Tags

, , , , ,

“…deism means the adoption of a natural religion based on common ideas of morality and including the worship of a Supreme Being whose laws are plain and engraved on the hearts of all men, as opposed to Christianity with its supernatural doctrines and positive religious duties.” (Voltaire and the English Deists, Norman L. Torrey, 1930)

Figuring out exactly what the tenants of Deism are is a difficult thing. For many people Deism is an ideology for individuals and not a religion, and certainly not an organized religion. It is therefore hard to determine what beliefs most Deists agree upon. Perhaps it is best to turn to the Deists of the Age of Enlightenment as they were the pioneers of Deism as it is today.

The man considered to have first written to any extant work in English about Deism was Lord Herbert of Cherbury. In his work De Veritate. He viewed a religion based on reason, and felt the following to be true:

  1. There is a God.
  2. He ought to be worshiped.
  3. Virtue combined with piety is the chief part of divine worship.
  4. That men should repent of their sins and abandon them.
  5. That reward and punishment follow from the goodness and justice of God, both in this life and after it.

Lord Herbert felt all articles of faith should be judged against these five points.  He felt what went against these five points went against reason, and therefore must not be true. While Herbert is considered to be the first to write on anything dealing with Deism of any length the beliefs he held are not currently considered Deist. Nor does he seem to have considered himself a Deist. Neither the words Deist or Deism appears in his work. Instead he considered his religion to be naturalist. The next writer to write a work that influenced Deism. was probably Bendedict de Spinoza. Spinoza who was writing on pantheism, but some of his ideas were adopted by Deist writers of the time. Among these are:

  1. Supernatural events do not occur.
  2. Knowledge only comes from human reason.
  3. Emphasis should be placed on nature and not God.
  4. It is human reason that decides what is right in wrong.

Spinoza further felt that we should love God, but that God was not the sort of being that could love us back. Some Deists would adopt his view of a God that was indifferent to man, as well as the idea that knowledge only comes from reason.

Perhaps the writer of the time who was most influential was Mathew Tindal whose work Christianity as Old as the Creation is often referred to as the “Diest Bible.” In it Tindal held:

  1. God gave Man sufficient means of knowing whatever God needed him to. There was no need for divine revelation.
  2. Any revelation from God that cannot be verified by Man through reason is either invalid or non-essential.
  3. The existence of a “Creator” known as God was known via “nature” and “reason.”
  4. From the beginning humans have known there is a God, and it was also apparent how God wanted people to live.
  5. God’s creations cannot add to or take away from his happiness.
  6. God therefore only forbids that which is known to hurt us, and only punishes those who hurt others.

From there Tindal’s ideas were further refined by Deist writers until they began to take the form held by most Deists today. Perhaps the man to have the most influence on modern American Deists is Thomas Paine. Thomas Paine is perhaps best known for his pamphlet Common Sense which was published just as the American Revolution has begun and many feel attracted more to its cause. Paine wrote many pamphlets on Deism and one major work The Age of Reason. In it Paine stated the following:

  1. There is one God.
  2. That he hoped for an afterlife.
  3. Religious duties consist of “doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy.”
  4. All religious institutions are human inventions.
  5. Revelations, prophecies, and miracles are “revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it”
  6. People should rely on reason and not revelation.
  7. The only unchanging and universal evidence of God’s existence is nature.

From these four authors we can begin to formulate what Deists believe. They have in common the beliefs that:

  1. There is one God, and he is the Creator.
  2. Supernatural events such as divine revelation or miracles do not occur.
  3. Knowledge only comes from human reason.
  4. God only wants Mankind to be kind to each other and not hurt one another.
  5. God does not demand worship nor needs to be worshiped.

These five things probably form the core of Deist belief. Most modern Deists have added a to these beliefs. Some have not adopted all of them. The website Positive Deism listed the principles of Modern Deists on its website at http://www.positivedeism.com/resources/deism-principles. These principles hold much in common with the principles set forth by the above named authors as well as some additional beliefs which elaborate more or less on these four with an additional one of feeling church and state should be kept separate.

Deists hold many different beliefs though,and some may not agree with all of the five I have listed. As I said figuring out the tenants of Deism can be a difficult thing.