(A legitimate question may be asked regarding my interest in this rather abstruse subject, but only by those who are unfamiliar with the fact that the majority of America’s Founding Fathers were allegedly “deists,” and that this fact has allegedly something to do with their intent in writing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Considering that my interest in America and in this nation’s Founding Fathers is great, the importance of this subject, or at least its curiosity value to me, should leave no lingering doubt about it, even though the subject is indeed esoteric and rather befuddled, which only makes it more intriguing. What makes it still more intriguing is that my own views concerning the opposition of “God of philosophy” vis-à-vis “God of religion” may be misinterpreted as a form of “deism,” although I am in no way distancing myself from God of my native religious culture, Russian Orthodox Christianity. I am only suggesting that through the philosophical abstraction from the world’s great religions, the nations of the world can come together to a benign and wonderfully enlightened commonness of international morality and justice, without ever renouncing the particular faith of their fathers. I suspect that the original concept of religious tolerance, developed by the Founding Fathers in America, had contained a similar rationale, and that it was on this account that they may have embraced the term “deism.” In other words deism can become an effective political, or political-philosophical credo, but as a specific religious "creed" it continues to have a rather hollow ring to me.)
All diligent students of philosophy or theology, when asked about the difference between deism and theism, are surely expected to come up with a crispy clear explanation of what each one signifies, and how they are different. I wonder, however, if any one of them will rise to the occasion, and talk about the artificiality of these two terms, one of Latin root, the other one of Greek, but both meaning the same thing: “Godism,” and also, how very confusing these terms have been, with the most serious philosophers always giving them a wide berth.
No wonder! Before we reach for a major multi-volume encyclopedia let us open the more natural choice of the vast majority of people, with our old familiar friend Webster’s Dictionary, and see what we can find in the depths of its wisdom.
The dictionary provides these three very different definitions of theism:
(1). "Belief in the existence of a god or gods." (This definition is supposed to include, together with normal monotheism,--- polytheism, and perhaps pantheism too, that is, it describes a belief in any kind of deity, what I have jokingly termed “Godism.”)
(2). "Belief in One God; monotheism: opposed to pantheism, polytheism." (It becomes clear right away, that the second definition clashes with the first, a sorry position for any kind of term to be in!)
(3). "Belief in One God, creator and ruler of the universe, known by revelation: distinguished from deism." (This third definition is the most artificial; it is obvious from how it uses the term "deism" that it is designed exclusively in reaction to deism, as the positive alternative to the negative denotations and connotations of deism.)
Now, opened on the word "deism," the Dictionary provides these two very different definitions of deism:
(1). "The belief that God exists, and created the world, but thereafter assumed no control over it or the lives of people." (When taken as a distinctive creed, this is obviously a part of the term’s description, but only an isolated part, as the second definition, which follows, suggests. The question is: why separate the two? A likely answer also follows.)
(2). "In philosophy, the belief that reason is sufficient in proving the existence of God, with the consequent rejection of revelation and authority." (How strangely disparate and logically incongruous these two formal definitions are, suggesting that the term deism must have been used rather frivolously, since its inception… but wait, there is more!)
...To which two, we can add this third, on the unimpeachable authority of Thomas Jefferson, who defines the word deism in his 1803 essay An Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus Compared with Those of Others:
“Their system was deism; that is, belief of only one God. But their ideas of Him and of His attributes were degrading and injurious…” (And now the prosecution can rest its case!)
Jefferson defines the system of deism as a belief in one God, which makes it indistinguishable from the first definition of theism in Webster’s Dictionary. Running a little bit ahead of myself, I find it interesting that when the French encyclopedist and learned correspondent of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, Denis Diderot translated into French the works of some English deists, he used the French word théisme in every place where the English original would say deism. One may argue that Diderot, who became an agnostic in his late years, was doing it disingenuously, on purpose, one may equally argue that the French public would have been bewildered by the unfamiliar word deism (although ironically, this word originated in France in 1564 with the Protestant preacher/theologian Pierre Viret, referring to somebody else, unclear who by name, who allegedly may have called themselves deists [my entry Deism As Religion, dealing with this subject, will be posted later]), and Diderot needed another, similar word which they would understand. But no matter what, when things get this complicated, there must be something wrong somewhere, and that is a fact which nobody can deny.
