{{Short description|Belief in a god based on rational thought}} {{Hatnote group| {{Other uses}} {{Distinguish|Theism}} }} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}} {{Deism sidebar}} {{God |isms}}
'''Deism''' ({{IPAc-en|Audio=En-uk-deism.ogg|ˈ|d|iː|ɪ|z|əm}} {{respell|DEE|iz-əm}}{{px1}}<ref>{{cite book |title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary |editor=R. E. Allen |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1990}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deist |title=Deist – Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary |publisher=Merriam-webster.com |year=2012 |access-date=2012-10-10 |archive-date=2012-01-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112121930/http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deist |url-status=live }}</ref> or {{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|eɪ|.|ɪ|z|əm}} {{respell|DAY|iz-əm}}; derived from the Latin term ''deus'', meaning 'god')<ref name="Harper 2020">{{cite book |last=Harper |first=Leland Royce |year=2020 |title=Multiverse Deism: Shifting Perspectives of God and the World |chapter=Attributes of a Deistic God |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bWnnDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA47 |location=Lanham, Maryland |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |pages=47–68 |isbn=978-1-7936-1475-9 |lccn=2020935396}}</ref><ref name="Peters 2013">{{cite book |author-last=Peters |author-first=Ted |year=2013 |chapter=Models of God: Deism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jZhEAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA51 |editor1-last=Diller |editor1-first=Jeanine |editor2-last=Kasher |editor2-first=Asa |title=Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities |location=Dordrecht and Heidelberg |publisher=Springer Verlag |pages=51–52 |doi=10.1007/978-94-007-5219-1_5 |isbn=978-94-007-5219-1 |lccn=2012954282}}</ref> is a type of monotheism, or belief in God, positing that logic and observation justify belief in a supreme being who created the universe, while rejecting any further supernatural speculations. As a philosophical position and rationalistic theology<ref name="Smith 2015">{{cite book |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Merril D. |year=2015 |chapter=Deism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yqxmCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA661 |title=The World of the American Revolution: A Daily Life Encyclopedia |location=Santa Barbara, California |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group, imprint of ABC-Clio |volume=1 |pages=661–664 |isbn=978-1-4408-3027-3 |lccn=2015009496}}</ref> that rejects prophecies, revelations, and religious texts as legitimate or reliable sources of divine knowledge,{{refn|<ref name="Harper 2020"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Stanford 2017"/><ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Gomes 2012"/><ref name="DHS 2005"/><ref name="JE"/>}} Deism instead asserts that empirical reason and observation of the natural world are exclusively logical, reliable, and sufficient to determine the existence of a creator God.{{refn|<ref name="Harper 2020"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Stanford 2017">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Bristow |first=William |date=Fall 2017 |title=Religion and the Enlightenment: Deism |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/#RelEnl |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |editor-link=Edward N. Zalta |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University |issn=1095-5054 |oclc=643092515 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171211080212/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/ |archive-date=11 December 2017 |access-date=3 August 2021 |quote=Deism is the form of religion most associated with the Enlightenment. According to deism, we can know by the natural light of reason that the universe is created and governed by a supreme intelligence; however, although this supreme being has a plan for creation from the beginning, the being does not interfere with creation; the deist typically rejects miracles and reliance on special revelation as a source of religious doctrine and belief, in favor of the natural light of reason. Thus, a deist typically rejects the divinity of Christ, as repugnant to reason; the deist typically demotes the figure of Jesus from agent of miraculous redemption to extraordinary moral teacher. Deism is the form of religion fitted to the new discoveries in natural science, according to which the cosmos displays an intricate machine-like order; the deists suppose that the supposition of a God is necessary as the source or author of this order. Though not a deist himself, Isaac Newton provides fuel for deism with his argument in his ''Opticks'' (1704) that we must infer from the order and beauty in the world to the existence of an intelligent supreme being as the cause of this order and beauty. Samuel Clarke, perhaps the most important proponent and popularizer of Newtonian philosophy in the early eighteenth century, supplies some of the more developed arguments for the position that the correct exercise of unaided human reason leads inevitably to the well-grounded belief in a God. He argues that the Newtonian physical system implies the existence of a transcendent cause, the creator a God. In his first set of Boyle lectures, ''A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God'' (1705), Clarke presents the metaphysical or “argument a priori” for God’s existence. This argument concludes from the rationalist principle that whatever exists must have a sufficient reason or cause of its existence to the existence of a transcendent, necessary being who stands as the cause of the chain of natural causes and effects.}}</ref><ref name="Britannica">{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Manuel |first1=Frank Edward |last2=Pailin |first2=David A. |last3=Mapson |first3=K. |last4=Stefon |first4=Matt |date=13 March 2020 |orig-date=26 July 1999 |title=Deism |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Deism |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |location=Edinburgh |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210609065121/https://www.britannica.com/topic/Deism |archive-date=9 June 2021 |url-status=live |access-date=3 August 2021 |quote=Deism, an unorthodox religious attitude that found expression among a group of English writers beginning with Edward Herbert (later 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury) in the first half of the 17th century and ending with Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, in the middle of the 18th century. These writers subsequently inspired a similar religious attitude in Europe during the second half of the 18th century and in the colonial United States of America in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In general, Deism refers to what can be called natural religion, the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge that is inborn in every person or that can be acquired by the use of reason and the rejection of religious knowledge when it is acquired through either revelation or the teaching of any church.}}</ref><ref name="Gomes 2012">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Gomes |first=Alan W. |title=Deism |year=2012 |orig-date=2011 |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization |location=Chichester, West Sussex |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |doi=10.1002/9780470670606.wbecc0408 |isbn=9781405157629 |quote=Deism is a rationalistic, critical approach to theism with an emphasis on natural theology. The deists attempted to reduce religion to what they regarded as its most foundational, rationally justifiable elements. Deism is not, strictly speaking, the teaching that God wound up the world like a watch and let it run on its own, though that teaching was embraced by some within the movement.}}</ref><ref name="DHS 2005"/><ref name="JE">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5049-deism |title=Deism |last1=Kohler |first1=Kaufmann |author1-link=Kaufmann Kohler |last2=Hirsch |first2=Emil G. |author2-link=Emil G. Hirsch |encyclopedia=Jewish Encyclopedia |publisher=Kopelman Foundation |year=1906 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130115134854/https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/5049-deism |archive-date=15 January 2013 |url-status=live |access-date=3 August 2021 |quote=A system of belief which posits a God's existence as the cause of all things, and admits His perfection, but rejects Divine revelation and government, proclaiming the all-sufficiency of natural laws. The Socinians, as opposed to the doctrine of the Trinity, were designated as deists [...]. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries deism became synonymous with "natural religion," and deist with "freethinker." England and France have been successively the strongholds of deism. Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the "father of deism" in England, assumes certain "innate ideas," which establish five religious truths: (1) that God is; (2) that it is man's duty to worship Him; (3) that worship consists in virtue and piety; (4) that man must repent of sin and abandon his evil ways; (5) that divine retribution either in this or in the next life is certain. He holds that all positive religions are either allegorical and poetic interpretations of nature or deliberately organized impositions of priests.}}</ref>}} Unlike classical theism, some Deists view God as simply not intervening anymore after creating the universe,<ref name="Gomes 2012"/><ref name="Doniger-Eliade 1999">{{cite book |editor1-last=Doniger |editor1-first=Wendy |editor1-link=Wendy Doniger |editor2-last=Eliade |editor2-first=Mircea |editor2-link=Mircea Eliade |year=1999 |chapter=DEUS OTIOSUS |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZP_f9icf2roC&dq=deus+otiosus+deism&pg=PA288 |title=Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of World Religions |location=Springfield, Massachusetts |publisher=Merriam-Webster |page=288 |isbn=9780877790440 |oclc=1150050382 |quote='''DEUS OTIOSUS''' (Latin: "inactive god") in the history of religions and philosophy, a High God who has withdrawn from the immediate details of the government of the world. [...] In Western philosophy, the ''deus otiosus'' concept has been attributed to Deism, a 17th–18th century Western rationalistic religio-philosophical movement, in its view of a non-intervening creator of the universe. Although this stark interpretation was accepted by very few Deists, many of their antagonists attempted to force them into the position of stating that after the original act of creation God virtually withdrew and refrained from interfering in the processes of nature and human affairs. |access-date=2023-03-15 |archive-date=2023-03-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230313042413/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZP_f9icf2roC&pg=PA288&dq=deus+otiosus+deism |url-status=live}}</ref> solely based on rational thought and without any reliance on revealed religions or religious authorities.{{refn|<ref name="Harper 2020"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Stanford 2017"/><ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="DHS 2005"/><ref name="JE"/>}} Therefore, Deism emphasizes the concept of natural theology—that is, God's existence is revealed through nature itself.{{refn|<ref name="Harper 2020"/><ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Stanford 2017"/><ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="Gomes 2012"/><ref name="DHS 2005"/>}} Deistical thinking has existed since ancient times, and the roots of Deism are often traced back to the several ancient eastern and Greek philosophical ideals such as Stoicism, while also being influenced by other rational theologies.
Since the 17th century and during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in 18th-century England, France, and North America,<ref name="Rowe 2022">{{cite encyclopedia |author-last=Rowe |author-first=William L. |year=2022 |orig-date=2017 |title=Deism |editor-last=Craig |editor-first=Edward |editor-link=Edward Craig (philosopher) |encyclopedia=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |location=London and New York |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9780415249126-K013-1 |isbn=9780415250696 |quote=In the popular sense, a deist is someone who believes that God created the world but thereafter has exercised no providential control over what goes on in it. In the proper sense, a deist is someone who affirms a divine creator but denies any divine revelation, holding that human reason alone can give us everything we need to know to live a correct moral and religious life. In this sense of ‘deism’ some deists held that God exercises providential control over the world and provides for a future state of rewards and punishments, while other deists denied this. However, they all agreed that human reason alone was the basis on which religious questions had to be settled, rejecting the orthodox claim to a special divine revelation of truths that go beyond human reason. Deism flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, principally in England, France, and America.}}</ref> various Western philosophers and theologians formulated a critical rejection of the several religious texts belonging to the many organized religions, and began to appeal only to truths that they felt could be established by reason as the exclusive source of divine knowledge.{{refn|<ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Stanford 2017"/><ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="DHS 2005"/><ref name="JE"/><ref name="Herrick 1997">{{cite book |last=Herrick |first=James A. |year=1997 |chapter=Characteristics of British Deism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7DPn4RtTbUgC&pg=PA23 |title=The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680–1750 |location=Columbia, South Carolina |publisher=University of South Carolina Press |series=Studies in Rhetoric/Communication |pages=23–49 |isbn=978-1-57003-166-3}}</ref>}} Such philosophers and theologians were called "Deists", and the philosophical/theological position they advocated is called "Deism".{{refn|<ref name="Smith 2015"/><ref name="Stanford 2017"/><ref name="Britannica"/><ref name="JE"/><ref name="Herrick 1997"/>}} Many of the U.S. founding fathers were influenced by Deism, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.
Deism, as a distinct philosophical and intellectual movement, saw a revival in the early 19th century.<ref name="Claeys 1989">{{cite book |last=Claeys |first=Gregory |year=1989 |title=Thomas Paine: Social and Political Thought |chapter=Revolution in heaven: The Age of Reason (1794-95) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W9X9DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA177 |location=New York and London |publisher=Routledge |edition=1st |pages=177–195 |isbn=9780044450900}}</ref> Several tenets of Deism continued as part of other intellectual and spiritual movements, like Unitarianism,<ref name="Peters 2013" /> which considers one universal God as the creator of the universe and emerged though a critique of the traditional Christian theology of the Trinity and rejection of non-rational Biblical miracles.<ref name="Bremer 2015">{{cite book |last=Bremer |first=Thomas S. |year=2015 |title=Formed From This Soil: An Introduction to the Diverse History of Religion in America |chapter=Transcendentalism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GE3YBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA235 |location=Chichester, West Sussex |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |page=235 |doi=10.1002/9781394260959 |isbn=978-1-4051-8927-9 |lccn=2014030507 |s2cid=127980793 |access-date=2023-01-13 |archive-date=2023-01-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113235453/https://books.google.com/books?id=GE3YBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA235 |url-status=live }}</ref> Deism continues to have advocates today,<ref name="Harper 2020" /> including with its variants such as Unitarianism, Universalism, Christian deism, Stoicism and Pandeism.
