowed from Newton's observational/experimental method and put to use in all domains the Enlightenment mind scrutinized; these principles informed the development of the philosophy of deism. Exasperation with the costs of centuries of European religious warfare was a powerful recommendation for the new, objective frame for spiritual matters, a perspective the most notable minds of the time found appealing.

Current status

Newtonian physics, when linearized and simplified, is considered deterministic, and so deism based on that, for many, left little room for hope. Of some relevance in response to this are newer theories in physics, most notably quantum mechanics, which has both a non-deterministic interpretation (the Copenhagen interpretation), and deterministic interpretations (the transactional interpretation and many-worlds interpretation). Some modern revivals of deism resemble pantheism and panentheism. However, some Unitarian Universalists are bringing deism back in order to counter Fundamentalism.

Contributions of Deism

External links

External informational links

DEISTPEDIA: The Deist Encyclopedia
DEISM: The Union of Reason and Spirituality
Deism and Reason
Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion by Thomas Paine
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
Definition of deism from The Dictionary of the History of Ideas at the University of Virginia
English Deism - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
French Deism - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
On some links between Deism and Freemasonry - Warning: agenda driven article, but it does make some connections
religious tolerance.org article on Deism

External organization links

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Joyce, Gilbert Cunningham. “Deism” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. James Hastings, ed. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1910. 334-345.

