John Witherspoon, the only clergyman to have signed the Declaration of Independence, worked alongside deists such as Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and John Adams because he shared the ideal of civil liberty and believed the new republic would bring it. However, he very much disagreed with his Continental Congress colleagues about Christianity. In fact, as the president of Princeton University, he counseled his students not to bother even reading the works of these and other deists, because he "
saw deism as more of a threat than atheism, a true wolf in sheep's clothing." He rigorously taught about the revealed nature of Christianity, its rationality, the fact of miracles, and most importantly the divinity of Jesus.
As I read about John Witherspoon in the book, Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to The Passion of the Christ, the underlined quote above stood out. Do you believe that? Is deism or atheism more of a threat to Christianity?
Comments (9)
Well, one philosophy believes that God created everything and the other believes that creation is just a gigantic cosmic accident. However, Deism which claims belief in God also claims that, having started the worlds spinning and orbiting that He took His hands off and went on vacation. So either way you have no ruling sovereign over the human race (because we have seen the human pretenders come and go throughout history).
The dangers to human society are the same for all belief systems except for Orthodoxy. The Bible teaches that all men are sinners. Recognizing that as fact is one of the strong points of our government's system of "checks and balances." However, whether we believe it or not we will all stand before God our righteous judge, so any belief system which ignores the salvation which God has provided through His Son, Jesus will lead to condemnation. (John 3:18)
I think a wolf in sheep's clothing would be more harmful than an obvious wolf, but then, it depends on who you are. Some people can ignore the details that contradict their beliefs, but flat out opposition, particularly when coming in the form of a difficult question, can be a bigger stumbling block.
@maryk_9 - @quest4god@revelife - More thoughts: In my opinion, atheism and deism are pragmatically the same. Prayers to a deist god a futile, because he/she/it cannot (or does not) interact in this world. From my understanding from listening to and reading atheists, that is the reason why atheists don't believe in God. They want to see God in action in clear ways. From their vantage point, that doesn't happen. Whether one believes that a creator god must somehow exist is relatively unnecessary at that point, except that it makes it easier for them to consider the idea that God revealed himself to the Hebrew people and through Jesus and his followers. However, as a threat to Christianity, I don't think atheism will ever confuse us, but deism will because we like that deist at least proclaim god, proclaim morals based upon god (or god's creation), and bottom-line believe this world was made with an intentional purpose.
@soy_esteban - good thoughts! I quite agree with you. A detached, aloof God is never even hinted at in the scriptures. Always He makes known His concern about our sin and waywardness as well as being involved in our salvation...No, He IS our salvation! How anyone can not see the hand of God actively working in this world and in our lives is beyond me. If I were not aware of God's love for me, I would be looking for love in all the wrong places - as is the case with the majority of humanity.
You are right. An absentee God is no better than no God. He is our very life and breath and reason for our being. He made us as well as everything else FOR Himself.
@quest4god@revelife - It's funny you mention checks and balances here, because most scholars attribute James Madison's "checks and balances" of the three government to Madison's belief in total depravity inbred in him by his mentor John Witherspoon.
@quest4god@revelife - @maryk_9 - Not all deists believe in an absent God. That should be noted first. What deists have in common more then whether God is here or not is that God works in natural ways. That God set up the universe to work as a system. You are right that both deists and atheists generally think along the same lines. Both believe in logic and reason as a means for understanding the universe around us and human ethics. But deists don't believe in a revealed religion. While we may believe in a God that exists outside of our time and space that God doesn't have to be magical and work through miracles. If things do in fact happen for a reason it's because God set it up that way, it's part of the system. It may be beyond our understanding at this time, but it does in fact work within the bounds of Gods creation.
We believe in a more logical and realistic God. Not some magical fairytale king passing judgment on us for everything we do.
Is deism a wolf in sheep's clothing? Only to those who believe in revealed religions.
@Deist - Your reply confuses me somewhat. How is it that you believe in God at all if not through revelation? Do you only discount the scriptural accounts of God's interaction/intervention with man and yet retain some of the scriptures - those that tell of creation? Could a deist believe that God would intervene in history to insert Himself (through the Incarnation) in order to redeem sinful man? Or do you suppose that man can extricate himself from sin by his own logic and reasoning? Or, do you not believe that all men are sinners?
Looking forward to a better understanding of your position.
@quest4god@revelife -
"How is it that you believe in God at all if not through revelation?"
Revelation such as that in the bible is hear-say. We're taking somebodies word for it. Somebody who lived thousands of years ago in a different age when man believed the sun rotated around the earth. Somebody who could be lying or made the whole thing up or was on drugs and had a bunch of hallucinations. Surely if God wanted to save souls by revealing himself to some he would also offer those same undeniable revelations to all people first hand.
As a deist, my belief in a God stems from the idea that there must be a first cause to everything. The universe needed to start in some way, just as everything starts in some way.
It's like scientists who talk about the big bang, for a deist that big bang could easily be the hand of God at work. We're more apt to believe God started out the universe and set things in motion that allowed life to evolve on this planet.
We're a lot like most atheists in that we are scientific and logical about things. We believe that it is both in our nature and perhaps the will of God we go out and discover and use our minds.
Deists don't buy into the whole "man is a sinner" thing. We don't really feel the need to pile on a bunch of guilt for no reason. That's the kind of mentality an early church might throw onto a bunch of uneducated peasants in order to keep them in line. This idea that by default you are born a sinner and you must redeem yourself by following the word of God. If you do, you will be given an eternal reward. If you don't you'll be given eternal torment. That sounds more like promises made by kings and clergymen who are trying to control people. So they rule them with fear and promises of a wonderful afterlife.
Instead we use our head. We don't buy into any of that. Those of us deists who believe that God is still around, typically believe that God wants us to use our heads, he wants us to create and build things, he wants us to advance technologically and he wants us to go out there and discover the universe he built for us. Not sit around feeling sorry for ourselves with a bunch of guilt or believing things based on blind faith alone. Our God would never ask us to believe something on faith alone. Such things are foolish. Our God gave us a brain and five senses and a beautiful universe to to discover with those senses. When we die, we believe that that God will do with us as he sees fit. We trust God enough to know that he (it) put us here to begin with and will do with us as it wishes when our life is done. We don't presume to know anything about God or his will. We only believe what we believe. We believe such things by looking at the world around us and the way things work.
That's probably the biggest difference between us and the revealed religions. If God is talking to us, he is talking to us through his creation for all of us to see, not through a few choice prophets from thousands of years ago who try to tell us how things work. God speaks to us through truth. Something that everyone no matter their religion, skin color or cultural background can see and accept. A truly universal message. If something is true, that is the word of God. Like atheists, we don't follow a doctrine. We don't have ceremonies or religious texts. The world is our teacher and God speaks to us through his creation, through science, through reason and through logic. Everything else is just a bunch of myths and fairy tales.
I would take the honest atheist over the typical deist any day, simply because we live in a time of confusion and darkness, and deism subverts Christian truth from 'within'. At least with an honest atheist, you are both confronting each other with a mutually understood difference in theology/philosophy; whereas with a deist, everything blends into everything else (imagine quoting Scripture back and forth) until it is very difficult to untangle.