== Early developments ==
=== Ancient history === {{main|History of philosophy}} Deistical thinking has existed since ancient times; the roots of Deism can be traced back to the philosophical tradition of Ancient Greece.{{sfn|Piland|2011|p=4}} The 3rd-century Christian theologian and philosopher Clement of Alexandria explicitly mentioned persons who believed that God was not involved in human affairs, and therefore led what he considered a licentious life.<ref>''Stromata'', book 7, ch. 3. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds.), ''Ante-Nicene Christian Library: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to AD 325'', vol. 12, p. 416</ref> However, Deism did not develop as a religio-philosophical movement until after the Scientific Revolution, which began in the mid-16th century in early modern Europe.{{sfn|Piland|2011|p=5}} === Early Pandeism and Deism === Several ancient theological doctrines are considered as combination of several aspects of pantheism with those of deism, often known as Pandeism, and unlike classical deism, pandeism holds that such an entity became the universe and ceased to exist as a separate entity.<ref>{{cite book | title= The History of Science: A Beginner's Guide | author = Sean F. Johnston | year = 2012 | isbn = 978-1-78074-159-8 | page = 90 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=srvZqTNP52cC | publisher= Oneworld Publications | quote = In its most abstract form, deism may not attempt to describe the characteristics of such a non-interventionist creator, or even that the universe is identical with God (a variant known as ''pandeism'').}}</ref> The early concepts of pandeism coincide with notions of monotheism and spiritual traditions from ancient eastern tradtions,<ref name="Weinstein-China">Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature") (1910), page 121.</ref> such as Taoism as expressed by Lao-Tze<ref name="Weinstein-Taoism">Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature") (1910), page 234-235.</ref>, and from India, such as in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita.<ref name="Weinstein-India">Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature") (1910), page 213.</ref>
The 6th-century BC Greek philosopher, Xenophanes, has been described by scholars as having a one-God theology that projects pandeistic and deistic ideals,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pimdeklerk-palynology.eu/2500_yr_palaeoecology_-_de_Klerk_2017.pdf|title=2500 Years of Palaeoecology: A Note on the Work of Xenophanes of Colophon (Circa 570-475 BCE)|author=Pim de Klerk|publisher=Journal of Geography, Environment and Earth Science International|date=5 April 2017|quote=Xenophanes... wrote elaborately on his own religious views that were mainly of a pandeistic character.|access-date=29 December 2017|archive-date=30 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171230060229/http://www.pimdeklerk-palynology.eu/2500_yr_palaeoecology_-_de_Klerk_2017.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="WX">Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature") (1910), page 231.</ref> as he stated that there was One God, that is unmoving, and abides in the self space, yet "sees all over, thinks all over, and hears all over".<ref name="WX"/> Stoics, and especially in the later students of the 'Platonic Pythagoreans' and the 'Pythagorean Platonists are considered to have a pandeistic philosophy.<ref name="Weinstein-Greece">Max Bernhard Weinstein, ''Welt- und Lebensanschauungen, Hervorgegangen aus Religion, Philosophie und Naturerkenntnis'' ("World and Life Views, Emerging From Religion, Philosophy and Perception of Nature") (1910), page 233–34.</ref> The 3rd century BC Greek philosopher Chrysippus affirmed that "the universe itself is God and the universal outpouring of its soul".<ref name="cicerodenati15">Cicero, ''De Natura Deorum'', i. 15</ref><ref name="Weinstein-Greece"/>
=== Defining of ''Deism'' === The terms ''deism'' and ''theism'' are both derived from words meaning "god": the Latin term ''deus'' and the Ancient Greek term ''theós'' (θεός), respectively.<ref name="Harper 2020"/> The word ''déiste'' first appeared in French in 1563 in a theological treatise written by the Swiss Calvinist theologian named Pierre Viret,<ref name="DHS 2005">{{cite encyclopedia |author-last=Pitassi |author-first=Maria-Cristina |title=Déisme |url=https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/fr/articles/011423/2005-08-22/ |url-status=live |encyclopedia=Historical Dictionary of Switzerland |date=22 August 2005 |location=Geneva |publisher=Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences |language=fr |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230329035216/https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/fr/articles/011423/2005-08-22/ |archive-date=29 March 2023 |access-date=30 May 2023 |quote=Si le terme de déisme se trouve déjà chez Pierre Viret en 1563, ce n'est qu'aux XVIIe et XVIIIe s. que le mouvement connut son véritable essor. Il fut actif surtout en Angleterre où Herbert of Cherbury d'abord, Matthew Tindal, John Toland, et Anthony Collins ensuite lui donnèrent ses bases intellectuelles. [...] Malgré des sensibilités assez différentes à l'intérieur du mouvement, le déisme se caractérise par une attaque virulente de la révélation biblique et des institutions ecclésiastiques au nom d'une religion naturelle que l'être humain peut découvrir en utilisant exclusivement sa raison. [...] Assimilés par les apologistes chrétiens à des athées, les déistes ne niaient pas l'existence de Dieu mais dénonçaient sans indulgence les prétendues incohérences, voire les immoralités de l'Ecriture; celle-ci, considérée dans le meilleur des cas comme un amas de contradictions et dans le pire comme une supercherie habilement exploitée par les autorités ecclésiastiques, était ainsi dépouillée de tout caractère sacré. Pourtant, en dépit de son côté radical et polémique, la réflexion déiste sur l'Ancien et le Nouveau Testament a contribué au développement du criticisme biblique, en particulier en ce qui concerne l'élucidation des origines juives et chrétiennes, l'histoire du canon ou l'interprétation des prophéties.}}</ref> but Deism was generally unknown in the Kingdom of France until the 1690s when Pierre Bayle published his famous ''Dictionnaire Historique et Critique'', which contained an article on Viret.<ref> {{cite book | last1 = Bayle | first1 = Pierre | author-link1 = Pierre Bayle | chapter = Viret | title = Dictionnaire historique et critique | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=pHAHjxIW7uEC | language = fr | volume = 14 | edition = Nouvelle | location = Paris | publisher = Desoer | access-date = 2017-11-23 | year = 1820 }} (1697/1820) Bayle quotes Viret (see below) as follows: “J'ai entendu qu'il y en a de ceste bande, qui s'appellent déistes, d'un mot tout nouveau, lequel ils veulent opposer à l'athéiste,” remarking on the term as a neologism (''un mot tout nouveau''). (p.418)</ref>
In English, the words ''deist'' and ''theist'' were originally synonymous, but by the 17th century the terms started to diverge in meaning.<ref>{{cite book |last= Orr |first= John |title= English Deism: Its Roots and Its Fruits |publisher= Eerdmans |year= 1934 }} The words deism and theism are both derived words meaning "god" - "THE": Latin ZEUS-deus /"deist" and Greek theos/ "theist" (θεός). The word deus/déiste first appears in French in 1564 in a work by a Swiss Calvinist named Pierre Viret, but was generally unknown in France until the 1690s when Pierre Bayle published his famous Dictionary, which contained an article on Viret.“Prior to the 17th Century the terms ["deism" and "deist"] were used interchangeably with the terms "theism" and "theist", respectively. .. Theologians and philosophers of the 17th Century began to give a different signification to the words. .. Both [theists and deists] asserted belief in one supreme God, the Creator. .. But the theist taught that God remained actively interested in and operative in the world which he had made, whereas the Deist maintained that God endowed the world at creation with self-sustaining and self-acting powers and then surrendered it wholly to the operation of these powers acting as second causes.” (p.13)</ref> The term ''deist'' with its current meaning first appears in English in Robert Burton's ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' (1621).
=== Herbert of Cherbury and early English Deism === [[File:Edward Herbert, 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury by Isaac Oliver.jpg|thumb|upright|Lord Herbert of Cherbury, portrayed by Isaac Oliver, c. 1603–05]]
The first major statement of Deism in English literature is Lord Herbert of Cherbury's book ''De Veritate'' (1624).<ref>Basil Willey, ''The Seventeenth Century Background: Studies in the Thought of the Age in Relation to Poetry and Religion'', 1934, p.59ff.</ref> Lord Herbert, like his contemporary Descartes, searched for the foundations of knowledge. The first two-thirds of his book ''De Veritate'' (''On Truth, as It Is Distinguished from Revelation, the Probable, the Possible, and the False'') are devoted to an exposition of Herbert's theory of knowledge. Herbert distinguished truths from experience and distinguished reasoning about experience from innate and revealed truths. Innate truths are imprinted on our minds, as evidenced by their universal acceptance. Herbert referred to universally accepted truths as ''notitiae communes—''Common Notions. Herbert believed there were five Common Notions that unify all religious beliefs. # There is one Supreme God. # God ought to be worshipped. # Virtue and piety are the main parts of divine worship. # We ought to be remorseful for our sins and repent. # Divine goodness dispenses rewards and punishments, both in this life and after it.
Herbert himself had relatively few followers, and it was not until the 1680s that Herbert found a true successor in Charles Blount (1654 – 1693).<ref>{{Cite book |last= Gay |title= (see above) }} "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." (pp.47-48)</ref>
==={{anchor|The rise of British deism (1690–1740)}}The peak of Deism (1696–1801)=== <!-- This Anchor tag serves to provide a permanent target for incoming section links. Please do not move it out of the section heading, even though it disrupts edit summary generation (you can manually fix the edit summary before saving your changes). Please do not modify it, even if you modify the section title. It is always best to anchor an old section header that has been changed so that links to it won't be broken. See Template:Anchor for details. (This text: Template:Anchor comment) --> {{See also|Deism in England and France in the 18th century}} The appearance of John Locke's ''Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' (1690) marks an important turning-point and new phase in the history of English Deism. Lord Herbert's epistemology was based on the idea of "common notions" (or innate ideas). Locke's ''Essay'' was an attack on the foundation of innate ideas. After Locke, deists could no longer appeal to innate ideas as Herbert had done. Instead, deists were forced to turn to arguments based on experience and nature. Under the influence of Newton, they turned to the argument from design as the principal argument for the existence of God.<ref>Note that Locke himself was not a deist. He believed in both miracles and revelation. See Orr, pp.96-99.</ref>
Peter Gay identifies John Toland's ''Christianity Not Mysterious'' (1696), and the "vehement response" it provoked, as the beginning of post-Lockian Deism. Among the notable figures, Gay describes Toland and Matthew Tindal as the best known; however, Gay considered them to be talented publicists rather than philosophers or scholars. He regards Conyers Middleton and Anthony Collins as contributing more to the substance of debate, in contrast with fringe writers such as Thomas Chubb and Thomas Woolston.<ref name="Gay, 1968, pp.9-10"> {{Cite book |last=Gay |title=(see above) }} “Among the Deists, only Anthony Collins (1676–1729) could claim much philosophical competence; only Conyers Middleton (1683–1750) was a really serious scholar. The best known Deists, notably John Toland (1670–1722) and Matthew Tindal (1656–1733), were talented publicists, clear without being deep, forceful but not subtle. ... Others, like Thomas Chubb (1679–1747), were self-educated freethinkers; a few, like Thomas Woolston (1669–1731), were close to madness.” (pp.9-10)</ref>
Other English Deists prominent during the period include William Wollaston, Charles Blount, Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke,<ref name="Britannica"/> and, in the latter part, Peter Annet, Thomas Chubb, and Thomas Morgan. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury was also influential; though not presenting himself as a Deist, he shared many of the deists' key attitudes and is now usually regarded as a Deist.<ref> {{Cite book |last=Gay |title=(see above) }} Gay describes him (pp.78-79) as "a Deist in fact, if not in name".</ref>
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".<ref>{{cite book | last=Waring | title=(see above) }} p.107.</ref> Following Locke's successful attack on innate ideas, Tindal's "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.
