Announcement

Collapse

Apologetics 301 Guidelines

If you think this is the area where you tell everyone you are sorry for eating their lunch out of the fridge, it probably isn't the place for you


This forum is open discussion between atheists and all theists to defend and debate their views on religion or non-religion. Please respect that this is a Christian-owned forum and refrain from gratuitous blasphemy. VERY wide leeway is given in range of expression and allowable behavior as compared to other areas of the forum, and moderation is not overly involved unless necessary. Please keep this in mind. Atheists who wish to interact with theists in a way that does not seek to undermine theistic faith may participate in the World Religions Department. Non-debate question and answers and mild and less confrontational discussions can take place in General Theistics.


Forum Rules: Here
See more
See less

Refuting Deism

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Refuting Deism

    Deism is defined as the belief that reason and and the Natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of God. Deists believe God is not knowable and untouchable. God is seen as the first cause of all creation, but he is not interactive within creation. Here is an analogy, think of God as a watchmaker that winds up a clock by setting up the creation process that are guided by laws which can only be known through reason and logic.

    The following are are a sample of beliefs that are held by Deist (1):

    1. The rejection of divine revelation because it can not tell us anything about God.

    2. A belief in God is based on reason and an understanding of nature . It is deduced from one’s person experience and the observance of nature.

    3.Man cannot have a personal relationship with God, but can have feelings of awe within the human soul and his creation

    4. Humans have the ability to use reason to arrive at moral principles that create a Utilitarian-Humanistic form of ethics

    5. Deists reject divine revelation and Holy writings such as the Bible, Quran, Torah and other religious text and creeds. It is up to the individual to determine how to honor God.

    5. All men and women and society are created equal according to Natural Law .

    6. Reason and respect is a gift from God which are to be used of men.


    Now that we have outline some of the beliefs of Deism lets examine their truth claims and do an internal critique for consistency.

    1. The rejection of divine revelation because it can not tell us anything about God.

    How does a Deist know this? Given in the introduction, we see according to their beliefs, God is neither knowable nor can be defined. How does the deist know God has not given divine revelation to creation? Is the deist all knowing and all powerful? To make this claim the deist has to know something about God to reject this claim.

    2. A belief in God is based on reason and an understanding of nature . It is deduced from one’s person experience and the observance of nature.

    How does a Deist know that his reasoning is valid? They have to presuppose it in order for it to be valid. Is it possible that the Deist can be wrong about everything he claims to know about God and Nature? Second Nature only tells us that God created the universe. It does not answer the questions of how, why, and the purpose of creation. If a belief in God is deduced from personal experience how does the Deist know his experiences and observance of nature is valid and not prone to self-deception? Maybe their experiences are an illusion created by an acid trip or perhaps in another reality he is strapped down in a psyche ward somewhere.

    3. Man cannot have a personal relationship with God but can have feelings of awe within the human soul and his creation.

    The Deist claims we cannot have a personal relationship with God yet again this is an absolute claim that he knows something about God that cannot be known. After all, the Deist rejects divine revelation. The Deist is again appealing to subjective experience and feelings as a form of truth. How does he know these things are valid?

    4. Humans have the ability to use reason to arrive at moral principles which create a Utilitarian-Humanistic form of ethics.

    This argument is nothing more an appeal to moral relativism, yet it’s an absolute truth claim that humans have the ability to reason and arrive at these principles. To appeal to utilitarian ethics is to say what is true for you but not for me and what feels Good for you follow your natural reason and instincts. If that is the case then we are no better to follow the moral principles of Jeffrey Dahmer by being a psychopathic cannibal or a virtuous person such as mother Theresa. A Deist can’t say that these actions are right or wrong; morals are left up to the individual’s choice to follow them or not follow them.

    5. Deists reject divine revelation and Holy writings such as the Bible, Quran, Torah and other religious text and creeds. It is up to the individual to determine how to honor God.

    Since a Deist rejects divine revelation and substitutes for reason, how does he know anything about God at all and how does he know their reasoning is valid?. Though the Deist rejects divine revelation and Holy writings, Deism does indeed have a creed. A creed is defined as (2):

    1.any system, doctrine, or formula of religious belief, as of a denomination.

