Since this site is about Deism, I feel that it’s appropriate that I should define what I mean by “Deism”.  When I google “deism” I get a lot of different responses that seem confusing.  I feel a need to clear this up.

There is a reasonable standard for what constitutes Deism.  We get this by looking at culture just like dictionary writers do, because culture, not an individual, is the ultimate determiner of what words mean.  

Deism in general is all those things that make up Deism.  To determine exactly what constitutes Deism would require that we make a list of all those things that culture considers Deism.  The problem with doing this for a blog is that the list could be very large and making the list would be very time consuming.  But we can come up with a reasonable approximation that suites our purposes for communicating in this web site. 

When we look at what culture recognizes as Deism we recognize patterns.  Most writers that I’ve come across seem to recognize three things that constitute Deism. 

1) Acceptance or acknowledgment that the natural universe has a God. 

2)  Acceptance or acknowledgement that natural truth is God’s will in the natural universe.

3)  Non-acceptance of any revelation as divine. 

(1) and (2) are universally accepted statements.  

(3) is a little more complex and needs a little explaining.   A teaching of revelation is a communication that is said to come from God directly to a person through divine means.  Some people would say that the rejection of divine revelation is part of Deism.  That claim is not quite correct.  Non-acceptance is not the same as rejection.  Non-acceptance leaves the door open to the possibility of divine revelation, but recognizes that divine revelation cannot be proved. 

Some Deists do reject the authenticity of divine revelation. Others leave the door open to the possibility, but don’t find any specific teaching of revelation to be credible, otherwise they would be followers of the faith associated with those revelations instead of Deists.  Since some Deists leave the door open to the possibility of revelation (3) is correct.

Deists have a variety of beliefs about the supernatural.  God is the universe.  God is outside the universe.  God intervenes.  God does not intervene.  God wants people to be nice. God doesn’t care what people do.  Ben Franklin believed in heaven.  Thomas Paine hoped there was a heaven.  Abe Lincoln did not believe in heaven.  

With one exception, those kinds of beliefs do not define Deism.  They define the personal beliefs of the individual Deist. Deism keeps the door open to personal beliefs, with the one exception of the acceptance of divine revelation.  When divine revelation is accepted, the personal belief system is a form of Theism, not Deism. 

Deism in general is not the rejection of divine intervention.  Some Deists do believe in some forms of divine intervention.  That is how it has always been with Deism.  It isn’t the belief in divine intervention, it is the belief in divine revelation that separates Theism from Deism.

Deism keeps the warmth of God within arm’s reach, but is deaf to God’s words.

Deism includes more than just a class of personal beliefs.  It also encompasses behaviors and statements that are deistic.  Prayer that acknowledges God but not divine revelation is part of Deism.  The statement “In God We Trust” on money is part of Deism.   

Unfortunately, some Deists try to assert that their personal beliefs are what constitute Deism.  If you google “Deism” you will see where web sites say “Deism is the belief in God based on reason,” or something similar.  Most Deists that I’ve come across on the Internet find those kinds of statements offensive, because the authors are trying to define Deism for everyone.  The authors of those sites have the right to express their opinions, but having an opinion certainly does not make one correct.  Deism is all those things that according to culture constitute Deism despite what those few, usually radical and sometimes aggravating, people believe.  

The fringe radical Deists are easy to spot.  They promote their own ideas of Deism as if their ideas encompass all of Deism.  They try to stereotype all Deists according to their personal mold with statements like these:  ”Deists thirst for knowledge.” “Deists are incurably curious.”  This doesn’t really describe all Deists because every person, Deists or not, is different.  There is no such mold.

Since the statement “Deism is the belief in God based on reason” is repeated so much, I want to address this particular claim by itself.  The problem with this statement is that not all Deists believe in God based on reason.  For example, researchers studying people’s religious belief systems found that a large number of people grew up in religious families, came to believe in God, but did not accept the revealed teachings of their parents’ church.  A term the researchers used for these people’s beliefs is “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” which is essentially the same beliefs that Ben Franklin held.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism consists of beliefs like these:

1. God created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.

2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3. The main goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4. God does not need to be usually need to be called upon in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

These folks follow a Franklin-like Deism, but they did not come to believe in God through a process of reasoning.  Instead, they came to be Deists by their upbringing.  Not all Deism is the product of reasoning (rationale), which disproves that the statement “Deism is the belief in God based on reason.”  The people who make those kinds of statements are the radical fringe.

I hope this clarifies what I mean by “Deism” in this web site.