Are there any Deists onboard?

[Rusty T]

I'm reading Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism by Susan Jacoby, and I'm finding it interesting, if a little 'old hat' considering my previous fascination with the topic of America's Secularist past. However, I am learning new things.

I was curious, however, to find out if there are any Deists participating here on Theology Web. Years ago, when I was a young whipper-snapper and had gotten my hands on a copy of Paine's Age of Reason, I began the process so often known as 'de-conversion'. Well, in actuality, the process was begun far before reading Paine, or I wouldn't have picked it up in the first place. Nonetheless, as many 'infidels' do, I went through a process of stages - eventually letting go of more and more ideas about God and the world which had been pounded into me from a young age. I embraced, at first, Paine's Deist God and found myself struggling to hold onto a God of reason and rationality. However, I felt the Deist argument for God - namely the First Cause argument - failed in the light of scientific 'evidence' that came later. I often wondered if men such as Paine and Jefferson would have remained Deists if they had lived post-Darwin.

But, I don't have the answer to everything, and as my cross icon indicates, I eventually came back to the 'faith of my fathers'. But it's not been an easy road, and I often wonder about possibilities and alternatives. So, to any Deists out there - could you stand up please, and maybe explain to this old reformed 'freethinker' why you remain a Deist in the midst of a Darwinian age, and post-Newtonian physics?

rusty

[Conductor42]

I'm somewhere between an agnostic and a deist, but I really don't have an answer as to why.

[Krusader]

I'm somewhere between an agnostic and a deist, but I really don't have an answer as to why.

Yosh, how did this happen? You were a pretty devout Jew, were you not? Is this what life among the Mormons has done to you? Or, was I wrong in thinking that you were a devout Jew when you were Yosh? Any way, this is troubling to me.

[Conductor42]

Yosh, how did this happen? You were a pretty devout Jew, were you not? Is this what life among the Mormons has done to you? Or, was I wrong in thinking that you were a devout Jew when you were Yosh? Any way, this is troubling to me.

Hi Crusader,

Please see http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=62633 and post any questions there.

[shunyadragon]

Yosh, how did this happen? You were a pretty devout Jew, were you not? Is this what life among the Mormons has done to you? Or, was I wrong in thinking that you were a devout Jew when you were Yosh? Any way, this is troubling to me.

Not a great fan of labels such as theism, deism, pantheism and monism, because they tend to define God interms of relationships, and I do not believe God may be defined in such a manner. Christians often consider Christianity to be the true theism, because of the claim of a personal relationship based on God manifesting himself in the flesh. OT Hebrews live with a hands-on theism where God commanded daily activities like a general, emperor or chief executive.

Many Jews today may be considered Deists or agostics. Many do not view God as personally involved.

Deism is a rather nebulous belief that is supposed to define a God without personal involvement. God becomes sort of a non-entity. In some Buddhism schools the unknown 'Source' that is not personally involved would be close to what people call a Deist worldview, but than again the Buddha emmanates from the source to enlighten and save humanity.

My worldview of God is simply that God exists and revelation is real, but personal day to day hands-on involvement is not part of my worldview. It is good to pray to God for guidance, protection and assistence, but this guidance does not likely come personally. The guidance and assistence exists and involves in our lives through the natural course of the matrix of existence. Our guidance and assistence from God is everywhere around us and permiates every atom of existence, it is up to us to become aware of it, so that humanity may become enlightened and saved.

'You can walk on water if you know where the rocks are.'

[kiwimac]

Deism can indeed be nebulous (as can almost anything that has humans involved in it) but God as non-entity? I don't think so. You should perhaps try a few of the Deism discussion boards out there.

Kiwimac

[KingsGambit]

Necroing this one because I've seen some discussion of deism as of late, and I'm a little curious.

[shunyadragon]

Deism can indeed be nebulous (as can almost anything that has humans involved in it) but God as non-entity? I don't think so. You should perhaps try a few of the Deism discussion boards out there.

Kiwimac

I did not say a non-entity, but not involved to the point of having a belief not much different than pantheism, or even atheism.

[ZackMartin]

Necroing this one because I've seen some discussion of deism as of late, and I'm a little curious.