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 The definition of the term "deism" is two-fold.  Firstly, in the context of religious classification, it refers to a theological philosophy which conceives of God as a detached creator who designed the universe and the laws which govern it, but has little impact upon the day to day workings of the world.  In the second sense, historical and modern '''deism''' refers to a religious movement which peaked during the eighteenth century.  These individuals are of the belief that [[reason]], rather than [[revelation]] or [[tradition]], should be the basis of religion. The Deists do not necessarily accept the maxims of deism in the philosophical sense mentioned above, and this movement would now most likely be classified as adhering to a worldview more congruent with [[theism]].
-==Beginnings==
+==Deism as a Religious Classification==
+==Deism Through History==
+===Beginnings===
 Thinking which could be described as Deistic has existed since antiquity, and can be identified in the works of [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-Socratic philosophers]] such as [[Heraclitus]]. However, the foundations of Deist thought as it is known today were laid by Lord Herbert of Cherbury in his book ''de veritae, prout distinguir a Revelatione, Veristimilit, Probabili, et a False''.  This work distinguishes principles of primary character independent of all tradition, whether written or oral.  These five primary truths are 1) that God exists, 2) it is the duty of humans to worship him, 3) virtuous practice involves doing him honour, 4) man is under obligation to repent his sins, and 5) that there will be rewards and punishments after death based on earthly deeds.  Further, Lord Herbert asserted that human reason was sufficient for purposes of attaining certainty with regard to fundamental religious truths.  He also insisted that religion should be deeply involved in practical duties.  Deistic writers that that followed Lord Herbert enlarged these themes, particularly the postulation that natural reason should be the establishment for religion.
 The independent works of other seventeenth century figures also had a hand in affecting the rise of Deism. Although [[Thomas Hobbes]] (1588-1679) was generally opposed to the concept of natural religion, he pioneered the movement for religious speculation which had been altogether absent within Christianity before his arrival.  Therein, he removed one of the primary obstacles standing in the way of Deism, the intransigence of ecclesiastical authority.  Furthermore, the Cambridge Platonists, reacting to the increase influece of anti-rationalist dogmatism among the Puritan divines and the narrowly materialist writings of Hobbes, put forward what they conceived to be a set of rational grounds for Christianity.  Eschewing these philosophical pressures, they used Platonism to construe human reason as the paramount receptacle for Divine revelation.
-Similar to [[Hobbes|Thomas Hobbes]], [[John Locke]] (1632-1704) had an unintentional effect on Deistic thought.  In his work ''Reasonableness of Christianity'', he delineates the progression of Christian doctrine through history.  In doing so he provides some discrimination between the valuable and worthless elements of the Creed, showing particular skepticism toward elements of the biblical texts which involve miracles and revelation; further, he conceived the Christian religion to be a powerful moral philosophy rather than means to invigorate the human will with spirit.  Although each of these ideas had been formulated prior to Locke's publication, this was the first instance where they were combined systematically. Locke arrives at the conclusion that religion in form that it currently existed should be modified extensively.  Hence, the foundations for the Deist movement had been laid.
+Similar to [[Thomas Hobbes|Hobbes]], [[John Locke]] (1632-1704) had an unintentional effect on Deistic thought.  In his work ''Reasonableness of Christianity'', he delineates the progression of Christian doctrine through history.  In doing so he provides some discrimination between the valuable and worthless elements of the Creed, showing particular skepticism toward elements of the biblical texts which involve miracles and revelation; further, he conceived the Christian religion to be a powerful moral philosophy rather than means to invigorate the human will with spirit.  Although each of these ideas had been formulated prior to Locke's publication, this was the first instance where they were combined systematically. Locke arrives at the conclusion that religion in form that it currently existed should be modified extensively.  Hence, the foundations for the Deist movement had been laid.
-==18th century popularity==
+===Popularity in England===
-===Deism in England===
 The height of Deist popularity occurred in Britain during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  The first explicitly Deistic work was John Toland's ''Christianity Not Mysterious'', which was published in 1696 and drew upon some of Locke's postulations, stressing a process where Truth was inferred from nature rather than revelations directly from the divine.  Anything a reader of the scriptures could not comprehend through common sense was to be considered false, in Toland's view.  The "mystery" of Christianity, in Toland's understanding, was not to be something incomprehensible, but instead more like a secret which is revealed to the initiated. Toland meticulously perused the Gospels and clarified every part of them which seemed contrary to reason.  From here he refigured the events of the Gospels into terms which allowed them to be reconciled with rational thought.  Reason, Toland asserted, was to be of primary importance not only in everyday life, but in all matters religious, as well. Furthermore, Toland undermined the credibility of early Christian literature as a whole, suggesting that they were, for the most part, works of superstition.
-Shortly after in 1713, Anthony Collins published ''Discourse of Freethinking occassioned by the Rise and Growth of a sect Called Freethinkers''.  Collins' work went beyond Toland's in attempting to justify the claim that rational inquiry made for virtually limitless freedom for human beings when compared to moral and religious ruminations.  Collins ascertained that the Deistic argument rested upon a decision to place a focus on individual liberty in the pursuit of moral investigation, as well as a focus on the individual capacity to discover moral truth.  Collins argued that all the great moral pedagouges such as the prophets, Paul, and Jesus Himself taught their disciples by appealing to reason, rather than fear.  In contrast, the Church and the State had cultivated fear through superstitious beliefs in order to inspire humans to behave morally, and in the process had created what Toland viewed to be moral corruption. His prescription for religious reform was to excise such fear-inducing superstitions from religious teaching, and to concentrate of the development of morality through rationality in each individual.  Moreover, in a later work, ''Discourse of the Grounds and Reason of Christian Religion'', Collins turned the focus to the consideration of whether or not prophecy and miracle are credible phenomena.  Specifically, this debate centered around the notion that the correspondence of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament events were adquate proof of Christianity's truth, an idea which had been widely accepted up until that time.  Collins challenged this notion, as he questioned the authenticity and accuracy of events such as those in the Gospel which were supposedly dictated by New Testament writers such as the Apostles.  Collins perpetuated suspicions toward the veracity of biblical documents, and provided further momentum for biblical criticism.