=== Other early rational theologies === The Stoic tradition of rationality and logical theology originated in the 4th-century BCE <ref name="bobzien880">{{Harvnb|Bobzien|1996a|p=880}}</ref> with its founder, Zeno of Citium.<ref name="sellars56">{{Harvnb|Sellars|2006|p=56}}</ref> In 3rd century BCE, Chrysippus <ref name="bobzien880"/> shaped much of Stoic logical theology on the God and the Universe <ref name="shenefeltwhite80">{{Harvnb|Shenefelt|White|2013|p=80}}</ref> For the Stoics, logic was the part of philosophy <ref name="sellars55">{{Harvnb|Sellars|2006|p=55}}</ref> to achieve a happy life aligned with divine and the Universe.<ref name="shenefeltwhite78"/> The Stoics held that an understanding of ethics was impossible without logic.<ref name="shenefeltwhite78">{{Harvnb|Shenefelt|White|2013|p=78}}</ref>
Around 8th CE, Adi Shankara promoted the Advaita Vedanta school of Indian philosophy, incorporating Yoga and other traditions, stressed the eternal, unchanging ultimate self (''ātman''), similar to the Vedic concept of the creator God, ''Brahman'', who is understood as the real observer and cognizer.<ref>{{cite book|author=Christopher Bartley|title=An Introduction to Indian Philosophy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PlupnDEr5iAC|year=2011|publisher=Bloomsbury Academic|isbn=978-1-84706-449-3|pages=90–91, 96, 204–208}}</ref> Advaita Vedanta also espouses monism, and holds ''Brahman'' to be unchanging and undifferentiated from the individual self, or ''Atman''.<ref name="BEH3">{{cite encyclopedia |author-last=Ram-Prasad |author-first=Chakravarthi |author-link=Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad |year=2018 |orig-date=2010 |title=Brahman |editor1-last=Basu |editor1-first=Helene |editor2-last=Jacobsen |editor2-first=Knut A. |editor2-link=Knut A. Jacobsen |editor3-last=Malinar |editor3-first=Angelika |editor4-last=Narayanan |editor4-first=Vasudha |editor4-link=Vasudha Narayanan |encyclopedia=Brill's Encyclopedia of Hinduism |location=Leiden |publisher=Brill Publishers |volume=2 |doi=10.1163/2212-5019_BEH_COM_2050070 |isbn=978-90-04-17893-9 |issn=2212-5019}}</ref>
Around 1250 AD, Catholic priest, and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas wrote about "an intellectual assent",<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05752c.htm "Faith"] from the ''Catholic Encyclopedia''</ref> and reason.<ref>[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12673b.htm "Reason"] from the ''Catholic Encyclopedia''</ref>, and was a proponent of natural theology, while arguing that God is the source of the light of natural reason and the light of faith.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/BoethiusDeTr.htm#23 |title=Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the De Trinitate of Boethius, quest. 2, art. 3 |access-date=22 February 2021 |archive-date=18 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210918062212/https://isidore.co/aquinas/english/BoethiusDeTr.htm#23 |url-status=live }}</ref> He embraced<ref name="SEP3" /> several rational ideas on God put forward by Aristotle and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.<ref name="SEP3">{{cite web |url= http://www.dartmouthapologia.org/articles/show/125 |title=Reason and Faith: The Thought of Thomas Aquinas |last=Blair |first= Peter |website=The Dartmouth Apologia |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130913011656/http://www.dartmouthapologia.org/articles/show/125 |archive-date=13 September 2013 |access-date=18 December 2013}}</ref>
One of the early systematic schools of Islamic theology, was Muʿtazila in the mid-8th century CE <ref name="Schmidtke 2016">{{•}} {{cite book |last=Treiger |first=Alexander |year=2016 |orig-date=2014 |chapter=Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period – Origins of Kalām |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA27 |editor-last=Schmidtke |editor-first=Sabine |editor-link=Sabine Schmidtke |title=The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology |location=Oxford and New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=27–43 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.001 |isbn=9780199696703 |lccn=2016935488 |access-date=2021-10-19 |archive-date=2022-11-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221118051704/https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA27 |url-status=live }}<br />{{•}} {{cite book |last=Abrahamov |first=Binyamin |year=2016 |orig-date=2014 |chapter=Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period – Scripturalist and Traditionalist Theology |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA264 |editor-last=Schmidtke |editor-first=Sabine |editor-link=Sabine Schmidtke |title=The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology |location=Oxford and New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=264–279 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.025 |isbn=9780199696703 |lccn=2016935488 |access-date=2021-10-19 |archive-date=2022-11-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221118051704/https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA264 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Peters 1980">{{cite journal |author-last=Peters |author-first=J. R. T. M. |date=1980 |title=La théologie musulmane et l'étude du langage |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/hel_0750-8069_1980_num_2_1_1049 |journal=Histoire. Épistémologie. Langage |location=Paris |publisher=Société d'histoire et d'Épistémologie des Sciences du Langage |volume=2 |issue=1: ''Éléments d'Histoire de la tradition linguistique arabe'' |language=fr |doi=10.3406/hel.1980.1049 |doi-access=free |pages=9–19 |issn=1638-1580 |access-date=2021-11-30 |archive-date=2021-11-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211130233309/https://www.persee.fr/doc/hel_0750-8069_1980_num_2_1_1049 |url-status=live }}</ref>, whoose theologians emphasized the use of reason and rational thought, positing that the injunctions of God are accessible through rational thought and inquiry, and affirmed that the Quran was created (''makhlūq'') rather than co-eternal with God, an affirmation that would develop into one of the most contentious questions in the history of Islamic theology.<ref name="Schmidtke 2016"/><ref name="Peters 1980"/>
In the 9th–10th century CE, the Ashʿarī school developed as a response to the Muʿtazila, founded by the 10th-century Muslim scholar and theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī.<ref name="Thiele 2016">{{cite book |author-last=Thiele |author-first=Jan |year=2016 |orig-date=2014 |chapter=Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period – Between Cordoba and Nīsābūr: The Emergence and Consolidation of Ashʿarism (Fourth–Fifth/Tenth–Eleventh Century) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA225 |editor-last=Schmidtke |editor-first=Sabine |editor-link=Sabine Schmidtke |title=The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology |location=Oxford and New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=225–241 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.45 |isbn=978-0-19-969670-3 |lccn=2016935488}}</ref> Ashʿarītes still taught the use of reason in understanding the Quran, but denied the possibility to deduce moral truths by reasoning.<ref name="Thiele 2016"/> This position was opposed by the Māturīdī school;<ref name="Ulrich 2016">{{cite book |author-last=Rudolph |author-first=Ulrich |year=2016 |orig-date=2014 |chapter=Part I: Islamic Theologies during the Formative and the Early Middle period – Ḥanafī Theological Tradition and Māturīdism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA285 |editor-last=Schmidtke |editor-first=Sabine |editor-link=Sabine Schmidtke |title=The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Theology |location=Oxford and New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |pages=285–290 |doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199696703.013.023 |isbn=9780199696703 |lccn=2016935488 |access-date=2023-06-02 |archive-date=2023-01-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230101224726/https://books.google.com/books?id=70wnDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA285 |url-status=live }}</ref> according to its founder, the 10th-century Muslim scholar and theologian Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī, human reason is supposed to acknowledge the existence of a creator deity (''bāriʾ'') solely based on rational thought and independently from divine revelation.<ref name="Ulrich 2016"/> He shared this conviction with his teacher and predecessor Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān (8th century CE), whereas al-Ashʿarī never held such a view.<ref name="Ulrich 2016"/> According to the Afghan-American philosopher Sayed Hassan Hussaini, the early schools of Islamic theology and theological beliefs among classical Muslim philosophers are characterized by "a rich color of Deism with a slight disposition toward theism".<ref name="Hussaini 2016">{{cite journal |last=Hussaini |first=Sayed Hassan |author-link=Sayed Hassan Akhlaq |date=2016 |title=Islamic Philosophy between Theism and Deism |journal=Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |location=Braga |publisher=Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural |volume=72 |issue=1: ''Teísmos: Aportações Filosóficas do Leste e Oeste / Theisms: Philosophical Contributions from the East to the West'' |pages=65–83 |doi=10.17990/RPF/2016_72_1_0065 |issn=0870-5283 |jstor=43816275}}</ref>
== Enlightenment Deism ==
=== Aspects of Deism in Enlightenment philosophy === Enlightenment Deism consisted of two philosophical assertions: (1) reason, along with features of the natural world, is a valid source of religious knowledge, and (2) revelation is not a valid source of religious knowledge. Different Deist philosophers expanded on these two assertions to create what Leslie Stephen later termed the "constructive" and "critical" aspects of Deism.<ref>{{cite book | last= Stephen | first= Leslie | date= 1881 | title= History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century 3rd Edition 2 vols (reprinted 1949) | url= http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001915511 | location= London | publisher= Smith, Elder & Co | isbn= 978-0844614212 | author-link= Leslie Stephen | access-date= 2019-01-04 | archive-date= 2015-06-30 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20150630043157/http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001915511 | url-status= live }} Stephen’s book, despite its “perhaps too ambitious” title (preface, Vol.I p.vii), was conceived as an “account of the deist controversy” (p.vi). Stephen notes the difficulty of interpreting the primary sources, as religious toleration was yet far from complete in law, and entirely not a settled fact in practice (Ch.II s.12): deist authors “were forced to .. cover [their opinions] with a veil of decent ambiguity.” He writes of Deist books being burned by the hangman, mentions the Aikenhead blasphemy case (1697) [https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Indytment_of_Thomas_Aikenhead] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190106055114/https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Indytment_of_Thomas_Aikenhead |date=2019-01-06 }}, and names five deists who were banished, imprisoned etc.</ref><ref>{{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=1kruAAAAMAAJ |title= Deism: An Anthology |editor-last= Gay (Fröhlich) <!-- Editor surname --> |editor-first= Peter Joachim <!-- Editor forename[s / etc.] --> |editor-link= Peter Gay <!-- Title of Wikipedia article (if any) on editor --> |location= Princeton etc. |publisher= Van Nostrand |year= 1968 |isbn= 978-0686474012 <!-- recent reprint / reissue --> }} * "All Deists were in fact both critical and constructive Deists. All sought to destroy in order to build, and reasoned either from the absurdity of Christianity to the need for a new philosophy or from their desire for a new philosophy to the absurdity of Christianity. Each deist, to be sure, had his special competence. While one specialized in abusing priests, another specialized in rhapsodies to nature, and a third specialized in the skeptical reading of sacred documents. Yet whatever strength the movement had—and it was at times formidable—it derived that strength from a peculiar combination of critical and constructive elements." (p.13)</ref> "Constructive" assertions—assertions that deist writers felt were justified by appeals to reason and features of the natural world (or perhaps were intuitively obvious or common notions)—included:<ref>Tindal: "By natural religion, I understand the belief of the existence of a God, and the sense and practice of those duties which result from the knowledge we, by our reason, have of him and his perfections; and of ourselves, and our own imperfections, and of the relationship we stand in to him, and to our fellow-creatures; so that the religion of nature takes in everything that is founded on the reason and nature of things." ''Christianity as Old as the Creation'' (II), quoted in Waring ''(see above)'', p.113.</ref><ref>Toland: “I hope to make it appear that the use of reason is not so dangerous in religion as it is commonly represented .. There is nothing that men make a greater noise about than the "mysteries of the Christian religion". The divines gravely tell us "we must adore what we cannot comprehend" .. [Some] contend [that] some mysteries may be, or at least seem to be, contrary to reason, and yet received by faith. [Others contend] that no mystery is contrary to reason, but that all are "above" it. On the contrary, we hold that reason is the only foundation of all certitude .. Wherefore, we likewise maintain, according to the title of this discourse, that ''there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to reason, nor above it; and that no Christian doctrine can be properly called a mystery''." ''Christianity Not Mysterious: or, a Treatise Shewing That There Is Nothing in the Gospel Contrary to Reason, Nor above It'' (1696), quoted in Waring ''(see above)'', pp. 1–12</ref> * God exists and created the universe. * God gave humans the ability to reason.
