Deism, from the Latin Deus, meaning 'God, the Deity', is a philosophical position that advocates for the existence of God (the Deity, or Creator) through the use of reason and observation, as opposed to divine revelation. Though Deism broadly allows that things might be revealed by a higher power, any such claim is insufficient to certify itself—as every person can reasonably disbelieve the testimony of another—and is, therefore, a faulty premise for any argument advocating God's existence.
This post is to be the first in a series on the topic of Deism, which is a branch of theism, as are religions such as Christianity.
Let me explain a few terms for clarity. Theism, from the Greek Theos θεος, meaning 'god(s)', is the belief in the existence of a Deity or deities, and Atheism, from the Greek Atheos ἄθεος, meaning 'without god(s)', is the rejection of theism. On the other hand, agnosticism, from the Greek agnōsis ἀγνῶσις, meaning 'without knowledge', is the position of not knowing whether or not a Deity, or deities, exists.
To understand Deism, it is important to note that it is a philosophy that influences religion. Thus it is a religious philosophy. However, it is not a religion itself. It is not that Deism could not be a religion, it is just that it has no form of organized worship as other religions do. Most importantly, it is necessary to understand that Deism is a religious philosophy that emerged from Christianity during the Age of Enlightenment.
A simplistic, but factually accurate, way of understanding this is that in ancient times Christianity offered a worldview that, for all intents and purposes, was beneficial to society and was seemingly correct.
From the scientific point of view, there is no way to measure the supernatural—that is, the spiritual—because it is immaterial. And if there is no way to measure a phenomenon, then the scientific method cannot be applied to it. Thus, any spiritual hypothesis is de facto unscientific, not because it is necessarily untrue, but because it is impossible to falsify, which is a necessary criterion to test a hypothesis.
That being said, there is a possibility that the spiritual can be objectively detected, measured and subjected to the scientific method. For example, there are arguments to be made in this regard concerning dark matter, dark energy, and quantum mechanics. Nonetheless, the basis of my philosophy does not require scientific evidence for the spiritual.
For me, in my experience, I believe I detect elements of the spiritual, such as my own soul and the souls of others. I also think I recognize Providence, as a protective and tutelary power, and a religious purpose in the sense that there is more to reality than just the material world. Now I could relegate all of this to psychological reasons and inherent supernatural biases, which is a reasonable position, but I cannot do so honestly.
So then I am left with a conundrum of how do I account for this supernatural reality that I honestly believe I am detecting?
If there was a way to disprove the existence of the supernatural, then I could honestly override any innate supernatural bias. It would be like seeing the sunrise in the east and set in the west and knowing full well that this is only an illusion caused by the earth rotating on its axis. But since I know that no way has been discovered to detect the spiritual, I know that no such hypothesis can be disproven. Therefore, I must believe in the religious because it is honestly part of my observable reality. Furthermore, I must account for the spiritual in a way that is consistent with what is scientifically known. As the material world is understood through physics, I must seek to understand the spiritual alongside the material through metaphysics.
So if the spiritual exists then from whence does it come? For the reasons I’ve already laid out, this is a question that cannot be answered scientifically, but only philosophically. Religious philosophies would posit that the spiritual, like the material, comes from God, the Creator. If this is so, then what is God, the Creator?
The only answer I have found that is reasonably suitable is St. Anselm of Canterbury's ontological argument. Anselm's argument in Chapter 2 of his Proslogion can be summarized as follows:
Therefore, in conclusion, I define God as that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; as that than which none greater can be conceived, which is the sum total of all that exists with absolute awareness of all its parts.
To understand Deism, it is important to note that it is a philosophy that influences religion. Thus it is a religious philosophy. However, it is not a religion itself. It is not that Deism could not be a religion, it is just that it has no form of organized worship as other religions do. Most importantly, it is necessary to understand that Deism is a religious philosophy that emerged from Christianity during the Age of Enlightenment.
A simplistic, but factually accurate, way of understanding this is that in ancient times Christianity offered a worldview that, for all intents and purposes, was beneficial to society and was seemingly correct.
Spiritual legitimacy in the Christian world was based on the Bible and invested in the body of the Catholic Church, headed by the Pope. The Protestant churches challenged this legitimacy and gained legitimacy for themselves within the Christian world by appealing to the source: the infallible Bible.
However, during the Age of Enlightenment biblical criticism successfully refuted biblical infallibility. This critique created a crisis of legitimacy within the Christian world that eventually led to the waning of Christianity as a whole and the waxing of atheism, secularism, nihilism, etc., all of which resulted in legitimacy being invested in the body of academia.
In my opinion, Deism sprouted from Christian civilization like wings to save itself from an environment that was crumbling by the shock waves of scientific discovery.
I think that true honesty on the part of Christian institutions would have allowed Christianity to let go of obvious falsities, i.e., biblical infallibility, in the same way, Dumbo did with his magic feather. Had they done this I think they would be flying today on their own philosophic merit instead of crumbling as pillars of civilization and being relegated into mega-houses of religious entertainment.
The history of Deist philosophy is complex and requires a general understanding of historical events, religions, and philosophies within their political and cultural contexts. Because I don't want to elaborate on historical, religious, and philosophical minutiae, I will direct the reader to the Deism article on Wikipedia.
As an aside, many years ago after reading Thomas Paine's Age of Reason, which is an inarguable refutation of biblical infallibility, I could find no argument against it and after that became a reluctant Deist.
Later on, I accepted George Washington’s Christian Deist view and understood God as “that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be,” as he stated in his National Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789.
I also adopted Benjamin Franklin's creed, which sufficed for me until I began to develop my own philosophy.