    2.any system or codification of belief or of opinion.

    Deists do have a creed in the sense that they have a belief about God, Creation, Nature, Reality, Knowledge and Truth claims. The statement is also self-refuting, to say you hold to no creeds is a creed in and of itself.

    6. All men and women and society are created equal according to Natural Law .

    How does a Deist know that all men, women and society are created equal according to Natural Law? As we saw in point 4, moral principles are subjective and up to the individual. What Natural law is the deist appealing to? There is more than one theory of natural law. (3)


    7. Reason and respect is a gift from God which are to be used of men.

    How does a Deist know that reason and respect is a gift from God? How would he define them in a Deistic worldview? How does he know that his reasoning is valid? Why should we respect others given that morality is subjective to the choice of the individual?

    Deism boils down to the rejection of God’s divine revelation in favor of human autonomy and reason Romans 1:21-28. The reason a Deist can know anything at all is because God has written the law on their hearts, and they know creation testifies to his existence, but they suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

    Sources:
    https://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/deism.htm
    http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/creed
    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-law-theories/

  • #2
    God is a thing that people carry around with them like their wallet. He is also much less useful than a full wallet.
    “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
    “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
    “not all there” - you know who you are

    Comment


    • #3
      1. What if there's a multitude of people who share the same experience? If not one. How many people will it constitute for it to be true I wonder.

      2. Physical alone won't cut it. There needs to be a spiritual experience.

      3. God can also be an impersonal entity depending on the theology sector. For example, Advaita vedanta (which is awesome btw, and very close to buddhism) says God is an impersonal entity so that deism wouldn't work there. I see God as both (personal and impersonal).

      4. But isn't reason the implication of using rational thought to benefit yourself or your environment? For example would it be reasonable or logical to drink rat poison? Would it be reasonable to hurt another human being because they find pleasure in it? Then we come to point of the person's life and what type of environment they grew up in and the mental implications.

      5. Those revelations have great info and good for stepping stones

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
        God is a thing that people carry around with them like their wallet. He is also much less useful than a full wallet.
        Faulty analogy God is not compared to a wallet. A wallet is a physical object.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by ReformedApologist View Post
          Faulty analogy God is not compared to a wallet. A wallet is a physical object.
          God is as physical as you are.
          “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
          “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
          “not all there” - you know who you are

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
            God is as physical as you are.
            By what standard and basis do you make such a statement?

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by ReformedApologist View Post
              By what standard and basis do you make such a statement?
              Firstfloor is a troll, just to save you time.
              "I am not angered that the Moral Majority boys campaign against abortion. I am angry when the same men who say, "Save OUR children" bellow "Build more and bigger bombers." That's right! Blast the children in other nations into eternity, or limbless misery as they lay crippled from "OUR" bombers! This does not jell." - Leonard Ravenhill

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by KingsGambit View Post
                Firstfloor is a troll, just to save you time.
                He's one of the nicest s, though, and isn't nearly the anti-Christian bigot some of our posters are.
                The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by firstfloor View Post
                  God is as physical as you are.
                  You're closer to the truth than you realize with this statement. Just a few more adjustments and you'll get there eventually.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
                    You're closer to the truth than you realize with this statement. Just a few more adjustments and you'll get there eventually.
                    Maybe he will become a Mormon at this point, given he says God is physical

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by ReformedApologist View Post
                      Maybe he will become a Mormon at this point, given he says God is physical
                      Well, I was mostly referring to the Incarnation. God is physical. Well, one of the Persons in the Godhood, at least.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by ReformedApologist View Post
                        By what standard and basis do you make such a statement?
                        It is not a popular opinion hereabouts, but I think we generate our own god and synchronize with others by going to church. The ‘magic’ is what that god can do.
                        “I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
                        “And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
                        “not all there” - you know who you are

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Deism is an untenable belief in contrast to atheism, pantheism and strong agnosticism, because there is no apparent interaction claimed between the 'Source (?)' and Creation other than Creation itself. It is like claiming a phantom intangible hide and seek God.

