Deism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === 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 |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37302 |title=An Account of the Growth of Deism in England |author-link=William Stephens (minister) |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 (Presbyterian)|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 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". Tindal, perhaps the most prominent deist writer, 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 thinkers such as [[David Hume]] began studying the [[Four Dissertations#The Natural History of Religion|natural history of religion]] and suggested that the origins 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> [[Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke|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> ''[[The Age of Reason|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|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 [[Newtonianism|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 [[Free will|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 (philosopher)|Anthony Collins]], were actually necessitarians.<ref>See for example ''Liberty and Necessity'' (1729).</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page