Deism

“ We constantly hear that theism is contradicted by both deism and pantheism: by deism, through the assertion of God’s distinctness at the expense of divine revelation and providence; by pantheism, through the assertion of the divine omnipresence at the expense of the distinctness of God from the world. ”

“ We too often discover, for instance, that every doctrine is construed as deism which refuses its assent to a discontinuous and special providence, or to an inconstant, localised, and miraculous revelation. On the other hand, we find every theory condemned as pantheism that denies the literal separation of God from the world and asserts instead his immanence in it. ”

“ Those who Martyr others or who cause War are Deists, but never can be Forgivers of Sin. The Glory of Christianity is, To Conquer by Forgiveness. All the Destruction therefore, Christian Europe has arisen from Deism, which is Natural Religion. ”

“ Yet it is a common observation, especially by divines, that deism leads to atheism, and I believe the observation is well founded. I hardly need explain here, that by deism in this sense is meant a belief in the existence of a Deity from natural and philosophical principles, and a disbelief in all immediate revelation by the Deity of his own existence. Such is the force of habit, that it is by degrees only, that even men of sense and firmness shake off one prejudice after another. ”

“ As a result, the positive side of Deism, as the body of the new teachings was called, was lost in vagueness, and the negative side —the mere denial of orthodox Christianity—became uppermost in men's minds. ”

“ Accordingly, as we pass away from the speculations which mark the early period of deism to those which belong to its maturity, we find that the attack on Christianity is less suggested by political considerations, and more entirely depends on an appeal to reason, intellectual or moral. ”

“ Deism therefore continually tends to atheism. Upton, Hibbert Lectures, 287—“The defect of deism is that, on the human side, it treats all men as isolated individuals, forgetful of the immanent divine nature which interrelates them and in a measure unifies them; and that, on the divine side, it separates men from God and makes the relation between them a purely external one.” ”

“ If pantheism is defective by confounding God and the world in an anti-moral identity, deism comes short by setting God in an isolated and impassable separation from the world. Deism thus falls partly under the same condemnation of materiality that a rational judgment pronounces upon sensuous theism, with its zoomorphic [6] conceptions of a producing Creator, dwelling in his peculiar quarter of space called Heaven, and its mechanical theory of his communication with the world by way of “miracle” alone — by way, that is, independent or even subversive of the process from means to end in Nature. ”

“ When the people were forbidden the exercise of their religion, though they did not cease to be attached to it, yet they lost the good effects which even external forms alone are calculated to produce; and while deism and atheism failed in perverting their faith, they were but too successful in corrupting their morals. ”

“ Deism makes way for atheism. Those become vain in their imaginations concerning God that will not learn of Christ.
Secondly, See how their hands were tied, though their tongues were thus let loose; such was the power of Heaven to restrain the malice of hell. These words spoke Jesus, these bold words, these words of conviction and reproof, in the treasury, an apartment of the temple, where, to be sure, the chief priests, whose gain was their godliness, were mostly resident, attending the business of the revenue. ”

“ Deism in all its forms, the religion which admits a God and denies a revelation; the religion which, in some vague sense, admits a revelation and denies an incarnation; the religion which admits an incarnation and denies a sacrifice; all these have little to say to man as a sinner; little to say to man as a mourner; little power to move his heart, little power to infuse strength into his weakness. If once you strike out the thought of a redeeming Christ from your religion, the temperature will go down alarmingly, and all will soon be frost bound. ”

“ Deism contains a portion of truth; for it maintains a Creator essentially distinct from the Creation, or, according to an expression which I translate from an ancient Indian poem: "One single act of His created the Universe, and He remained Himself whole and entire." This thought is true. What is the error of deism? It is that it makes a God like to a man who works upon matter existing previously to his action, and who puts in operation forces independent of himself, and which he does nothing but employ. ”

“ Every Religion that Preaches Vengeance for Sins the Religion of the Enemy & Avenger; and not the Forgiver of Sin, and their God is Satan, Named by the Divine Name Your Religion O Deists: Deism, is the Worship of the God of this World by the means of what you call Natural Religion and Natural Philosophy, and of Natural Morality or Self-Righteousness, the Selfish Virtues of the Natural Heart. ”

“ But this is just as if we should determine to give a man poison lest he should abuse his strength. Every kind of Deism leads necessarily to superstition, since it is not possible to continue on the standpoint of pure deism. ”

“ Even now, between scientific atheism and speculative agnosticism on the one hand and church orthodoxy on the other, many seem to cling to a theology nearly allied to deism. Rejecting miracles and denying the infallibility of Scripture, protesting against Calvinistic views of sovereign grace and having no interest in evangelical Arminianism, the faith of such inquirers seems fairly to coincide with that of the deists. Wherever religious indifferentism is rife, the less generous forms of deism are still alive. ”

“ All flesh shall perish together.” What is this but infidel Deism? How different the expression of the wise man! “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” ”

“ People too lazy or too ignorant to understand the philosophic basis of Deism, used the arguments of Deists in justification of their contempt for religion, and to many people disbelief and intelligence seemed to be synonymous. We have considered Deism here for its significant bearing on the religious situation in the eighteenth century. ”

“ Deism results therefore from a confusion between the work of a creature placed in a preexisting world, and the work of the Supreme Will which is in itself the single and absolute cause of all. It contains an element of dualism: its God does not create; but organizes a world the being of which does not depend on him. Take what is true in deism—the existence of the only God; remember that the Creator is the absolute Cause of the universe ”

