Sometimes trendy errors eventually get obliterated and there is no trace of them left in the following decades. But not this one. It is even more popular today.
What is deism?
Deism is a belief in a Creator God who, after completing His Creation, turned away from it and renounced any contact or intervention in its affairs. A popular illustration from deists is the picture of a well-made watch, in perfect order, left ticking away the hours in a forest.
Someone comes across the watch and assumes someone made it and left it there, but there is no evidence of who that person might be and certainly he never returns to reclaim (or re-wind or replace batteries). It just lies there ticking away til "time runs out."
Deists do not pray. There is no reason to waste the time since their god is not listening, and if he were, he would not answer. He will never intervene. He is an "absent god."
Daily life for deists is the same as daily life for atheists.
Sometimes deists engage in a form of meditation in order to "cleanse their minds" and "suppress negative thoughts." But they do not pray.
That certainly settles the question of our Founding Fathers. Even Benjamin Franklin, probably the least "spiritual" of the group prayed, and insisted on prayer during the various meetings of our early government. Thomas Jefferson, probably the one most referred to as a deist, considered prayer important.
And we all know about most of the others.
Some were active, out-spoken Christians. Some were not. But probably few of them, if any, were ever deists for any length of time.
Do why does our culture still place this tag on them?
Answer: Popular culture wants to reject all thoughts of a powerful God who exercises authority over them. People today pride themselves as being totally independent - all answers and all control lie within human beings themselves.
It is all so profoundly simple - we don't want a God because we don't want His authority to interfere in our lives -- we are humanists today. We don't need, nor want, God in our lives! Charles Darwin was, at least, honest when he explained the real importance of his theory of natural selection was that without it we would have to go back and put God in the picture!
And since the heritage of our Founding Fathers is so important to us, humanists must, in every way possible, reduce, deny, and trivialize their legacy.
That legacy to us was the belief in a powerful Creator God who endowed His creatures with dignity and stamped on them His own image. The purpose of government is to restrain evil and allow its people to hold on to their God-given rights.
But that means God has some authority in our lives. And that can't be allowed!
Another thing bothers me: how can we, many years after the fact, take a slice of a few moments (or months or years) of a person's life, and based on those instances, categorize that person permanently as one thing or another?
Do any of us believe exactly as we did while in college? Or when first married? Or as teen-agers?
I would hate for someone to say at my funeral that I believed in universalism, which I did for a short time. But I don't now and feel certain that I will never return to that philosophy because I have more information now. I have a certain amount of wisdom and discernment which comes with age and I can see how illogical universalism is.
Labeling people, placing them in a fixed category permanently, does make studying history so much easier. We don't have to give careful thought to their writings or evaluate their positions based on the culture in which they lived. We don't have to ponder their words and actions. We don't have to search for primary sources. We can just call them a name, put them in a box, and move on to something else. It is all so superficial. It is unproductive. It is such a sad and uninteresting way to study history. It is truly dishonest, also.
What's the Answer to Deism?
Well,that's easy....Try the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation....one continual story of God's sovereign rule over His Creation. Of His intervention into human history. Every book whispers the story of God's holiness and grace.
With the Bible as our Sword, we can sever all false ideological tags that corrupt its story.
Everything in the Bible involves God's self-disclosure. It tells us about His nature, His purposes, and His activity. Happily for us, God has not left us on our own to figure things out, especially since our imaginations are "idol factories." He has taken the initiative to speak to us and to show us what He is like. He has given us a generous revelation of Himself.
A good place to start would be Hebrews 1:1-3:
In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