The original deism, as I take it, was the idea that God created the universe, but has "left it alone" since then. By which they mean, God doesn't intervene to violate the laws of physics, as in e.g. miracles. But, many theists (including myself), have questioned whether "violating the laws of physics" is an accurate description of miracles at all. If God wrote the laws of physics, then God doesn't need to violate them, because God can write them whichever way he wants, such that anything he wants to happen, happens. And the "laws of physics" we speak of here must be the actual, ultimate, unknown and unknowable laws, not limited and incomplete human ideas about them - otherwise every time a scientific experiment produced a result that the accepted scientific theories at the time could not explain, that would be a "violation of the laws of physics" - but clearly it is not; it is just a sign that our understanding of them is incomplete. Miracles don't violate the laws of physics, even though they may violate our current limited understanding of them. I would define a "miracle" as an event in which the activity of God is made manifest to us. So, miracles and non-miracles do not differ in God's involvement - God is equally active in both - but they differ in how visible God's involvement is to us.

And to speak of God "intervening" is silly from a theistic perspective, because it suggests that God leaves the world alone most of the time, and just drops by every now and again to tinker with it. But many theists, including myself, believe that God is constantly involved in reality, constantly actively at work in it, so to speak of "intervention" is misleading, since "intervention" implies staying away most of the time, rather than being constantly involved. So deists are founding their deism on a rejection of a view that very many theists reject - how then is deism different from theism?

So I'm left thinking that the theist-deist distinction relies on a particular understanding of the laws of physics which is quite possibly false. If that understanding is false, then deism is not well-founded; it turns out to be a spin-off from theism based on a mistake.

Contemporary "deists" don't seem to all subscribe to classical deism though. It seems to me possibly that many classical "deists" are in fact theists, but they prefer the word "deism" because it sounds less scary.

I think "deism" is best viewed as a now dead historical movement, one which rejected a certain understanding of "theism" that many theists never accepted to begin with. The theistic "miracles are not violations of natural laws" position, which makes deism irrelevant, is not some contemporary innovation, but a position far older than the deism - Augustine advocated it in the early fifth century.

Contemporary "deists" seem to me to just be theists who don't like the label.

[Moksha]

Hey Zack
The theist-deist distinction has always been a bit vague. However I'm not sure I understand why you think there is no such thing as Deism.
My understanding is that Deists believe God created the universe setting everything in motion and then left us all to it.
Thiests believe God is constantly interacting with it. Whether or not you believe Gods interaction is "violating the laws of Physics" doesn't matter.

[goldie08]

I'm not one to live by labelling myself or others, it's quite immaterial in the end. A belief is simply a belief in the mind, an idea, and can change overnight to something else, so it's hardly the kind of base for building one's life on.

"What is God?" We can say God is "Cosmic Consciousness" - all Wisdom and Love, all Power, and is Everpresent. I like to think in terms of Universal Mind, or Divine Life. The words do not really matter that much as it points in the same direction - to the One Source, or Infinite Consciousness, from which our being is derived.

To think that there is some sort of duality is now quite outdated. See:

"Consciousness Drives the Universe"
http://youtu.be/y9bVd3BspIQ

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[shunyadragon]

I'm not one to live by labelling myself or others, it's quite immaterial in the end. A belief is simply a belief in the mind, an idea, and can change overnight to something else, so it's hardly the kind of base for building one's life on.

"What is God?" We can say God is "Cosmic Consciousness" - all Wisdom and Love, all Power, and is Everpresent. I like to think in terms of Universal Mind, or Divine Life. The words do not really matter that much as it points in the same direction - to the One Source, or Infinite Consciousness, from which our being is derived.

To think that there is some sort of duality is now quite outdated. See:

"Consciousness Drives the Universe"
http://youtu.be/y9bVd3BspIQ

-----------

You describe a concept of God in line with Judaism, Islam and the Baha'i Faith.

I do not believe in the duality of traditional Christianity, but nonetheless it is the rule in that world.

[OmniSkeptical]

I don't believe deism is a form of theism that doesn't believe that the living have a personal God

[OmniSkeptical]

I believe deism is theism skeptical of a personal God. The previous post didn't make sense.

[shunyadragon]

I believe deism is theism skeptical of a personal God. The previous post didn't make sense.

It depends on what you call a personal God. Many traditional Christian theists define theism in their own view of the necessity of the personal Christian God. Some go as far as to call my view 'Deist.' I believe there is considerable gray area between theism in the traditional Christian sense, and the range of the other beliefs that also believe in an ultimate 'Source' of our existence. Some the founders of our country were skeptical to a degree of traditional belief, and expressed some vague notion of deism. They were also under the shadow of the threat of persecution and/or being excluded form their social positions for expressing views very far off the establishment view making it a little difficult to fully understand what they believed..