What is "Deism"?

[ladyduomaxwell]

I noticed a lot of sites said that the Founding Fathers were "Deists" and not Christians.

I don't get it, because is this true, how come I never heard of any "Deist" Church or anything like that.

[wolfknight]

I typically don't use Wikipedia as the best source for info, but for quick information, or to better define what I already understand, it's not bad... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism

Basically, a belief in God, but not in any supernatural sense. It can be called the "logical" belief in God, based upon observation of the natural order, but lacks the faith aspect of most who believe in God.

[rachaelfabulous]

I wonder if Rev can shine some additional light on this....

[harleyman]

Mar 1, 2010 10:20:50 GMT -5 rachaelfabulous said:

I wonder if Rev can shine some additional light on this....

Not a rev but, I am a little familiar with the subject.

Deism is a belief that a supernatural being created everything however; the primary belief is that the individuals/beings that were created were to govern themselves.

Some of the founding fathers, etc. were Masons and did not necessarily believe in Deism but to be a member of the Masons one had to be monotheistic, meaning the belief in a single God. Polytheistic would be like Greek Mythology, meaning multiple Gods. Perhaps the rules for the Masons have changed but, that is odd that deism and Mason could be used together.

To make Deism less complicated think of it as an entity created everything and then left; therefore no revelations, miracles, governing principles, etc. are necessary.

[revwayne]

Deism focuses on God and natural law. God functions in a detached and remote way. The primary progenitors of this thought were Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Matthew Tindal (yes that Tindal). Deism is characterized by remoteness and detachedness of God whereas Christians believe in the Living God who is omnipresent as evidenced by His acts through Jesus Christ to wit, Incarnation. We complicate the understanding of deism by attaching it to organizations and its influence but what we should see is how in concert the framers of the Declaration and the U.S. Constitution took into stride the theological differences - made room for beliefs - creating our republic.

Recognize that deism began as an internal contraction in Christian thought and therefore a criticism of origin and evolution of thought and understanding. Revelation remianed intact with deists though some of the more flamboyant deists (Viret, Cooper, Henry St. John) ran the razor's edge in trying to explain away revelation - quite unsuccessfully.