"Critical" assertions—assertions that followed from the denial of revelation as a valid source of religious knowledge—were much more numerous, and included:
* Rejection of all books (including the Quran and the Bible) that claimed to contain divine revelation.<ref>{{cite book |last=Stephens |first=William |author-link=William Stephens (minister) |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37302 |title=An Account of the Growth of Deism in England |access-date=2019-01-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190105043226/http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37302 |archive-date=2019-01-05 |url-status=live}} (1696 / 1990). Introduction (James E. Force, 1990): "[W]hat sets the Deists apart from even their most latitudinarian Christian contemporaries is their desire to lay aside scriptural revelation as rationally incomprehensible, and thus useless, or even detrimental, to human society and to religion. While there may possibly be exceptions, .. most Deists, especially as the eighteenth century wears on, agree that revealed Scripture is nothing but a joke or "well-invented flam." About mid-century, John Leland, in his historical and analytical account of the movement [''View of the Principal Deistical Writers'' [https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008682251] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190105043222/https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008682251|date=2019-01-05}} (1754–1755)], squarely states that the rejection of revealed Scripture is ''the'' characteristic element of deism, a view further codified by such authorities as Ephraim Chambers and Samuel Johnson. .. "DEISM," writes Stephens bluntly, "is a denial of all reveal'd Religion."”</ref> * Rejection of the incomprehensible notion of the Trinity and other religious "mysteries". * Rejection of reports of miracles, prophecies, etc.
==== The origins of religion ==== A central premise of Deism was that the organized religions of their day were corruptions of an original religion that was pure, natural, simple, and rational. Humanity lost this original religion when it was subsequently corrupted by priests who manipulated it for personal gain and for the class interests of the priesthood,<ref>{{cite book | last=Champion | first=J.A.I. | title=The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and its Enemies, 1660-1730 | year=2014 | publisher=Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History) }} Champion maintains that historical argument was a central component of the Deists' defences of what they considered true religion.</ref> and encrusted it with superstitions and "mysteries"—irrational theological doctrines. Deists referred to this manipulation of religious doctrine as "priestcraft", a derogatory term.<ref>{{cite book | last= Paine | first= Thomas | title= The Age of Reason | title-link= The Age of Reason }} "As priestcraft was always the enemy of knowledge, because priestcraft supports itself by keeping people in delusion and ignorance, it was consistent with its policy to make the acquisition of knowledge a real sin." (Part 2, p.129)</ref> For Deists, this corruption of natural religion was designed to keep laypeople baffled by "mysteries" and dependent on the priesthood for information about the requirements for salvation. This gave the priesthood a great deal of power, which the Deists believed the priesthood worked to maintain and increase. Deists saw it as their mission to strip away "priestcraft" and "mysteries". Matthew Tindal, perhaps the most prominent Deist writer in early modern Europe, claimed that this was the proper, original role of the Christian Church.<ref>“It can't be imputed to any defect in the light of nature that the pagan world ran into idolatry, but to their being entirely governed by priests, who pretended communication with their gods, and to have thence their revelations, which they imposed on the credulous as divine oracles. Whereas the business of the Christian dispensation was to destroy all those traditional revelations, and restore, free from all idolatry, the true primitive and natural religion implanted in mankind from the creation.” ''Christianity as Old as the Creation'' (XIV), quoted in Waring ''(see above)'', p.163.</ref>
One implication of this premise was that current-day primitive societies, or societies that existed in the distant past, should have religious beliefs less infused with superstitions and closer to those of natural theology. This position became less and less plausible as Enlightenment philosophers such as David Hume began studying the natural history of religion and suggested that the origin of religion was not in reason but in emotions, such as the fear of the unknown.
====Immortality of the soul==== Different Deists had different beliefs about the immortality of the soul, about the existence of Hell and damnation to punish the wicked, and the existence of Heaven to reward the virtuous. Anthony Collins,<ref> {{cite book |last= Orr |title=(see above) }} p.134.</ref> Bolingbroke, Thomas Chubb, and Peter Annet were materialists and either denied or doubted the immortality of the soul.<ref> {{cite book |last= Orr |title=(see above) }} p.78.</ref> Benjamin Franklin believed in reincarnation or resurrection. Lord Herbert of Cherbury and William Wollaston<ref> {{cite book |last= Orr |title=(see above) }} p.137.</ref> held that souls exist, survive death, and in the afterlife are rewarded or punished by God for their behavior in life. Thomas Paine believed in the "probability" of the immortality of the soul.<ref> ''Age of Reason'', Pt I: {{blockquote| I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. }} and (in the Recapitulation) {{blockquote|I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power that gave me existence is able to continue it, in any form and manner he pleases, either with or without this body; and it appears more probable to me that I shall continue to exist hereafter than that I should have had existence, as I now have, before that existence began. }}</ref>
====Miracles and divine providence==== The most natural position for Deists was to reject all forms of supernaturalism, including the miracle stories in the Bible. The problem was that the rejection of miracles also seemed to entail the rejection of divine providence (that is, God taking a hand in human affairs), something that many Deists were inclined to accept.<ref>Most American Deists, for example, firmly believed in divine providence. See this article, Deism in the United States.</ref> Those who believed in a watch-maker God rejected the possibility of miracles and divine providence. They believed that God, after establishing natural laws and setting the cosmos in motion, stepped away. He did not need to keep tinkering with his creation, and the suggestion that he did was insulting.<ref>See for instance {{cite book | last= Paine | first= Thomas | title= The Age of Reason | title-link= The Age of Reason }}, Part 1.</ref> Others, however, firmly believed in divine providence, and so, were reluctantly forced to accept at least the possibility of miracles. God was, after all, all-powerful and could do whatever he wanted including temporarily suspending his own natural laws.
====Freedom and necessity==== Enlightenment philosophers 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 called "necessitarianism"<ref>David Hartley, for example, described himself as "quite in the necessitarian scheme. See Ferg, Stephen, "Two Early Works of David Hartley", ''Journal of the History of Philosophy'', vol. 19, no. 2 (April 1981), pp. 173–89.</ref> (the modern term is "determinism"): 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 [http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/LaMettrie/Machine/ ''L'Homme machine''].) As a consequence, debates about freedom versus "necessity" were a regular feature of Enlightenment religious and philosophical discussions. Reflecting the intellectual climate of the time, there were differences among Deists about freedom and determinism. Some, such as Anthony Collins, were actually necessitarians.<ref>See for example ''Liberty and Necessity'' (1729).</ref>
===David Hume=== [[File:David Hume Ramsay.jpg |thumb|upright|David Hume]] Views differ on whether David Hume was a Deist, an atheist, or something else.<ref>Hume himself was uncomfortable with both terms, and Hume scholar Paul Russell has argued that the best and safest term for Hume's views is ''irreligion''. {{cite encyclopedia |url= http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-religion/ |title= Hume on Religion |encyclopedia= Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |year= 2005 |first= Paul |last= Russell |author-link= Paul Russell (philosopher) |access-date= 2009-12-17 }}</ref> Like the Deists, Hume rejected revelation, and his famous essay ''On Miracles'' provided a powerful argument against belief in miracles. On the other hand, he did not believe that an appeal to Reason could provide any justification for religion. In the essay ''Natural History of Religion'' (1757), he contended that polytheism, not monotheism, was "the first and most ancient religion of mankind" and that the psychological basis of religion is not reason, but fear of the unknown.<ref>{{Cite book | last= Hume | first= David | author-link= David Hume | title= The Natural History of Religion | year= 1779 }} “The primary religion of mankind arises chiefly from an anxious fear of future events; and what ideas will naturally be entertained of invisible, unknown powers, while men lie under dismal apprehensions of any kind, may easily be conceived. Every image of vengeance, severity, cruelty, and malice must occur, and must augment the ghastliness and horror which oppresses the amazed religionist. .. And no idea of perverse wickedness can be framed, which those terrified devotees do not readily, without scruple, apply to their deity.” (Section XIII) </ref> In Waring's words: {{blockquote|The clear reasonableness of natural religion disappeared before a semi-historical look at what can be known about uncivilized man— "a barbarous, necessitous animal," as Hume termed him. Natural religion, if by that term one means the actual religious beliefs and practices of uncivilized peoples, was seen to be a fabric of superstitions. Primitive man was no unspoiled philosopher, clearly seeing the truth of one God. And the history of religion was not, as the deists had implied, retrograde; the widespread phenomenon of superstition was caused less by priestly malice than by man's unreason as he confronted his experience.<ref>{{cite book | last=Waring | title=(see above) }}</ref>}}
===Deism in the United States=== [[File:Thomas Paine A16220.jpg |right|thumb|upright|Thomas Paine]] The Thirteen Colonies of North America – which became the United States of America after the American Revolution in 1776 – were part of the British Empire, and Americans, as British subjects, were influenced by and participated in the intellectual life of the Kingdom of Great Britain. English Deism was an important influence on the thinking of Thomas Jefferson and the principles of religious freedom asserted in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Thomas Jefferson exhibits Deistic principles, though he generally referred to himself as a Unitarian rather than a Deist. His excerpts of the canonical gospels (now commonly known as the ''Jefferson Bible'') strip all supernatural and dogmatic references from the narrative on Jesus' life. Like Franklin, Jefferson believed in God's continuing activity in human affairs.<ref>Frazer, following Sydney Ahlstrom, characterizes Jefferson as a "theistic rationalist" rather than a Deist, because Jefferson believed in God's continuing activity in human affairs. See {{cite book|first=Gregg L.|last=Frazer|title=The Religious Beliefs of America's Founders: Reason, Revelation, Revolution|url=https://archive.org/details/religiousbel_fraz_2012_000_10692050|url-access=registration|publisher=University Press of Kansas|year=2012|page=[https://archive.org/details/religiousbel_fraz_2012_000_10692050/page/n24 11] and 128|isbn=9780700618453}} See {{cite book|first=Sydney E.|last=Ahlstrom|title=A Religious History of the American People|year=2004|page=359}} See {{Cite book|author=Gary Scott Smith|title=Faith and the Presidency: From George Washington to George W. Bush|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eC9fM42OE9MC&pg=PA69|year=2006|publisher=Oxford U.P. |page=69|isbn=9780198041153}}</ref>
Thomas Paine is especially noteworthy both for his contributions to the cause of the American Revolution and for his writings in defense of Deism, alongside the criticism of Abrahamic religions.<ref name="Claeys 1989"/><ref name="Gelpi 2007">{{cite book |last=Gelpi |first=Donald L. |year=2007 |orig-date=2000 |chapter=Part 1: Enlightenment Religion – Chapter 3: Militant Deism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hB1KAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA47 |title=Varieties of Transcendental Experience: A Study in Constructive Postmodernism |location=Eugene, Oregon |publisher=Wipf and Stock |pages=47–48 |isbn=9781725220294 |access-date=2023-01-22 |archive-date=2023-01-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230122122123/https://books.google.com/books?id=hB1KAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA47 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Fischer 2010">{{cite journal |last=Fischer |first=Kirsten |date=2010 |title="Religion Governed by Terror": A Deist Critique of Fearful Christianity in the Early American Republic |editor1-last=Manning |editor1-first=Nicholas |editor2-last=Stefani |editor2-first=Anne |journal=Revue Française d'Études Américaines |location=Paris |publisher=Belin |volume=125 |issue=3 |pages=13–26 |doi=10.3917/rfea.125.0013 |doi-access=free |eissn=1776-3061 |issn=0397-7870 |lccn=80640131 |via=Cairn.info}}</ref><ref name="Paine 2014">{{cite book |last=Paine |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Paine |year=2014 |chapter=Of the Religion of Deism Compared with the Christian Religion, and the Superiority of the Former over the Latter (1804) |chapter-url=https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/paine-deism.asp |editor1-last=Calvert |editor1-first=Jane E. |editor2-last=Shapiro |editor2-first=Ian |title=Selected Writings of Thomas Paine |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |series=Rethinking the Western Tradition |doi=10.12987/9780300210699-018 |pages=568–574 |isbn=9780300167450 |s2cid=246141428 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160827161516/https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/paine-deism.asp |archive-date=27 August 2016 |access-date=7 August 2021}}</ref> In ''The Age of Reason'' (1793–1794) and other writings, he advocated Deism, promoted reason and freethought, and argued against institutionalized religions in general and the Christian doctrine in particular.<ref name="Claeys 1989"/><ref name="Gelpi 2007"/><ref name="Fischer 2010"/><ref name="Paine 2014"/> ''The Age of Reason'' was short, readable, and probably the only Deistic treatise that continues to be read and influential today.<ref>In its own time it earned Paine widespread vilification. How widespread deism was among ordinary people in the United States is a matter of continued debate.{{cite web|url=http://www.common-place.org/interim/reviews/dilorenzo.shtml#.VV90HvlViko |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140302202951/http://www.common-place.org/interim/reviews/dilorenzo.shtml |url-status=dead |archive-date=2014-03-02 |title=Culture Wars in the Early Republic |publisher=Common-place }}</ref> Historian Mitch Horowitz noted that, "Colonials, at least those of means, had the capacity to participate in a fraternal order that enshrined and protected the individual spiritual search—and believed that the search belonged to no single congregation, doctrine, or dogma."<ref name="horowitz">{{cite magazine |access-date=July 9, 2025 |url=https://mitchhorowitz.substack.com/p/occult-american |title=Occult American |magazine=Mystery Achievement. Substack. |location=New York, NY |date=July 3, 2025 |author=Horowitz, Mitch}}</ref>
