Why Does Deiism Exist

Popular deism – belief in a being, force, or intelligence. Cold deism God is simply abstract force bringing world into existence. Warm deism God is clearly personal and even friendly.

For years, Christian Theism was the most prominent worldview. Christian Theist believed that God was the creator of all, and that he had laid out a plan for humanity. In the Seventeenth Century, as theist started to question their worldviews, a new view began to rise. Deism, as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is, “Movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe.”(2017)

People were free to follow their chosen beliefs, signalling the end of exclusive Catholicism. Deism was being introduced. In particular, Voltaire believed that although the "universe was created by God; it was then left to operate accordingly to scientific law" (Merriman (1996) Pg407). This then paved the way for a variety of other

Religious tolerance of the Roman Catholic Church was swaying as a boat would in a storm as wild as the controversies of the Church. With Government being choked by the roots of the Church many Theologians, people who study the concepts of God wanted to reform their fate to where it was maintaining a true faith in God. With Religion being the center of Government, people tried to come up with ideas to keep God in charge. Martin Luther religious a German friar already chipped at the corruptions of the Church. Reject several teachings and practices such as calming that redemption from sin shouldn’t be paid with coin, created the start of new ways of thinking. With the new philosophy of rationalism being born in the 17th-18th century, the religion of reason became a center of thinking for philosophers, expose all myths, superstitions and traditions During the age of Enlightenment, John Locke an English

5. Deism, Universalism, Unitarianism, and other rational religions seemed more powerful than they actually were because for a time traditional evangelicals were confused and disorganized.

These beliefs affected not just religion, but society and political relations to the the church and the

Books and articles attacking religious “superstition” attracted wide readerships and provoked discussion. Skepticism also produced the philosophies of “universalism” and “Unitarianism,” which emerged at first as dissenting views within the New England Congregational church. These ideas rejected the Calvinist belief in predestination, stating the salvation was available to all. They also rejected the idea of the Trinity. Jesus was the only great teacher, they claimed, not the son of God. *The cause of the second Great Awakening was rationalism, and the spread of it. In effort to stop the spread, conservative theologians of 1790 fought the spread of rationalism, and in efforts of church establishments to revitalize their organization.

belief, the church and religion in general provided an immense amount of influence on the

(At the trial of Galileo in 1615, Cardinal Bellarmine declared, "To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin"). Eventually, most people began to believe scientific theories about the nature of the universe, rather than religious dogmas. A deistic philosophy emerged and became influential, differing from Christianity in viewing God as a great clock maker who was above any petty worship that humans could give him. The deistic view was a harmonious consolidation of religious and scientific beliefs into one (usually deterministic) philosophy.

In the 17th Century, there was much controversy between religion and science. The church supported a single worldview that God’s creation was the center of the universe. The kings and rulers were set in their ways to set the people’s minds to believe this and to never question it. From these ideas, the Enlightenment was bred from the Scientific Revolution.

Both the Christian and the Deist have acknowledged God as their Creator; however there is again a major difference between these two worldviews. The Christian believes that God created man in His image, and has a personal relationship with him; according to Christianity, our capability for relationships is a result of this form of Creation. The Deist disagrees, stating plainly that, “…human beings, though personal, are a part of the clockwork of the universe” (Sire, 50). In other words, while not denying the fact that man can have personal relationships, Deism denies man the relationship to God, the image-to-original roles. This denial leaves man no way to transcend the system in which he finds himself. The implications of this view are enormous: without the freedom to act as he wishes, Adam would not have been capable of sin and therefore man would not be fallen – leaving no need for Christ. In light of this distinction it is quite plain that Locke, again, diverges from Deism. In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke looks within man himself in order to gain insight about God’s attributes. While this would be impossible to anyone working under a deistic mindset, Locke recognizes the existence of the image-to-original relationship and is able to use this in his line of reasoning. In addition, Locke immediately recognizes the fallen nature of man and the intense need for Christ’s sacrifice. One of the many times he acknowledged the divinity of Christ, Locke wrote, “He was sent by God: His Miracles shew it; And the Authority of God in his Precepts cannot be questioned…” (Reasonableness of Christianity, 108). This statement, too, would never spill from the pen of a Deist. The freedom of man to do as he wills, however, is morally restricted. According to Mr. Locke, although every man has “authority” in his own person – he can do as he wishes – he cannot take his own life, because his life is the

The divine theory was developed out of religion. The theory states that government ordained itself from God, and its main purpose is

There are several definitions or views such as Monotheism, which is the belief in only one God; Polytheism, a religion that worships many Gods; Panteism which describes that God is all and all is God, to see all the universe and enlightment as their God, Theism, a belief that at least one diety exists; etc.

As people began to stray from the belief that there was no God, four supernatural worldviews come in to play which were Naturalism, Materialism, Historicism, and Socialism. Naturalism is “a theory denying that an event or object has a supernatural significance; specifically: the doctrine that scientific laws are adequate to account for all phenomena.” Materialism is “a doctrine that the only or the highest values or objectives lie in material well-being and in the furtherance of material progress.” Historicism is “a theory, doctrine, or style that emphasizes the importance of history: such as a theory in which history is seen as a standard of value or as a determinant of events.” Relativism is “a view that ethical truths depend on the individuals and groups holding them” (Merriam-Webster, n.d.). When these views failed, society begin to see a shift.

Does God exist? This burning, three-word question has been argued over since the beginning of man kind. Everyone has their own opinion about religion, and Martin Luther and Réne Descartes were no exception to that statement. Both men, born in the 15th century and 16th century respectively, had a desire to seek out the truth and answer to that question. Whether it was from diligently studying scripture, or going out into the expansive world, each man found what they were looking for. In Luther’s book, On Christian Liberty, and in Descartes’ book, Discourse on the Method, each author wrote of their findings. While Luther and Descartes both concluded that God did exist, each man had a different means of getting to the truth. Thesis: which was better?