DEISM

an unorthodox religious attitude that found expression among a group of English writers beginning with Edward Herbert (later 1st Baron Herbert of Cherbury) in the first half of the 17th century and ending with Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, in the middle of the 18th century. In general it refers to what can be called natural religion, the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge that is inborn in every person or that can be acquired by the use of reason, as opposed to knowledge acquired through either revelation or the teaching of any church. an unorthodox religious attitude that found expression especially among a group of English writers beginning with Edward Herbert in the first half of the 17th century and ending with Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, in the middle of the 18th century. In general, it refers to what can be called natural religion, the acceptance of a certain body of religious knowledge that is inborn in every person or that can be acquired by the use of reason, as opposed to knowledge acquired through either revelation or the teaching of any church. The proponents of natural religion were strongly influenced by three intellectual concerns: a growing faith in human reason, a distrust of religious claims of revelation that lead to dogmatism and intolerance, and, finally, an image of God as the rational architect of an ordered world. Renaissance humanism had rejected the orthodox Christian emphasis upon the corruption of reason through sin and had affirmed a general faith that human reason could discern universal religious and moral truths apart from any supernatural revelation or specific church teachings. Similarly, Deists argued that behind the vast differences in modes of worship, piety, and doctrine of the world's religions and the Christian churches lay a common rational core of universally accepted religious and moral principles. The early Deists asserted that superficial differences of ritual and dogma were insignificant and should accordingly be tolerated. By the turn of the 17th century, however, a number of Deists, notably John Toland, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Matthew Tindal, Thomas Woolston, and Anthony Collins, turned more militant, beginning to apply the scalpel of reason to much of the piety and practice of orthodox Christianity itself. They rejected the elaborate liturgical practices and complex institutional trappings of Roman Catholicism as analogous to ancient pagan superstition. In place of the noxious enthusiasm and strict individual piety of the Protestant sects, they sought to promote the sober moral striving and tolerance of the religion of reason. The chief debate between the militant Deists and the orthodox Christian thinkers concerned the proper role of appeals to divine revelation as a disclosure of ultimate religious truth. Many orthodox thinkers argued that, while natural reason did provide access to religious truths, supernatural revelation was necessary as a supplement to teach these same truths more clearly and effectively. Indeed, the Roman Catholic tradition since Thomas Aquinas esteemed right reason as always in harmony with revealed truth and capable of disclosing God's natural moral laws. Deists countered that natural religion alone was certain and free of corruption, and they launched a vigorous attack upon all of the Christian additions to the simple moral truths affirmed by reason. In place of the orthodox Judeo-Christian conception of God as involved actively in shaping and sustaining human history, the Deists argued that after God's initial work of creation, He withdrew into detached transcendence, leaving the world to operate according to rational natural rules. Borrowing upon the general prestige of Isaac Newton's vision of the universe as a mechanism obeying stable rational laws, they propounded variations on the classic argument from design wherein the existence of a rational creator is inferred from the evidence of the rational ordering of the world. In England and later in Germany the Deists' attack upon Christian doctrines remained moderate, but in France, where the political influence of corrupt Roman Catholic prelates had spawned a strong anticlerical reaction, the attack became exceedingly impassioned and bitter. In the view of Voltaire, every man of sense, every good man, ought to hold the Christian sect in horror. For many other French Philosophes, Deism was simply a station upon the road to complete atheism. By the end of the 18th century, in addition to becoming a dominant religious attitude among English, French, and German intellectuals, Deism had crossed the Atlantic to shape the religious views of upper-class Americans. The first three presidents of the United States all subscribed to Deist beliefs. Additional reading John Leland, A View of the Principal Deistical Writers . . . , 3rd ed., 3 vol. (1754; also 1837 ed.), the first historical account of Deism; Fritz Mauthner, Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte im Abendlande, 4 vol. (192123), a complete history; Ernst Cassirer, Die Philosophie der Aufklrung (1932; Eng. trans., The Philosophy of the Enlightenment, 1951), a description of Deism and its philosophical background; Harold G. Nicolson, The Age of Reason (1960), on the nature of 18th-century Rationalism and its connection with Deism; James Collins, God in Modern Philosophy (1959), a full history of Deism, here called theism, from Nicolas of Cusa to contemporary theological theories; John Orr, English Deism: Its Roots and Its Fruits (1934); Gotthard V. Lechler, Geschichte des englischen Deismus (1841), the first full history after the end of Deism; Herbert of Cherbury, De Veritate (1624; Eng. trans. by Meyrick H. Carre, On Truth, 1937), the first English translation of the reputedly first classic expression of Deism; Mario M. Rossi, La vita, le opere, i tempi di Edoardo Herbert di Chirbury, 3 vol. (1947), and Alle fonti del deismo e del materialismo moderno (1942), two works that describe Herbert's life and Deistic thought against the background of the history of Deism and the attitude of the church. David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 2nd ed. with suppl. (1947), the beginning of the Deist's self-criticism; Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 3 pt. (17941811), the work most influential on the Deism of common people; John S. Spink, French Free-Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire (1960), on French Deism; Henry E. Allison, Lessing and the Enlightenment (1966); Immanuel Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft (1793; Eng. trans., Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, 1947), the classic work of the last stage of German Deism; G.W.F. Hegel, Early Theological Writings, trans. by Thomas M. Knox and Richard Kroner (1948), early writings to show Hegel's indebtedness to Deistic polemics.