Deism

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Deism is the theological position that God created the world, but then left it to run without any divine intervention. It rejects all miracles and divine revelation and asserts that religion should be derived by reason alone. This was a common position of Enlightenment thinkers, although naturally it has no support from the Bible.

History

Eighteenth-Century America

The term "Deism" is loosely used to describe the views of certain English and continental thinkers. These views attracted a following in Europe toward the latter part of the seventeenth century and gained a small but influential number of adherents in America in the late eighteenth century. Deism stressed morality and rejected the orthodox Christian view of the divinity of Christ, often viewing him as nothing more than a "sublime" teacher of morality.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams are usually considered the leading American deists. There is no doubt that they subscribed to the deist credo that all religious claims were to be subjected to the scrutiny of reason. "Call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion," Jefferson advised. Other founders of the American republic, including George Washington, are frequently identified as deists, although the evidence supporting such judgments is often thin. Deists in the United States never amounted to more than a small percentage of an evangelical population.[1]

References

• Wikipedia Deism
• Religion in Eighteenth-Century America: Religion and the Founding of the American Republic. by the U.S. Library of Congress

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See Also

• U.S. religious heritage
• Theism