Deism 
This word is customarily used to describe an unorthodox religious view expressed among a group of English writers beginning with Lord Herbert of Cherbury in the first half of the seventeenth century. It also denotes a certain movement of rationalistic thought that was manifested chiefly in England from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century. Deism (Lat. deus, god) is etymologically a cognate of theism (Gr. theos, god), both words denoting belief in the existence of a god or gods and therefore the antithesis of atheism. The term deism, as distinguished from theism, polytheism, and pantheism, does not designate a well-defined doctrine. In general, it refers to what can be called natural religion or the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge acquired solely by the use of reason as opposed to knowledge gained either through revelation or the teaching of the Bible.
Deism
is sometimes used loosely to define a particular viewpoint with regard to the
relationship between God and the world. It would reduce God's function in
creation to that of first cause only. According to the classical comparison of
God with a clockmaker, which is found as early as Nicolaus of Oresmes (1382),
God wound up the clock of the world once and for all at the beginning, so that
it now proceeds as world history without the need for His further involvement.
The
basic doctrines of deism are: (1) the belief in a supreme being; (2) the
obligation to worship; (3) the obligation of ethical conduct; (4) the need for
repentance from sins; and (5) divine rewards and punishments in this life and
the next. These five points were stated by Lord Herbert, often called the
father of deism. Deism contradicts orthodox Christianity by denying any direct
intervention in the natural order by God. Although deists profess belief in
personal providence, they deny the Trinity, the incarnation, the divine
authority of the Bible, the atonement, miracles, any particular elect people
such as Israel, and any supernatural redemptive act in history.
In
England at the beginning of the seventeenth century this general religious
attitude turned more militant, particularly in the works of John Toland, Lord
Shaftesbury, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Woolston, and Anthony Collins. The ideal of
these deists was a sober natural religion without many of the basic tenets of
Christianity. Deists were agreed in denouncing any kind of religious
intolerance because, in their opinion, all religions are alternately the same.
The deists were particularly opposed to any manifestation of religious
fanaticism and enthusiasm. Here Shaftesbury's Letter Concerning Enthusiasm
(1708) was probably the most important document in furthering their ideas.
Shaftesbury denounced all forms of religious extravagance as perversion of true
religion. All descriptions of God which depicted his vengeance, vindictiveness,
jealousy, and destructive cruelty were considered blasphemous. The deist
conceived God to be a gentle, loving, and benevolent being, who intended that
mankind behave in a kind and tolerant fashion.
English
deism was transmitted to Germany primarily through translations of
Shaftesbury's works. Important German deists were Leibniz, Reimarus, and
Lessing. Kant, the most important figure in eighteenth century German
philosophy, stressed the moral element in natural religion. Moral principles
are not the result of a revelation, but originate from the very structure of
man's reason. Voltaire is generally considered to be the greatest of the French
deists. Even though he consistently used the word "theist" in
reference to himself, Voltaire was a deist in the tradition of the British
deists, never attacking the existence of God but always the corruptions of the
church. By the end of the eighteenth century deism had become a dominant
religious attitude among intellectual and upper-class Americans. Benjamin Franklin was a deists.
The
late eighteenth and nineteenth century interpretation of deism restricts the
meaning to belief in a God or first cause, who created the world and instituted
immutable, universal laws that preclude any alteration as well as any form of
divine immanence.
The
legacy of deism continues into the twentieth century as a stress on mechanism.
The tendency today is to seek explanation of almost everything by analogy with
a machine. The so-called higher criticism of today may also be traced to the
deism of earlier days. Thus, although deism is not widely held in our day, its
significance historically has been great, and it still exerts influence on
religious thought in our time.