Another important contributor to American Deism was Elihu Palmer (1764–1806), who wrote the "Bible of American Deism", ''Principles of Nature'', in 1801. Palmer is noteworthy for attempting to bring some organization to Deism by founding the "Deistical Society of New York" and other Deistic societies from Maine to Georgia.<ref>{{Cite book |author-link=Kerry S. Walters |author=Walters, Kerry S. |title=Rational Infidels: The American Deists |publisher=Longwood Academic |location=Durango, CO |date=1992 |isbn=0-89341-641-X}}</ref>
==== Deist Founding Fathers of the United States ==== A majority of the Founding Fathers of the United States were influenced to various degrees by Deism, including Thomas Jefferson, Ethan Allen <ref>{{cite web |url = http://www.ethanallenhomestead.org/history/oracle.htm#excerpts |title = Excerpts from Allen's ''Reason The Only Oracle Of Man'' |publisher = Ethan Allen Homestead Museum |access-date = 2008-05-01 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080502050943/http://www.ethanallenhomestead.org/HISTORY/oracle.htm#excerpts |archive-date = 2008-05-02 |url-status = dead }}</ref>, Benjamin Franklin, Cornelius Harnett, Gouverneur Morris, Hugh Williamson, James Madison, John Adams, and possibly Alexander Hamilton.<ref name ="Smith-2015">{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Gary Scott |url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391394.001.0001/acprof-9780199391394 |title=Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents |date=2015-03-31 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-939139-4 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391394.003.0002| quote="Adams sought to steer a middle course between Deism and skepticism, on one side, and Calvinism, on the other, that led him to lean toward Arminianism and ultimately embrace Unitarianism."}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0501/articles/dulles.htm |title=The Deist Minimum |work=First Things |year=2005 |access-date=2006-09-14 |archive-date=2006-09-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901183307/http://firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0501/articles/dulles.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref> {{cite book |last=Holmes |first=David |author-link=David L. Holmes |title=The Faiths of the Founding Fathers |url=https://archive.org/details/faithsoffounding0000holm |url-access=registration |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |location=New York, NY |year=2006 |isbn=0-19-530092-0}} </ref> While many of the Founding Fathers are considered Deists, there has been debate on the complex and evolving beliefs of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, particularly as John Adams and Jefferson promoted Unitarian principles denying the Christian trinity and Biblical miracles.<ref>{{cite news |author=David Liss |date=11 June 2006 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060801123.html |title=The Founding Fathers Solving modern problems, building wealth and finding God |newspaper=Washington Post |access-date=20 September 2017 |archive-date=12 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170512144847/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/08/AR2006060801123.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/jefferson_deist.htm |title=Was Thomas Jefferson a Deist? |author=Gene Garman |publisher=Sullivan-County.com |year=2001 |access-date=2006-09-14 |archive-date=2006-08-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060830123010/http://www.sullivan-county.com/id3/jefferson_deist.htm |url-status=live }}</ref><ref> {{cite web |url=http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_2_28/ai_114090213/pg_1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012180005/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_2_28/ai_114090213/pg_1 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2007-10-12 |title=Benjamin Franklin: An American Life |author=Walter Isaacson |publisher=Skeptical Inquirer |date=March–April 2004}} </ref> <ref name ="Smith-2015">{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Gary Scott |url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391394.001.0001/acprof-9780199391394 |title=Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents |date=2015-03-31 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-939139-4 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391394.003.0002| quote="Adams sought to steer a middle course between Deism and skepticism, on one side, and Calvinism, on the other, that led him to lean toward Arminianism and ultimately embrace Unitarianism."}}</ref>
In his ''Autobiography'', Franklin wrote that as a young man "Some books against Deism fell into my hands; they were said to be the substance of sermons preached at Boyle's lectures. It happened that they wrought an effect on me quite contrary to what was intended by them; for the arguments of the Deists, which were quoted to be refuted, appeared to me much stronger than the refutations; in short, I soon became a thorough Deist."<ref> {{cite book |last=Franklin |first=Benjamin |author-link=Benjamin Franklin |title=Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography, Poor Richard, and Later Writings |publisher=Library of America |location=New York, NY |year=2005 |page=619 |isbn= 1-883011-53-1}} </ref><ref> {{cite web |url=http://faculty.umf.maine.edu/~walters/web%20103/Ben%20Franklin.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20121210090217/http://faculty.umf.maine.edu/~walters/web%20103/Ben%20Franklin.htm |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-12-10 |title=Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography |publisher=University of Maine, Farmington}} </ref> Like some other Deists, Franklin believed that, "The Deity sometimes interferes by his particular Providence, and sets aside the Events which would otherwise have been produc'd in the Course of Nature, or by the Free Agency of Man,"<ref>Benjamin Franklin, [https://web.archive.org/web/20021114204257/http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf2/provdnc.htm On the Providence of God in the Government of the World] (1730). </ref> and at the Constitutional Convention stated that "the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men."<ref>{{cite book|editor=Max Farrand|url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1057&Itemid=27|title=The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787|location=New Haven|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1911|volume=1|page=451|access-date=2011-02-26|archive-date=2011-03-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110308123447/http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1057&Itemid=27|url-status=live}}</ref>
John Adams held theologically complex views and seemed to take a middle course between Deism and Calvinism, which led him to Unitarianism.<ref name ="Smith-2015">{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Gary Scott |url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391394.001.0001/acprof-9780199391394 |title=Religion in the Oval Office: The Religious Lives of American Presidents |date=2015-03-31 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-939139-4 |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199391394.003.0002| quote="Adams sought to steer a middle course between Deism and skepticism, on one side, and Calvinism, on the other, that led him to lean toward Arminianism and ultimately embrace Unitarianism."}}</ref> In his later years, Adams moved towards rational Enlightenment ideals, and in a letter dated December 25, 1813, Adams suggested that the Christian Trinity was a "fabrication" derived from Pythagorean and Platonic philosophies rather than divine revelation, and expressed surprise that theologian Joseph Priestley had overlooked these connections to pre-Christian thought.<ref name="Adams-Dec-1813-Tri">{{Cite web |title=Founders Online: John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 25 December 1813 |url=http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-07-02-0040 |access-date=2026-02-16 |website=founders.archives.gov |language=en| quote ="I wonder that Priestley has overlooked this (Timaeus's philosophy of Matter, Moving Power, and directing Intelligence) because it is the same philosophy as Plato’s and would have shown that the Pythagorean as well as the Platonic Philosophers probably concurred in the fabrication of the Christian Trinity.”}}</ref> Adams's faith is often described as Christian Deism, since Unitarianism in his time had expanded to include non-theistic schools of thought.<ref name ="Oxford-Adams">{{Citation |last=Holmes |first=David L |title=The Religious Views of John Adams |date=2006-05-01 |work=The Faiths of the Founding Fathers |pages=73–78 |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/49983/chapter/422704966 |access-date=2026-02-16 |publisher=Oxford University PressNew York, NY |language=en |doi=10.1093/oso/9780195300925.003.0007 |isbn=978-0-19-530092-5|quote="Adams was the first president who was a Unitarian, a faith that, in Adams’s case, could be described with some accuracy as “Christian Deism.” Since the time of Adams, Unitarianism in America has expanded to include schools of thought that regard themselves as neither theistic nor Christian."|url-access=subscription }}</ref> He argued that one's salvation depended on behavior rather than belief.<ref name ="Smith-2015"/>
===Deism in France and continental Europe=== [[File:Nicolas de Largillière, François-Marie Arouet dit Voltaire adjusted.png|thumb|upright|Portrait of Voltaire in the Palace of Versailles, 1724-1725]]
France had its own tradition of religious skepticism and natural theology in the works of Montaigne, Pierre Bayle, and Montesquieu. The most famous of the French Deists was Voltaire, who was exposed to Newtonian science and English Deism during his two-year period of exile in England (1726–1728). When he returned to France, he brought both back with him, and exposed the French reading public (i.e., the aristocracy) to them, in a number of books.
French Deists also included Maximilien Robespierre and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. During the French Revolution (1789–1799), the Deistic Cult of the Supreme Being—a direct expression of Robespierre's theological views—was established briefly (just under three months) as the new state religion of France, replacing the deposed Catholic Church and the rival atheistic Cult of Reason.
There were over five hundred French Revolutionaries who were deists. These deists do not fit the stereotype of deists because they believed in miracles and often prayed to God. In fact, over seventy of them thought that God miraculously helped the French Revolution win victories over their enemies. Furthermore, over a hundred French Revolutionary deists also wrote prayers and hymns to God. Citizen Devillere was one of the many French Revolutionary deists who believed God did miracles. Devillere said, "God, who conducts our destiny, deigned to concern himself with our dangers. He commanded the spirit of victory to direct the hand of the faithful French, and in a few hours the aristocrats received the attack which we prepared, the wicked ones were destroyed and liberty was avenged."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Devillere |first=Citizen |title=Archives parlementaires de la révolution français |publisher=Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique |year=1987 |pages=361–362}}</ref>
Deism in Germany is not well documented. We know from correspondence with Voltaire that Frederick the Great was a Deist. Immanuel Kant's identification with Deism is controversial.<ref>Allen Wood argues that Kant was Deist. See "Kant's Deism" in P. Rossi and M. Wreen (eds.), ''Kant's Philosophy of Religion Reconsidered'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991). An argument against Kant as deist is Stephen Palmquist's "Kant's Theistic Solution". http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/srp/arts/KTS.html {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050722081614/http://www.hkbu.edu.hk/~ppp/srp/arts/KTS.html |date=2005-07-22 }}</ref>
===Decline of Enlightenment Deism=== Peter Gay describes Enlightenment Deism as entering slow decline as a recognizable movement in the 1730s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gay |title=(see above) }} “After the writings of Woolston and Tindal, English deism went into slow decline. ... By the 1730s, nearly all the arguments in behalf of Deism ... had been offered and refined; the intellectual caliber of leading Deists was none too impressive; and the opponents of deism finally mustered some formidable spokesmen. The Deists of these decades, Peter Annet (1693–1769), Thomas Chubb (1679–1747), and Thomas Morgan (?–1743), are of significance to the specialist alone. ... It had all been said before, and better. .” (p.140) </ref> A number of reasons have been suggested for this decline, including:<ref name=EoP-Mossner> {{cite encyclopedia |title=Deism |first=Ernest Campbell |last=Mossner |author-link=Ernest Campbell Mossner |publisher=Collier-MacMillan |year=1967 |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Philosophy |volume=2 |pages=326–336}} </ref> * The increasing influence of naturalism and materialism. * The writings of David Hume and Immanuel Kant raising questions about the ability of reason to address metaphysical questions. * The violence of the French Revolution. * Christian revivalist movements, such as Pietism and Methodism (which emphasized a personal relationship with God), along with the rise of anti-rationalist and counter-Enlightenment philosophies such as that of Johann Georg Hamann.<ref name=EoP-Mossner />
Although Deism has declined in popularity over time, scholars believe that these ideas still have a lingering influence on modern society.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Van den Berg |first=Jan |date=October 2019 |title=The Development of Modern Deism |journal=Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte |location=Leiden and Boston |publisher=Brill Publishers |volume=71 |issue=4 |pages=335–356 |doi=10.1163/15700739-07104002 |s2cid=211652706 |eissn=1570-0739 |issn=0044-3441}}</ref> One of the major activities of the Deists, biblical criticism, evolved into its own highly technical discipline. Deist rejection of revealed religion evolved into, and contributed to, 19th-century liberal British theology and the rise of Unitarianism.<ref name=EoP-Mossner />
== Contemporary Deism<!--'Monodeism' redirects here--> ==
Contemporary Deism attempts to integrate classical Deism with modern philosophy and the current state of scientific knowledge. This attempt has produced a wide variety of personal beliefs under the broad classification of belief of "deism."