I suspect, however, that the word deist was adopted by certain people (like by Lord Herbert, discussed in Part II below) who started calling themselves “deists” simply to distinguish themselves from the more general "theist" crowd, by the same token as the Jesuits wished to distinguish themselves from all other “ordinary” Christians, even though both these words: Jesuit and Christian, have obviously been derived from exactly the same person: Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, the vagueness of the word deism and its esoteric usage well off the beaten path had given an opportunity to the conventional Christian theologians (actually starting with Viret!) to "clarify" its meaning, by ascribing to it all sorts of heresies, and to turn it into their rhetorical punching bag. There are numerous illustrations of it, but there is no need to choose any, because my readers can have some special fun finding them for themselves...
...To be continued in Part II tomorrow.
All diligent students of philosophy or theology, when asked about the difference between deism and theism, are surely expected to come up with a crispy clear explanation of what each one signifies, and how they are different. I wonder, however, if any one of them will rise to the occasion, and talk about the artificiality of these two terms, one of Latin root, the other one of Greek, but both meaning the same thing: “Godism,” and also, how very confusing these terms have been, with the most serious philosophers always giving them a wide berth.
No wonder! Before we reach for a major multi-volume encyclopedia let us open the more natural choice of the vast majority of people, with our old familiar friend Webster’s Dictionary, and see what we can find in the depths of its wisdom.
The dictionary provides these three very different definitions of theism:
(1). "Belief in the existence of a god or gods." (This definition is supposed to include, together with normal monotheism,--- polytheism, and perhaps pantheism too, that is, it describes a belief in any kind of deity, what I have jokingly termed “Godism.”)
(2). "Belief in One God; monotheism: opposed to pantheism, polytheism." (It becomes clear right away, that the second definition clashes with the first, a sorry position for any kind of term to be in!)
(3). "Belief in One God, creator and ruler of the universe, known by revelation: distinguished from deism." (This third definition is the most artificial; it is obvious from how it uses the term "deism" that it is designed exclusively in reaction to deism, as the positive alternative to the negative denotations and connotations of deism.)
Now, opened on the word "deism," the Dictionary provides these two very different definitions of deism:
(1). "The belief that God exists, and created the world, but thereafter assumed no control over it or the lives of people." (When taken as a distinctive creed, this is obviously a part of the term’s description, but only an isolated part, as the second definition, which follows, suggests. The question is: why separate the two? A likely answer also follows.)
(2). "In philosophy, the belief that reason is sufficient in proving the existence of God, with the consequent rejection of revelation and authority." (How strangely disparate and logically incongruous these two formal definitions are, suggesting that the term deism must have been used rather frivolously, since its inception… but wait, there is more!)
...To which two, we can add this third, on the unimpeachable authority of Thomas Jefferson, who defines the word deism in his 1803 essay An Estimate of the Merit of the Doctrines of Jesus Compared with Those of Others:
“Their system was deism; that is, belief of only one God. But their ideas of Him and of His attributes were degrading and injurious…” (And now the prosecution can rest its case!)
Jefferson defines the system of deism as a belief in one God, which makes it indistinguishable from the first definition of theism in Webster’s Dictionary. Running a little bit ahead of myself, I find it interesting that when the French encyclopedist and learned correspondent of Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, Denis Diderot translated into French the works of some English deists, he used the French word théisme in every place where the English original would say deism. One may argue that Diderot, who became an agnostic in his late years, was doing it disingenuously, on purpose, one may equally argue that the French public would have been bewildered by the unfamiliar word deism (although ironically, this word originated in France in 1564 with the Protestant preacher/theologian Pierre Viret, referring to somebody else, unclear who by name, who allegedly may have called themselves deists [my entry Deism As Religion, dealing with this subject, will be posted later]), and Diderot needed another, similar word which they would understand. But no matter what, when things get this complicated, there must be something wrong somewhere, and that is a fact which nobody can deny.
I suspect, however, that the word deist was adopted by certain people (like by Lord Herbert, discussed in Part II below) who started calling themselves “deists” simply to distinguish themselves from the more general "theist" crowd, by the same token as the Jesuits wished to distinguish themselves from all other “ordinary” Christians, even though both these words: Jesuit and Christian, have obviously been derived from exactly the same person: Jesus Christ.
On the other hand, the vagueness of the word deism and its esoteric usage well off the beaten path had given an opportunity to the conventional Christian theologians (actually starting with Viret!) to "clarify" its meaning, by ascribing to it all sorts of heresies, and to turn it into their rhetorical punching bag. There are numerous illustrations of it, but there is no need to choose any, because my readers can have some special fun finding them for themselves...
...To be continued in Part II tomorrow.
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