“ These authorize only a natural religion, the acknowledgment in pious living of a God who, having contrived this natural world, has given it over to the rule, not of priests and prophets, but of natural law. The artificiality of its conception of God, and the calculating spirit of its piety, make deism a much less genuine expression of the religious experience than either the moral chivalry of theism or the intellectual and mystical exaltation of pantheism. ”

“ Men began to look into that which they had blindly adored; reason overthrew superstition; disgust for all the fables they had believed succeeded. Deism acquired many followers. As Epicureanism became fatal to the idolatrous worship of the heathen, so did Deism in our days to the Judaical visions adopted by our forefathers. ”

“ Deists, in our days, who reject revelation when offered to them, are not such men as Socrates and Cicero were; but, under pretence of deism, it is plain, they are generally ridiculers of all that is truly excellent in natural religion itself. ”

“ Shrewd men have long seen and often said that, if Christianity be set aside, deism will soon follow. We see this already realized. Agnostics feel an avowed pleasure in pointing out the positive contradictions involved in every form of natural religion. ”

“ But before the atheist who had become a deist could convert the deist who had become an atheist back to deism, or the deist who had become an atheist could convert the atheist who had become a deist back to atheism, the astral plane was rotated into a cosmic epizoid, resulting in a cataclysm that buried these two poor souls in an avalanche of metaphysical debris which was stratified under the radiant pressure, just as we find it here. ”

“ The general movement of religious speculation within the theistic area has been towards mediation between the extremes of pantheism and of deism, towards harmonious combination of the personal self-equality and the universal agency of the Divine. ”

“ The general position of English deism was the acceptance of the belief in the existence of God, and the profession of natural religion along with opposition to the mysteries and special claims of Christianity. ”

“ So long as deistic views of the relation of God to man and the world held the field, revelation meant something interjected ab extra into the established order of things. The popular theology which so abhorred deism was yet essentially deistic in its notion of God and of his separation from the world. Men did not perceive that by thus separating God from the world they set up alongside of him a sphere and an activity to which his relations were transient and accidental. ”

“ "I am never afraid of pure atheism; it is the flabby kind of sentimental deism that annoys me, because it is as slippery as air. ”

“ Thus, though King James be at last excluded, his Subjects reign in his stead. And whether an Oath of Abjuration laid upon the Jacobites Proxy-men, will put an end to this Corruption, Time must tell us.
5. But to return to the Reasons, (or Prejudices I may rather call 'em) which occasion Deism; It hath been observed to me, that where the Notion of a Church hath been carried on with the highest Tide, there even natural Religion is at the lowest Ebb; as in Italy of old, and lately in France, where gross Immoralities and Atheism are at the greatest height. ”

“ The deep spiritual longing for communion with God, the belief in prayer and in moral renewal, are evidences of a creed which separate him utterly from the naturalism and pantheism before described, and place him almost on the frontier line between Christianity and deism.972 And we may be permitted to express the belief, that philosophy could not have raised [pg 329] him to his present moral standard. His spirituality is due to the fragments of Christianity which he has retained in his system. ”

“ Now, first I have observed, that some who pretend themselves Deists, are Men of loose and sensual Lives; and I make no wonder that they dislike the Christian Doctrine of Self-denial, and the severe threatnings against wilful Sinners. You may be sure they will not alledge this Reason: But having read Spinosa and Hobbes, and been taught to laugh at the story of Baalam's Ass, and Sampson's Locks; they proceed to ridicule the reality of all Miracle and Revelation. ”

“ Besides (said he) do you not observe what a keen Edge Christian Faith puts upon the ill-nature of Divines, when they are disputing about matters of Religion? 'Tis common for Philosophers, Lawyers, Physicians, &c. to differ about matters which concern their Professions, and write one against another: But you will find some Temper and Decorum observed in their Writings. But let the Controversy be about any Branch of Christian Faith; and then see the Odium Theologorum, the Malice of Divines in the late Writings of two of your Church Doctors against each other ”

“ Church and Religion, is only meant to support their own Party, Dominion and Empire?
3. Now the oldest Deists of my Acquaintance having conceiv'd so great a Prejudice against the Christian Faith, from the Behaviour of the Clergy, and having levened their Disciples therewith, it has fal'n out unhappily, that the late Revolution has by another way also confirmed them in this their Prejudice. ”

“ Not always will idolatry offend the heavens with its abominations. Not always will despotism, political and spiritual, national and domestic, degrade and corrupt the masses of mankind. Not always will superstition, on the one hand, and infidelity, on the other, reject and despise the blessed revelation of forgiveness for sinners through Jesus, the Lamb of God. Not always will cold philosophy, and erratic enthusiasm, and fanaticism fierce and malignant, conspire to corrupt and pervert the gospel itself, turning even the streams from the fountain of life into waters of bitterness and poison. ”

“ They who bow to thrones and hate mankind may here feast their eyes with blight, mildew, the blue pestilence and glittering poison of slavery, ‘bogs, dens, and shades of death—a universe of death.’ This is that true moral atheism, the equal blasphemy against God and man, the sin against the Holy Ghost, that lowest deep of debasement and despair to which there is no lower deep. ”

“ The Christian system, I venture to affirm, has been the cause of more evil in the world, than any other that ever appeared in it. By inculcating a belief that the Deity was a terrible God, an inexorable judge, taking vengeance on all his enemies; its professors, wishing to conform as much as possible to the character and disposition of their God, have in all ages acted with the same spirit, and upon the same principles:
"O let this strong, unerring hand, Thy bolts for ever throw; And deal damnation round the land, On each I judge thy foe." ”