There are a number of subcategories of modern Deism, including '''monodeism'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> (the default, standard concept of deism), pandeism, panendeism, spiritual deism, process deism, Christian deism, polydeism, scientific deism, and humanistic deism.<ref>José M. Lozano-Gotor, "Deism", ''[https://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-4020-8265-8_1573 Encyclopedia of Sciences and Religions]'' (Springer: 2013). "[Deism] takes different forms, for example, humanistic, scientific, Christian, spiritual deism, pandeism, and panendeism."</ref><ref>Mikhail Epstein, ''Postatheism and the phenomenon of minimal religion in Russia'', in Justin Beaumont, ed., ''The Routledge Handbook of Postsecularity'' (2018), p. 83, n. 3: "I refer here to monodeism as the default standard concept of deism, distinct from polydeism, pandeism, and spiritual deism."</ref><ref>[http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/what-is-deism What Is Deism?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160417043829/http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/what-is-deism |date=2016-04-17 }}, Douglas MacGowan, ''Mother Nature Network'', May 21, 2015: "Over time there have been other schools of thought formed under the umbrella of deism including Christian deism, belief in deistic principles coupled with the moral teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and Pandeism, a belief that God became the entire universe and no longer exists as a separate being."</ref> Some deists see design in nature and purpose in the universe and in their lives. Others see God and the universe in a co-creative process. Some deists view God in classical terms as observing humanity but not directly intervening in our lives, while others see God as a subtle and persuasive spirit who created the world, and then stepped back to observe.
===Recent philosophical discussions of Deism=== In the 1960s, theologian Charles Hartshorne scrupulously examined and rejected both deism and pandeism (as well as pantheism) in favor of a conception of God whose characteristics included "absolute perfection in some respects, relative perfection in all others" or "AR," writing that this theory "is able consistently to embrace all that is positive in either deism or pandeism," concluding that "panentheistic doctrine contains all of deism and pandeism except their arbitrary negations."<ref>{{cite book|first=Charles|last=Hartshorne|title=Man's Vision of God and the Logic of Theism|year=1964|page=348|publisher=Archon Books |isbn=0-208-00498-X}}</ref>
Charles Taylor, in his 2007 book ''A Secular Age'', showed the historical role of Deism, leading to what he calls an "exclusive humanism". This humanism invokes a moral order whose ontic commitment is wholly intra-human with no reference to transcendence.<ref>{{cite book | last= Taylor | first= C | year= 2007 | title= A Secular Age | location= Cambridge, Massachusetts | publisher=Harvard University Press }} p.256. </ref> One of the special achievements of such deism-based humanism is that it discloses new, anthropocentric moral sources by which human beings are motivated and empowered to accomplish acts of mutual benefit.<ref>{{cite book | last=Taylor | title=(see above) }} p.257. </ref> This is the province of a buffered, disengaged self, which is the locus of dignity, freedom, and discipline, and is endowed with a sense of human capability.<ref>{{cite book | last=Taylor | title=(see above) }} p.262. </ref> According to Taylor, by the early 19th century this Deism-mediated exclusive humanism developed as an alternative to Christian faith in a personal God and an order of miracles and mystery. Some critics of Deism have accused adherents of facilitating the rise of nihilism.<ref>Essien, Anthonia M. "The sociological implications of the worldview of the Annang people: an advocacy for paradigm shift." Journal of Emerging Trends in Educational Research and Policy Studies 1.1 (2010): 29-35.</ref>
=== Deism in Nazi Germany === {{Main|Gottgläubig|Ideology of the Nazi Party|Religion in Nazi Germany}} {{Further|Kirchenkampf|Reichskonkordat|Religious aspects of Nazism}} thumb|left|upright|''On positive German God-belief'' (1939)
In Nazi Germany, ''Gottgläubig'' (literally: "believing in God")<ref name="Steigmann-Gall">{{Cite book |last=Steigmann-Gall |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Steigmann-Gall |year=2003 |chapter=''Gottgläubig'': Assent of the Anti-Christians? |chapter-url=https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/12631/1/NQ41317.pdf |url-status=live |title=The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945 |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=218–260 |doi=10.1017/CBO9780511818103.009 |isbn=9780511818103 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428235847/https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/12631/1/NQ41317.pdf |archive-date=28 April 2021 |access-date=9 March 2022}}</ref><ref name="Ziegler">{{Cite book |last=Ziegler |first=Herbert F. |date=2014 |title=Nazi Germany's New Aristocracy: The SS Leadership, 1925-1939 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kBgABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA86 |url-status=live |location=Princeton, New Jersey |publisher=Princeton University Press |pages=85–87 |isbn=978-14-00-86036-4 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180510154611/https://books.google.com/books?id=kBgABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA86 |archive-date=10 May 2018 |access-date=9 March 2022}}</ref> was a Nazi religious term for a form of non-denominationalism practised by those German citizens who had officially left Christian churches but professed faith in some higher power or divine creator.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall"/> Such people were called ''Gottgläubige'' ("believers in God"), and the term for the overall movement was ''Gottgläubigkeit'' ("belief in God"); the term denotes someone who still believes in a God, although without having any institutional religious affiliation.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall"/> These National Socialists were not favourable towards religious institutions of their time, nor did they tolerate atheism of any type within their ranks.<ref name="Ziegler"/><ref name="Burleigh 2012">Burleigh, Michael: [https://books.google.com/books?id=l5gcZpnL5QUC&dq=gottglaubig&pg=PA196 The Third Reich: A New History; 2012; pp. 196–197] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160527135625/https://books.google.com/books?id=l5gcZpnL5QUC&pg=PA196&dq=gottglaubig&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RVtlU-L_HNGe7AbJ64DoBg&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=gottglaubig&f=false |date=27 May 2016 }}</ref> The 1943 ''Philosophical Dictionary'' defined ''Gottgläubig'' as: "official designation for those who profess a specific kind of piety and morality, without being bound to a church denomination, whilst however also rejecting irreligion and godlessness."<ref>{{Cite book |date=1943 |title=Philosophisches Wörterbuch Kröners Taschenausgabe. Volume 12 |page=206 |chapter=amtliche Bezeichnung für diejenigen, die sich zu einer artgemäßen Frömmigkeit und Sittlichkeit bekennen, ohne konfessionell-kirchlich gebunden zu sein, andererseits aber Religions- und Gottlosigkeit verwerfen}}. Cited in Cornelia Schmitz-Berning, 2007, p. 281 ff.</ref> The ''Gottgläubigkeit'' is considered a form of deism, and was "predominantly based on creationist and deistic views".<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6XHOEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22gottgl%C3%A4ubig%22+%22deist%22&pg=RA2-PA1939 |title=Adolf Hitler: A Biography |page=75 |first=Ileen |last=Bear |year=2016 |isbn=9789386019479 |publisher=Alpha Editions}}</ref>
In the 1920 National Socialist Programme of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), Adolf Hitler first mentioned the phrase "Positive Christianity". The Nazi Party did not wish to tie itself to a particular Christian denomination, but with Christianity in general, and sought freedom of religion for all denominations "so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race" (point 24). When Hitler and the NSDAP got into power in 1933, they sought to assert state control over the churches, on the one hand through the ''Reichskonkordat'' with the Roman Catholic Church, and the forced merger of the German Evangelical Church Confederation into the Protestant Reich Church on the other. This policy seems to have gone relatively well until late 1936, when a "gradual worsening of relations" between the Nazi Party and the churches saw the rise of ''Kirchenaustritt'' ("leaving the Church").<ref name="Steigmann-Gall"/> Although there was no top-down official directive to revoke church membership, some Nazi Party members started doing so voluntarily and put other members under pressure to follow their example.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall"/> Those who left the churches were designated as ''Gottgläubige'' ("believers in God"), a term officially recognised by the Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick on 26 November 1936. He stressed that the term signified political disassociation from the churches, not an act of religious apostasy.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall"/> The term "dissident", which some church leavers had used up until then, was associated with being "without belief" (''glaubenslos''), whilst most of them emphasized that they still believed in a God, and thus required a different word.<ref name="Steigmann-Gall"/>
A census in May 1939, six years into the Nazi era,<ref>Johnson, Eric (2000). ''Nazi terror: the Gestapo, Jews, and ordinary Germans'' New York: Basic Books, [https://books.google.com/books?id=gmuw9TvbFdUC&pg=PA10 p. 10.]</ref> and after the annexation of the mostly Catholic Federal State of Austria and mostly Catholic German-occupied Czechoslovakia<ref>In 1930, Czechia had 8.3 million inhabitants: 78.5% Catholics, 10% Protestants (Hussites and Czech Brethren) and 7.8% irreligious or undeclared citizens. {{cite web|url=https://www.czso.cz/documents/10180/32846217/130055160118.xlsx/8da2b875-fd8c-4a7a-b697-4735cdeaf7f5?version=1.0|title=Population by religious belief and sex by 1921, 1930, 1950, 1991, 2001 and 2011 censuses 1)|language=cs, en|access-date=2 January 2017|publisher=Czech Statistical Office|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170117194829/https://www.czso.cz/documents/10180/32846217/130055160118.xlsx/8da2b875-fd8c-4a7a-b697-4735cdeaf7f5?version=1.0|archive-date=17 January 2017}}</ref> into German-occupied Europe, indicates{{sfn|Ericksen|Heschel|1999|p=10}} that 54% of the population considered itself Protestant, 41% considered itself Catholic, 3.5% self-identified as ''Gottgläubig'',<ref name="Evans546">Richard J. Evans; ''The Third Reich at War''; Penguin Press; New York 2009, p. 546</ref><ref name="books.google.de">{{cite book |last=Lumans |first=Valdis O. |year=1993 |title=Himmler's Auxiliaries: The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle and the German National Minorities of Europe, 1933–1945 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TIZSO31iSO4C&q=gottglaubig&pg=PA48 |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=9780807820667 |page=48 |access-date=2023-05-17 |archive-date=2023-04-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230417144005/https://books.google.com/books?id=TIZSO31iSO4C&q=gottglaubig&pg=PA48 |url-status=live }}</ref> and 1.5% as "atheist".<ref name="Evans546"/>
=== Deism in Turkey === {{Main|Irreligion in Turkey}} {{Further|Secularism in Turkey}} [[File:Ataturk1930s.jpg|thumb|upright|Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation.<ref name="ÁgostonMasters2009">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Cuthell |first=David Cameron Jr. |year=2009 |editor1-last=Ágoston |editor1-first=Gábor |editor2-first=Bruce |editor2-last=Masters |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire |chapter=Atatürk, Kemal (Mustafa Kemal) |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QjzYdCxumFcC&pg=PA56 |location=New York |publisher=Facts On File |pages=56–60 |isbn=978-0-8160-6259-1 |lccn=2008020716 |access-date=23 January 2021}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |title=Atatürk, Kemal |date=2014 |url=https://archive.org/details/worldencyclopedi00oxfo |encyclopedia=World Encyclopedia |publisher=Philip's |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780199546091.001.0001 |isbn=9780199546091 |access-date=9 June 2019 |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Books |first=Market House Books Market House |title=Atatürk, Kemal |date=2003 |url=https://archive.org/details/whoswhointwentie00brig |work=Who's Who in the Twentieth Century |editor-last=Books |editor-first=Market House |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780192800916.001.0001 |isbn=9780192800916 |access-date=9 June 2019}}</ref>]]
An early April 2018 report of the Turkish Ministry of Education, titled ''The Youth is Sliding towards Deism'', observed that an increasing number of pupils in İmam Hatip schools was repudiating Islam in favour of Deism (irreligious belief in a creator god).{{refn|<ref name="McKernan 2020">{{cite news |last=McKernan |first=Bethan |date=29 April 2020 |title=Turkish students increasingly resisting religion, study suggests |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/turkish-students-increasingly-resisting-religion-study-suggests |url-status=live |work=The Guardian |location=London |issn=1756-3224 |oclc=60623878 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211122171105/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/29/turkish-students-increasingly-resisting-religion-study-suggests |archive-date=22 November 2021 |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="Sarfati 2019">{{cite magazine |last=Sarfati |first=Yusuf |date=15 April 2019 |title=State Monopolization of Religion and Declining Piety in Turkey |url=https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/state-monopolization-of-religion-and-declining-piety-in-turkey |url-status=live |magazine=Berkley Forum |location=Washington, D.C. |publisher=Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs (Georgetown University) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210516220605/https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/responses/state-monopolization-of-religion-and-declining-piety-in-turkey |archive-date=16 May 2021 |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="Bekdil 2021">{{cite magazine |last=Bekdil |first=Burak |date=20 May 2021 |title=Turks May Be Rediscovering the Merits of the Secular Paradigm |url=https://besacenter.org/turks-may-be-rediscovering-the-merits-of-the-secular-paradigm/ |url-status=live |magazine=BESA Center Perspectives |publisher=Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (Bar-Ilan University) |location=Tel Aviv |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210718121849/https://besacenter.org/turks-may-be-rediscovering-the-merits-of-the-secular-paradigm/ |archive-date=18 July 2021 |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="Akyol 2020">{{cite magazine |last=Akyol |first=Mustafa |date=12 June 2020 |title=How Islamists are Ruining Islam |url=https://www.hudson.org/research/16131-how-islamists-are-ruining-islam |url-status=live |magazine=Current Trends in Islamist Ideology |publisher=Hudson Institute |location=Washington, D.C. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211225174332/https://www.hudson.org/research/16131-how-islamists-are-ruining-islam |archive-date=25 December 2021 |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="MERIP 2018">{{cite magazine |last=Bilici |first=Mucahit |date=Fall 2018 |title=The Crisis of Religiosity in Turkish Islamism |url=https://merip.org/2018/12/the-crisis-of-religiosity-in-turkish-islamism/ |url-status=live |magazine=Middle East Report |publisher=MERIP |location=Tacoma, Washington |issue=288 |pages=43–45 |issn=0899-2851 |jstor=45198325 |oclc=615545050 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211013021037/https://merip.org/2018/12/the-crisis-of-religiosity-in-turkish-islamism/ |archive-date=13 October 2021 |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="Girit 2018">{{cite news |last=Girit |first=Selin |date=10 May 2018 |title=Losing their religion: The young Turks rejecting Islam |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43981745 |url-status=live |work=BBC News |location=London |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211206105549/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43981745 |archive-date=6 December 2021 |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref><ref name="Külsoy 2018">{{cite news |last=Külsoy |first=Ahmet |date=6 May 2018 |title=What is pushing half of Turkey towards Deism? |url=https://ahvalnews.com/islam/what-pushing-half-turkey-towards-deism |url-status=live |work=Ahval News |location=Cyprus |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109042354/https://ahvalnews.com/islam/what-pushing-half-turkey-towards-deism |archive-date=9 November 2020 |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref>}} The report's publication generated large-scale controversy in the Turkish press and society at large, as well as amongst conservative Islamic sects, Muslim clerics, and Islamist parties in Turkey.{{refn|<ref name="McKernan 2020"/><ref name="Sarfati 2019"/><ref name="Bekdil 2021"/><ref name="Akyol 2020"/><ref name="MERIP 2018"/><ref name="Girit 2018"/><ref name="Külsoy 2018"/>}}