                          I believe that many of the humanist/naturalists of our early founding fathers of our country used Deism as a cover for agnostic/atheist naturalism, because atheism was illegal, terribly unpopular, and actually punishable by imprisonment. Describing your belief as atheist in the old days was political roadkill as it is today.
                          Last edited by shunyadragon; 04-29-2019, 10:43 AM.
                          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                          go with the flow the river knows . . .

                          Frank

                          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Hi ReformedApologist, I was once curious to see what sort of arguments people from the Bahnsen and Van Tillian school of transcendental apologitics (I'm guessing here of course) would handle a case of Deism. Usually in such arguments defeaters for belief would have to be properly shown. From the perspective the Christian pressupositions they would interrogate antagonistically the deist in order to make them realise that they are being inconsistent.

                            I'm not sure you manage to do that given your points. Firstly your characterisation of a deist is very one-sided and comes off more as a cheap charicature. A deist doesn't have to strongly argue that God is unknowable, there is such a thing as agnostic deism which is what most deists defacto consider themselves to be. That is that they're a deist, and they know of no revelation from God.

                            There is a school of deism that does argue that God due to his perfections and impassibility will not interact with an imperfect universe. Its fair game to go after those arguments, but as you didn't, and you didn't at least outline those arguments you don't actually proceed to target them.

                            Thirdly, its not enough in presuppositionalism to simply ask "How do they know that?" That isn't actually the thryst of that argument. The argument has to show that there's something that they know that would make it dubious for their other beliefs to be true, if and only if they reject the truth of Christianity proper. You could for instance have supplied arguments about the deist needing to believe that God has a personal interest in humans, to make them with capability of reasoning.

                            So for arguments 1 and 3, I will answer that you fail to charactize deists properly.

                            For 2 you fall into the whole of merely asking "But how do you know?". There are various answers to that of course. I know because I perceive the truth. Our minds are capable of perceiving truth. This is a basic experience of which we cannot be fooled. For instance, I cannot be fooled into not recognising the truth of the statement 2 + 2 = 4. In order to disprove this, you would have to describe a coherent mental experience of 2 + 2 equalling 3, but because of their abstract nature, the instant I recognise the symbols I can perceive their validity. A person also doesn't have to accept that all of their reasons are 100% valid.

                            For instance many presuppositionalists often make errors, and quite often they spend more time arguing against each other than arguing other opponents. A paucity in the validity of their reasoning does not refute that they cannot validly reason, or you would have proven too much and also proven presuppositional apologetics to be invalid. The only course left for you would be a weird fideism that denied all approaches of reason to knowing God.

                            On 4. you tip your hat a bit in that you're mostly arguing with atheists. For instance you don't in anyway engage with the much richer tradition of scholastic metaphysics, which is a very different way of figuring out moral truth.

                            I'd suggest you read a little broader.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by ReformedApologist View Post
                              Deism is defined as the belief that reason and and the Natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of God.
                              No, Deism is defined as belief in a god that does not currently intervene; one that created the world/universe but is not interacting with it. Nowhere in that definition is the concept that God (or a god) must exist because the world does.
                              The following are are a sample of beliefs that are held by Deist (1):
                              Most of these are beliefs held by some deists, but not as a result of their deism.
                              Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                              MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                              MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                              seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                              Comment

                              Related Threads

                              Collapse

                              Topics Statistics Last Post
                              Started by whag, Yesterday, 03:01 PM
                              39 responses
                              159 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post whag
                              by whag
                               
                              Started by whag, 03-17-2024, 04:55 PM
                              21 responses
                              129 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post Hypatia_Alexandria  
                              Started by whag, 03-14-2024, 06:04 PM
                              80 responses
                              426 views
                              0 likes
                              Last Post tabibito  
                              Started by whag, 03-13-2024, 12:06 PM
                              45 responses
                              303 views
                              1 like
                              Last Post Hypatia_Alexandria  
                              Working...
                              X