The following is Benjamin Franklin's creed which he wrote in a letter to Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale University, on March 9, 1790:
You desire to know something of my religion. It is the first time I have been questioned upon it. But I cannot take your curiosity amiss, and shall endeavor in a few words to gratify it. Here is my creed. I believe in one God, the creator of the universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable service we render to him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think his system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is like to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure.
My current philosophic positions definitely fall squarely within the penumbra of Deism, and for this reason, I remain a deist by default. However, my views are divergent from classical Deism, as they combine innatism and empiricism along with ontology to form a metaphysical model of reality.
The fundamental basis of my positions for Deism, my raison d'être, is the inherent supernatural bias of human beings, which has been empirically proven to exist.
ScienceDaily:
So how do we account for this supernatural bias in human beings?
One possibility is that supernatural realities do not exist, but human beings evolved to have this bias because religious communities were more successful in reproducing their genes.
A second possibility is that supernatural realities do exist and human beings can detect them in some way.
A third possibility, a somewhat combination of the previous two, is that supernatural realities do exist and that human beings have also evolved to have this bias whether or not they can detect them. This possibility allows that some people with this bias can recognize spiritual realities and some cannot. It also provides that those who have such an ability may not actually be using it when they believe they are.
The fundamental basis of my positions for Deism, my raison d'être, is the inherent supernatural bias of human beings, which has been empirically proven to exist.
ScienceDaily:
New research finds that humans have natural tendencies to believe in gods and an afterlife. Research suggests that people across many different cultures instinctively believe that some part of their mind, soul or spirit lives on after-death. The studies demonstrate that people are natural 'dualists' finding it easy to conceive of the separation of the mind and the body.Human beings have an innate supernatural bias, which means that they are biologically predisposed to believe in the supernatural. Of course, that does not mean that everyone has this predisposition, just that most people do.
[...]
Project Director Dr Justin Barrett, from the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind, said: 'This project does not set out to prove god or gods exist. Just because we find it easier to think in a particular way does not mean that it is true in fact. If we look at why religious beliefs and practices persist in societies across the world, we conclude that individuals bound by religious ties might be more likely to cooperate as societies. Interestingly, we found that religion is less likely to thrive in populations living in cities in developed nations where there is already a strong social support network.'
Project Co-Director Professor Roger Trigg, from the University of Oxford's Ian Ramsey Centre, said: 'This project suggests that religion is not just something for a peculiar few to do on Sundays instead of playing golf. We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests that religion is a common fact of human nature across different societies. This suggests that attempts to suppress religion are likely to be short-lived as human thought seems to be rooted to religious concepts, such as the existence of supernatural agents or gods, and the possibility of an afterlife or pre-life.
So how do we account for this supernatural bias in human beings?
One possibility is that supernatural realities do not exist, but human beings evolved to have this bias because religious communities were more successful in reproducing their genes.
A second possibility is that supernatural realities do exist and human beings can detect them in some way.
A third possibility, a somewhat combination of the previous two, is that supernatural realities do exist and that human beings have also evolved to have this bias whether or not they can detect them. This possibility allows that some people with this bias can recognize spiritual realities and some cannot. It also provides that those who have such an ability may not actually be using it when they believe they are.
From the scientific point of view, there is no way to measure the supernatural—that is, the spiritual—because it is immaterial. And if there is no way to measure a phenomenon, then the scientific method cannot be applied to it. Thus, any spiritual hypothesis is de facto unscientific, not because it is necessarily untrue, but because it is impossible to falsify, which is a necessary criterion to test a hypothesis.
That being said, there is a possibility that the spiritual can be objectively detected, measured and subjected to the scientific method. For example, there are arguments to be made in this regard concerning dark matter, dark energy, and quantum mechanics. Nonetheless, the basis of my philosophy does not require scientific evidence for the spiritual.
For me, in my experience, I believe I detect elements of the spiritual, such as my own soul and the souls of others. I also think I recognize Providence, as a protective and tutelary power, and a religious purpose in the sense that there is more to reality than just the material world. Now I could relegate all of this to psychological reasons and inherent supernatural biases, which is a reasonable position, but I cannot do so honestly.
So then I am left with a conundrum of how do I account for this supernatural reality that I honestly believe I am detecting?
If there was a way to disprove the existence of the supernatural, then I could honestly override any innate supernatural bias. It would be like seeing the sunrise in the east and set in the west and knowing full well that this is only an illusion caused by the earth rotating on its axis. But since I know that no way has been discovered to detect the spiritual, I know that no such hypothesis can be disproven. Therefore, I must believe in the religious because it is honestly part of my observable reality. Furthermore, I must account for the spiritual in a way that is consistent with what is scientifically known. As the material world is understood through physics, I must seek to understand the spiritual alongside the material through metaphysics.
So if the spiritual exists then from whence does it come? For the reasons I’ve already laid out, this is a question that cannot be answered scientifically, but only philosophically. Religious philosophies would posit that the spiritual, like the material, comes from God, the Creator. If this is so, then what is God, the Creator?
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The only answer I have found that is reasonably suitable is St. Anselm of Canterbury's ontological argument. Anselm's argument in Chapter 2 of his Proslogion can be summarized as follows:
In Chapter 3, Anselm presented a further argument in the same vein:
- It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
- God exists as an idea in the mind.
- A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
- Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).
- But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
- Therefore, God exists.
Thus, from St. Anselm's ontological argument we have a working definition of God as "a being than which none greater can be imagined." But then, I might add, what can be "greater" than the sum total of all that exists with complete awareness of all its parts?
- By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.
- A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.
- Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
- But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.
- Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.
- God exists in the mind as an idea.
- Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.
Therefore, in conclusion, I define God as that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; as that than which none greater can be conceived, which is the sum total of all that exists with absolute awareness of all its parts.