+Shortly after in 1713, Anthony Collins published ''Discourse of Freethinking occassioned by the Rise and Growth of a sect Called Freethinkers''.  Collins' work went beyond Toland's in attempting to justify the claim that rational inquiry made for virtually limitless freedom for human beings when compared to moral and religious ruminations.  Collins ascertained that the Deistic argument rested upon a decision to place a focus on individual liberty in the pursuit of moral investigation, as well as a focus on the individual capacity to discover moral truth.  Collins argued that all the great moral pedagouges such as the prophets, Paul, and Jesus Himself taught their disciples by appealing to reason, rather than fear.  In contrast, the Church and the State had cultivated fear through superstitious beliefs in order to inspire humans to behave morally, and in the process had created what Toland viewed to be moral corruption. His prescription for religious reform was to excise such fear-inducing superstitions from religious teaching, and to concentrate of the development of morality through rationality in each individual.  Moreover, in a later work, ''Discourse of the Grounds and Reason of Christian Religion'', Collins turned the focus to the consideration of whether or not prophecy and miracle are credible phenomena.  Specifically, this debate centered around the notion that the correspondence of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament events were adquate proof of Christianity's truth, an idea which had been widely accepted up until that time.  Collins challenged this notion, as he questioned the authenticity and accuracy of events such as those in the Gospel which were supposedly dictated by New Testament writers such as the Apostles.  If the miracles reported by these authors were to remain in religious discourse, Collins suggested they be reinterpreted as allegory or metaphor to propound the more reasonable contributions of Christ and other religious figures. Collins perpetuated suspicions toward the veracity of biblical documents, and provided further momentum for biblical criticism.
-It was not until the modern era, during the European Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, with their respective emphases on rigorous skepticism, deductive logic, and empiricism (experience/induction), that deism came into its own as a subject of philosophical discourse, particularly in France (Descartes, the Philosophes), Germany (Kant†, Leibniz), Great Britain (Hobbes, Hume‡), and the United States (Paine, Franklin).
+In 1730 Matthew Tindal published ''Christianity as Old as the Creator'', a book which marked what was the culmination of all Deist thought. Tindal further shaped the Deist arguments developed by the thinkers who preceded him, though he managed to synthesize the various strands together and present them in more intelligible langauge than his predecessors had. He further repudiated the mysterious aspects of religion and promoted a general distrust toward religious authority.  The ultimate value of religion, he contended, was to aid humans in fashioning their own personal beliefs and to cultivate their moral nature, rather than encouraging them to depend on revelation.  He held that in the context of their moral faculties, all humans were equal in the eyes of God at all times.  Further, through the gift of reason, humans held the ability to comprehend the consequences of their actions without the continual assistance of God. For Tindal, human duties are evident through the the reason behind things and their relationships with one another.  It is upon these natural foundations that religions is constructed.  Religion, in Tindal's view, was quite simply a law of nature adapted to accomodate the given circumstances of humankind; that is, religion was seen as what naturally arises from considerations of god.  It was in such natural relations and very little else that religious edifices were to be constructed.  Tindal held that no command communicated by revelation could be superior to the natural workings of nature, because no command was to be seen as obligatory unless the reasonableness of it was blatantly evident.  Corollary with this point, placing anything in religion which is not demonstrable by reason Tindal considered to be an insult to the faculties of human beings and ultimately the honour of God.
-Deism developed from the expanding influence of scientism in Europe and European colonial intellectual life. Newtonian physics, the intellectual basis and the aesthetic model for Enlightenment scientism, spread the idea that matter behaves in a mathematically predictable manner that can be understood by postulating laws of nature. Objectivity, natural equality, the prescription to treat like cases similarly are central principles of the Enlightenment mentality, ideas borrowed from Newton's observational/experimental method and put to use in all domains the Enlightenment mind scrutinized; these principles informed the development of the philosophy of deism. Exasperation with the costs of centuries of European religious warfare was a powerful recommendation for the new, objective frame for spiritual matters, a perspective the most notable minds of the time found appealing.
+===Popularity in America===
 Deism was championed by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington are among the most well-known of the American founding deists. Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason, a treatise that popularized deism throughout America and Europe. Paine wrote that deism represented the application of reason to religion, finally settling problems that formerly were thought to be permanently controversial. Deists hoped to also settle religious questions permanently and scientifically by reason alone, without revelation. The first six and four later presidents of the United States had strong deistic or allied beliefs.
-===Deism in America===
 [[Image:Thomas Jefferson.jpg|thumb|Thomas Jefferson, Edgehill Portrait of 1805 by [[Gilbert Stuart]].  [[National Portrait Gallery (United States)|National Portrait Gallery]], [[Washington, DC]].]]
-==Decline in popularity==
+===Decline in popularity===
 Several factors contributed to a general decline in the popularity of deism, including:
 * the writings of [[David Hume]] (and later, [[Charles Darwin]]) increased doubt about the [[first cause]] argument and the [[argument from design]]
@@ Line 41: / Line 41: @@
 * an anti-deist and anti-reason campaign by some Christian clergymen to vilify and equate deism with atheism in public opinion
-==Current status==
+It was not until the modern era, during the European Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution, with their respective emphases on rigorous skepticism, deductive logic, and empiricism (experience/induction), that deism came into its own as a subject of philosophical discourse, particularly in France (Descartes, the Philosophes), Germany (Kant†, Leibniz), Great Britain (Hobbes, Hume‡), and the United States (Paine, Franklin).
+Deism developed from the expanding influence of scientism in Europe and European colonial intellectual life. Newtonian physics, the intellectual basis and the aesthetic model for Enlightenment scientism, spread the idea that matter behaves in a mathematically predictable manner that can be understood by postulating laws of nature. Objectivity, natural equality, the prescription to treat like cases similarly are central principles of the Enlightenment mentality, ideas borrowed from Newton's observational/experimental method and put to use in all domains the Enlightenment mind scrutinized; these principles informed the development of the philosophy of deism. Exasperation with the costs of centuries of European religious warfare was a powerful recommendation for the new, objective frame for spiritual matters, a perspective the most notable minds of the time found appealing.
+===Current status===
 Newtonian physics, when linearized and simplified, is considered [[determinism|deterministic]], and so deism based on that, for many, left little room for [[hope]]. Of some relevance in response to this are newer theories in [[physics]], most notably [[quantum mechanics]], which has both a non-[[determinism|deterministic]] interpretation (the [[Copenhagen interpretation]]), and deterministic interpretations (the [[transactional interpretation]] and [[many-worlds interpretation]]). Some modern revivals of deism resemble [[pantheism]] and [[panentheism]]. However, some Unitarian Universalists are bringing deism back in order to counter Fundamentalism.
+==Contributions of Deism==
 ==See also==
@@ Line 87: / Line 94: @@
 == References ==
-Joyce, Gilbert Cunningham. “Deism” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. James Hastings, ed. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1910. 334-335.
+Joyce, Gilbert Cunningham. “Deism” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics. James Hastings, ed. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1910. 334-345.
 [[Category:Deism| ]]
 [[Category:Philosophy and religion]][[category:Religion]]