Belief in a Creator known by reason and nature alone, who made the world and its laws and does not intervene in them by miracle or revelation.
Deism flourished in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries among thinkers who kept God and set aside revelation. Its God is the architect of a lawful universe, known from the book of nature rather than from any scripture, and its religion is morality: gratitude to the Maker and justice to fellow creatures. Thomas Paine's Age of Reason carried the position to a mass audience, and several founders of the American republic stood near it.
Deism across the site
Sources
Primary
- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794).
Secondary
- Peter Gay, Deism: An Anthology (1968).
How this compares to Christianity
How does this branch relate to the historic Christian faith?
This assessment has not yet been reviewed. Every verdict below stands at Not yet reviewed until the named theological reviewers supply it.
- Does it consider itself Christian?
- Not yet reviewed
- Did it arise from the Christian tradition?
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- Does it affirm the ecumenical creeds?
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- Is it recognized as Christian by the historic bodies?
- the Catholic Church: Not yet reviewed
- the Eastern Orthodox Church: Not yet reviewed
- the Oriental Orthodox churches: Not yet reviewed
- conciliar Protestant bodies: Not yet reviewed
- the WCC / National Council of Churches: Not yet reviewed
- This site's assessment
- Not yet reviewed
- Reviewer
- Not yet reviewed. The theological reviewers are named on the criteria page when they are appointed.
The comparative record for this entity, its points of convergence and divergence across the ten loci, has not yet been populated. It stands in the assessment queue on the criteria page.
What this assessment cannot settle
This assessment determines what this entity teaches and how that teaching relates to the historic Christian creeds. It does not determine whether any person is saved, whether God accepts their worship, whether they are sincere, or whether the criteria applied here are correct.
This assessment is made from the standpoint described in our editorial statement and our criteria page. It reports classifications; it does not rank sincerity, spiritual standing, or the eternal state of any person.