The progressive Muslim theologian Mustafa Öztürk noted the Deistic trend among Turkish people a year earlier, arguing that the "very archaic, dogmatic notion of religion" held by the majority of those claiming to represent Islam was causing "the new generations [to become] indifferent, even distant, to the Islamic worldview." Despite a lack of reliable statistical data, numerous anecdotes and independent surveys appear to point in this direction.{{refn|<ref name="McKernan 2020"/><ref name="Sarfati 2019"/><ref name="Bekdil 2021"/><ref name="Akyol 2020"/><ref name="MERIP 2018"/><ref name="Girit 2018"/><ref name="Külsoy 2018"/>}} Although some commentators claim that the secularization of Turkey is merely a result of Western influence or even an alleged "conspiracy", other commentators, even some pro-government ones, have come to the conclusion that "the real reason for the loss of faith in Islam is not the West but Turkey itself".<ref>{{cite news |last=Akyol |first=Mustafa |date=16 April 2018 |title=Why so many Turks are losing faith in Islam |url=https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2018/04/turkey-why-so-many-turks-are-losing-faith-in-islam.html |url-status=live |work=Al-Monitor |location=Washington, D.C. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210815011838/https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2018/04/turkey-why-so-many-turks-are-losing-faith-in-islam.html |archive-date=15 August 2021 |access-date=17 January 2022}}</ref>
=== Contemporary Deism in the United States === {{Main|Irreligion in the United States}} Though Deism subsided in the United States post-Enlightenment, it never died out entirely. Thomas Edison, for example, was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine's ''The Age of Reason''.<ref name="Israel">{{cite book|last=Israel|first=Paul|author-link=Paul Israel (historian)|title=Edison: A Life of Invention|year=2000|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-471-36270-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/edisonlifeofinve0000isra_l4c0 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism", saying, "He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity."<ref name="Israel" /> In 1878, Edison joined the Theosophical Society in New Jersey,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://tsmembers.org/|title=Theosophical Society Members 1875–1942 – Historical membership list of the Theosophical Society (Adyar) 1875–1942|website=tsmembers.org|access-date=October 8, 2018|archive-date=October 9, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181009092813/https://tsmembers.org/|url-status=live}}</ref> but according to its founder, Helena Blavatsky, he was not a very active member.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Collected Writings, Vol. XII|last=Blavatsky|first=Helena Petrovna|publisher=Theosophical Publishing House|year=1980|location=Wheaton, IL|pages=130}}</ref> In an October 2, 1910, interview in the ''New York Times Magazine'', Edison stated:{{blockquote| Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me—the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love—He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us—nature did it all—not the gods of the religions.<ref>{{cite news |title="No Immortality of the Soul" says Thomas A. Edison. In Fact, He Doesn't Believe There Is a Soul—Human Beings Only an Aggregate of Cells and the Brain Only a Wonderful Machine, Says Wizard of Electricity |quote=Thomas A. Edison in the following interview for the first time speaks to the public on the vital subjects of the human soul and immortality. It will be bound to be a most fascinating, an amazing statement, from one of the most notable and interesting men of the age ... Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me—the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love—He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us—nature did it all—not the gods of the religions. |work=The New York Times |date=October 2, 1910}}</ref> }} Edison was labeled an atheist for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he clarified himself in a private letter: {{blockquote|You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made.<ref name=Israel />}}
He also stated, "I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt."<ref>''[https://books.google.com/books?id=75ldAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+do+not+believe+in+the+God+of+the+theologians;+but+that+there+is+a+Supreme+Intelligence+I+do+not+doubt%22 The Freethinker] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200619214033/https://books.google.com/books?id=75ldAAAAMAAJ&q=%22I+do+not+believe+in+the+God+of+the+theologians;+but+that+there+is+a+Supreme+Intelligence+I+do+not+doubt%22&dq=%22I+do+not+believe+in+the+God+of+the+theologians;+but+that+there+is+a+Supreme+Intelligence+I+do+not+doubt |date=June 19, 2020 }}'' (1970), G.W. Foote & Company, Volume 90, p. 147</ref>
The 2001 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) report estimated that between 1990 and 2001 the number of self-identifying Deists grew from 6,000 to 49,000, representing about 0.02% of the U.S. population at the time.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2013/11/ARIS-2001-report-complete.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151123080152/http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2013/11/ARIS-2001-report-complete.pdf |archive-date=2015-11-23 |url-status=live |title=American Religious Identification Survey, 2001 |year=2001 |access-date=2019-09-18}}</ref> The 2008 ARIS survey found, based on their stated beliefs rather than their religious identification, that 70% of Americans believe in a personal God:<ref name="personal" group="lower-roman">The American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) report notes that while "[n]o definition was offered of the terms, [they] are usually associated with a 'personal relationship' with Jesus Christ together with a certain view of salvation, scripture, and missionary work" (p. 11).</ref> roughly 12% are atheists or agnostics, and 12% believe in "a deist or paganistic concept of the Divine as a higher power" rather than a personal God.<ref name="ARIS">{{cite web |url=http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2011/08/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120105073231/http://commons.trincoll.edu/aris/files/2011/08/ARIS_Report_2008.pdf |archive-date=2012-01-05 |url-status=live |title=ARIS Summary Report, March 2009 |year=2009 |access-date=2017-03-18}}</ref>
The term "ceremonial deism" was coined in 1962 by the dean of Yale Law School and American legal scholar Eugene V. Rostow,<ref>{{cite journal |author-last=Hill |author-first=B. Jessie |date=January 2010 |title=Of Christmas Trees and Corpus Christi: Ceremonial Deism and Change in Meaning over Time |url=https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1449&context=dlj |url-status=live |format=PDF |journal=Duke Law Journal |volume=59 |issue=4 |location=Durham, North Carolina |publisher=Duke University School of Law |page=711 |issn=1939-9111 |jstor=20684820 |lccn=sf82007022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120126203534/https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1449&context=dlj |archive-date=26 January 2012 |access-date=21 January 2026}}</ref> and has been used since 1984 by the Supreme Court to assess exemptions from the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, thought to be expressions of cultural tradition and not earnest invocations of a deity. However, American academic and professor of philosophy Martha Nussbaum remarks that the term does not describe any school of thought within Deism itself.<ref>Martha Nussbaum, [http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2008/undergod Under God: The Pledge, Present and Future] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170807100105/http://www.law.uchicago.edu/alumni/magazine/fall2008/undergod |date=2017-08-07 }}</ref>
Another related rational theology that has continued with several ideals similar to Deism, has been Unitarianism<ref>({{ety|la|unitas|unity, oneness}})</ref> which considers one universal God as the creator of the universe<ref name="Bremer 2015"/>. Unitarian theology emerged though a critique of the traditional Christian theology of the Trinity, which regarded God as three distinct but unified beings—transcendent Creator God, human Savior God (i.e., Jesus Christ), and immanent Spiritual God (i.e., the Holy Spirit). Unitarians, similar to Deists, embraced a view of God as a singular, unified entity, and rejected non-rational Biblical miracles.<ref name="Bremer 2015">{{cite book |last=Bremer |first=Thomas S. |year=2015 |title=Formed From This Soil: An Introduction to the Diverse History of Religion in America |chapter=Transcendentalism |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GE3YBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA235 |location=Chichester, West Sussex |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |page=235 |doi=10.1002/9781394260959 |isbn=978-1-4051-8927-9 |lccn=2014030507 |s2cid=127980793 |access-date=2023-01-13 |archive-date=2023-01-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113235453/https://books.google.com/books?id=GE3YBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA235 |url-status=live }}</ref>
Further, Universalism is a rational philosophical and theological concept that has been gaining ground, holding the fundamental tenet that the living truth that aligns with universal values is more important than religious interpretations of truth. <ref name =""UN">{{Cite web |author=United Nations |title=Are Human Rights Universal? |url=https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/are-human-rights-universal |access-date=2021-04-17 |website=United Nations |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Benhabib |first=Seyla |date=2007 |title=Another Universalism: On the Unity and Diversity of Human Rights |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27653991 |journal=Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association |volume=81 |issue=2 |pages=7–32 |jstor=27653991 |issn=0065-972X}}</ref> 'Universalists' emphasize the universal principles of many religions that align with human rights and values.<ref name = "Otis"> Otis Ainsworth Skinner (1807-1861), ''A Series of Sermons in Defense of the Doctrine of Universal Salvation'', Page 209. It is not part of mainline Christian doctrine, either Catholic or Protestant.. Unitarian Universalism holds a universal salvation"</ref>
A variant of Universalism is Christian universalism, a Christian theology that accepts the doctrine of universal reconciliation – the view that all human beings will ultimately be saved and restored to a right relationship with God. As a formal Christian denomination, Christian universalism originated in the late 18th century with the Universalist Church of America. Their membership was consolidated with the American Unitarian Association to form the Unitarian Universalist Association in 1961.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Briscoe |first=Natalie |date=2023-05-02 |title=Happy May! Let's Celebrate Consolidation Day! |url=https://www.uua.org/southern/blog/happy-may-lets-celebrate-consolidation-day |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230925052933/https://www.uua.org/southern/blog/happy-may-lets-celebrate-consolidation-day |archive-date=2023-09-25 |website=Unitarian Universalist Association}}</ref>
==See also== {{Portal|Literature|Philosophy|Religion}} {{cols|colwidth=30em}} * American Enlightenment * Atheism during the Age of Enlightenment * Deism in England and France in the 18th century * Deistic evolution * Demythologization * God gene * Great Architect of the Universe * Irreligion ** Agnostic theism ** Apatheism ** Ietsism ** Naturalistic pantheism ** Theological noncognitivism * Infinitism * List of deists * Moralistic therapeutic deism * Non-physical entity * Nontheism ** Creator in Buddhism ** Nontheistic religion * Philosophical theism * Religious affiliations of presidents of the United States * Religious interpretations of the Big Bang theory * Religious naturalism * Spiritual but not religious * The One (Neoplatonism) * Theistic rationalism * Transcendentalism * Unitarian Universalism * Unmoved mover * ''Urmonotheismus'' {{colend}}
==References==
===Notes=== {{Reflist|35em|group=lower-roman}}
===Citations=== {{Reflist|30em}}
==Bibliography== {{Wikiquote}}
===Histories=== * Betts, C. J. ''Early Deism in France: From the so-called 'deistes' of Lyon (1564) to Voltaire's 'Lettres philosophiques' (1734)'' (Martinus Nijhoff, 1984) * Craig, William Lane. ''The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus During the Deist Controversy'' (Edwin Mellen, 1985) * Hazard, Paul. ''European thought in the eighteenth century from Montesquieu to Lessing'' (1954). pp 393–434. * {{Cite book|last=Herrick|first=James A.|author-link=James A. Herrick|title=The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680–1750|year=1997|publisher=U of South Carolina Press}} * Hudson, Wayne. ''Enlightenment and modernity: The English deists and reform'' (Routledge, 2015). * Israel, Jonathan I. ''Enlightenment contested: philosophy, modernity, and the emancipation of man 1670-1752'' (Oxford UP, 2006). * Lemay, J. A. Leo, ed.''Deism, Masonry, and the Enlightenment. Essays Honoring Alfred Owen Aldridge''. (U of Delaware Press, 1987). * Lucci, Diego. ''Scripture and deism: The biblical criticism of the eighteenth-century British deists'' (Peter Lang, 2008). * McKee, David Rice. ''Simon Tyssot de Patot and the Seventeenth-Century Background of Critical Deism'' (Johns Hopkins Press, 1941) * Orr, John. ''English Deism: Its Roots and Its Fruits'' (1934) * Schlereth, Eric R. ''An Age of Infidels: The Politics of Religious Controversy in the Early United States'' (U of Pennsylvania Press; 2013) 295 pages; on conflicts between deists and their opponents. * Willey, Basil. ''The Eighteenth Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period'' (1940) * Yoder, Timothy S. ''Hume on God: Irony, deism and genuine theism'' (Bloomsbury, 2008).
===Primary sources=== * {{Cite book|last=Paine|first=Thomas|author-link=Thomas Paine|title=The Age of Reason|url=http://www.deism.com/theageofreason.htm|year=1795|access-date=2009-04-13|archive-date=2019-08-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190816022930/http://www.deism.com/theageofreason.htm|url-status=dead}} * {{Cite book|last=Palmer|first=Elihu|title=The Principles of Nature|url=http://www.deism.com/principlesofnature.htm|access-date=2009-04-13|archive-date=2019-08-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190805114726/http://www.deism.com/principlesofnature.htm|url-status=dead}} * ''Deism: An Anthology'' by Peter Gay (Van Nostrand, 1968) * ''Deism and Natural Religion: A Source Book'' by E. Graham Waring (Frederick Ungar, 1967) * ''The American Deists: Voices of Reason & Dissent in the Early Republic'' by Kerry S. Walters (University of Kansas Press, 1992), which includes an extensive bibliographic essay * {{Cite book|title=Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You|url=https://www.deism.com/product-page/deism-a-revolution-in-religion-a-revolution-in-you|access-date=2009-04-13|archive-date=2009-04-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090419155220/http://www.deism.com/deismbook.htm|url-status=dead}} by Bob Johnson, founder of the World Union of Deists * {{Cite book|title=God Gave Us Reason, Not Religion|url=http://deism.com/Godreasonnotreligion.htm|access-date=2015-11-19|archive-date=2019-07-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190729144328/http://www.deism.com/Godreasonnotreligion.htm|url-status=dead}} by Bob Johnson * {{Cite book|title=An Answer to C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity|url=http://deism.com/answer_mere_christianity.htm|access-date=2015-11-19|archive-date=2019-09-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190909135027/http://www.deism.com/answer_mere_christianity.htm|url-status=dead}} by Bob Johnson
===Secondary sources=== *{{cite book |author-last=Addante |author-first=Luca |year=2019 |chapter=Part II: Europe and The Iberian Connection – Unbelief, Deism, and Libertinism in Sixteenth-Century Italy |editor1-last=García-Arenal |editor1-first=Mercedes |editor2-last=Pastore |editor2-first=Stefania |title=From Doubt to Unbelief: Forms of Scepticism in the Iberian World |location=Cambridge |publisher=Modern Humanities Research Association |series=Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Cultures |volume=42 |pages=107–122 |doi=10.2307/j.ctv16km0hq.11 |isbn=978-1-781888-69-8|s2cid=242496485 }} *{{cite journal |last=Aldridge |first=A. Owen |date=October 1997 |title=Natural Religion and Deism in America before Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |location=Williamsburg, Virginia |publisher=Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture |volume=54 |issue=4: ''Religion in Early America'' |pages=835–848 |doi=10.2307/2953885 |jstor=2953885 |issn=1933-7698}} * {{Citation|last=Bobzien|first=Susanne| author-link = Susanne Bobzien | contribution=Logic|title=The Oxford Classical Dictionary|year=1996a|editor1-first=Simon|editor1-last=Hornblower|editor2-first=Antony|editor2-last=Spawforth|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-1986-6172-6|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780198661726}} *{{cite journal |last=Bonoan |first=Raoul J. |date=1992 |title=The Enlightenment, Deism, and Rizal |journal=Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints |location=Quezon City |publisher=Ateneo de Manila University |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=53–67 |issn=2244-1638 |jstor=42633293}} *{{cite book |author-last=Champion |author-first=Justin A. I. |year=1999 |chapter=DEISM |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ok4F_SawQaEC&pg=PA437 |editor-last=Popkin |editor-first=Richard H. |title=The Columbia History of Western Philosophy |location=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |pages=437–445 |jstor=10.7312/popk10128.70 |isbn=9780231500340}} *{{cite book |last1=Ericksen |first1=Robert P. |author-link1=Robert Ericksen |last2=Heschel |first2=Susannah |author-link2=Susannah Heschel |title=Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust |year=1999 |publisher=Augsberg Fortress |location=Minneapolis |isbn=978-0-8006-2931-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/betrayalgermanch00eric}} *{{cite journal |last=Hussaini |first=Sayed Hassan |author-link=Sayed Hassan Akhlaq |date=2016 |title=Islamic Philosophy between Theism and Deism |journal=Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia |location=Braga |publisher=Aletheia - Associação Científica e Cultural |volume=72 |issue=1: ''Teísmos: Aportações Filosóficas do Leste e Oeste / Theisms: Philosophical Contributions from the East to the West'' |pages=65–83 |doi=10.17990/RPF/2016_72_1_0065 |issn=0870-5283 |jstor=43816275}} *{{cite book |last=Lynch |first=John |author-link=John Lynch (historian) |year=2012 |chapter=Religion in the Age of Enlightenment |title=New Worlds: A Religious History of Latin America |location=New Haven and London |publisher=Yale University Press |pages=64–105 |isbn=9780300166804 |jstor=j.ctt1npmbn.8 |lccn=2011041757}} *{{cite journal |last=Lyttle |first=Charles |date=March 1933 |title=Deistic Piety in the Cults of the French Revolution |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_church-history_1933-03_2_1/page/22 |journal=Church History |location=Cambridge and New York |publisher=Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Society of Church History |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=22–40 |doi=10.1017/S0009640700120049 |issn=1755-2613 |jstor=3691955 |s2cid=154689430}} *{{cite journal |last=Perry |first=Seth |date=April 2021 |title=''Paine Detected'' in Mississippi: Slavery, Print Culture, and the Threat of Deism in the Early Republic |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |location=Williamsburg, Virginia |publisher=Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture |volume=78 |issue=2 |pages=313–338 |doi=10.5309/willmaryquar.78.2.0313 |s2cid=234772508 |issn=1933-7698}} *{{cite journal |last1=Phillips, III |first1=Russell E. |last2=Pargament |first2=Kenneth I. |last3=Lynn |first3=Quinten K. |last4=Crossley |first4=Craig D. |date=August 2004 |title=Self-Directing Religious Coping: A Deistic God, Abandoning God, or No God at All? |journal=Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion |location=Chichester, West Sussex |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=409–418 |doi=10.1111/j.1468-5906.2004.00243.x |issn=1468-5906 |jstor=1387634 |s2cid=144102287}} *{{Cite thesis |last=Piland |first=Tiffany |date=2011 |title=The Influence and Legacy of Deism in Eighteenth Century America |url=https://scholarship.rollins.edu/mls/8 |type=MLS thesis |publisher=Rollins College}} *{{cite book |last=Prince |first=Michael B. |year=2020 |chapter=Defoe’s Deist Masterpiece: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719 |title=The Shortest Way with Defoe: Robinson Crusoe, Deism, and the Novel |location=Charlottesville, Virginia |publisher=University of Virginia Press |pages=134–207 |doi=10.2307/j.ctvzgb6pp.7 |isbn=9780813943664|s2cid=241840122 }} * {{Citation|last=Sellars|first=John|year=2006|title=Ancient Philosophies: Stoicism|publisher=Acumen|isbn=978-1-84465-053-8}} * {{Citation|author1-last=Shenefelt|author1-first=Michael|author2-last=White|author2-first=Heidi|title=If A, Then B: How Logic Shaped the World|year=2013|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0-231-53519-9}} *{{cite journal |last=Taussig |first=Harold E. |date=July 1970 |title=Deism in Philadelphia During the Age of Franklin |url=https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/view/23468/23237 |journal=Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies |location=University Park, Pennsylvania |publisher=Penn State University Press |volume=37 |issue=3 |pages=217–236 |issn=2153-2109 |jstor=27771874}}
==Further reading== {{EB9 Poster|Deism}} *{{cite encyclopedia |author-last=Diller |author-first=Jeanine |date=Winter 2021 |title=God and Other Ultimates – 2.2 Models of God |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-ultimates/#ModeGod |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |editor-link=Edward N. Zalta |encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University |issn=1095-5054 |oclc=643092515 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220315174311/https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/god-ultimates/ |archive-date=15 March 2022 |access-date=23 March 2022}} *{{cite web |editor-last=Draper |editor-first=Paul |editor-link=Paul Draper (philosopher) |year=2008 |url=https://infidels.org/library/modern/debates/great-debate.html |url-status=live |title=God or Blind Nature: Philosophers Debate the Evidence |website=infidels.org |location=Colorado Springs, Colorado |publisher=The Secular Web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220317232120/https://infidels.org/library/modern/debates-great-debate/ |archive-date=17 March 2022 |access-date=23 March 2022}} *{{cite web |last=Staloff |first=Darren |date=January 2008 |url=https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/deism.htm |url-status=live |title=Deism and the Founding of the United States |website=nationalhumanitiescenter.org |location=Research Triangle Park, North Carolina |publisher=National Humanities Center |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081015222353/https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/tserve/eighteen/ekeyinfo/deism.htm |archive-date=15 October 2008 |access-date=28 August 2021}}
==External links== {{Wiktionary}} *{{cite web |title=World Union of Deists |date=1997–2021 |url=https://www.deism.com/ |url-status=live |website=www.deism.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210819200803/https://www.deism.com/ |archive-date=19 August 2021 |access-date=10 March 2025}} *{{cite web |title=Church of The Modern Deist |date=2012–2021 |url=http://moderndeist.org/ |url-status=live |website=moderndeist.org |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414042747/http://moderndeist.org/ |archive-date=14 April 2021 |access-date=10 March 2025}}
{{Navboxes |title = Articles related to Deism |list = {{Theism}} {{Age of Enlightenment}} {{philosophy of religion}} {{Theology}} }}
{{Authority control}}
Category:Deism