Deism

Deism, a rationalist religious philosophy that flourished in the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly in England. Generally, deists held that a certain kind of religious knowledge (sometimes called natural religion) is either inherent in each person or accessible through the exercise of reason, but they denied the validity of religious claims based on revelation or on the specific teachings of any Church.

Deism emerged as a major religious and philosophical view in England. The most prominent 17th-century deists were Edward Herbert, John Toland, and Charles Blount, all of whom advocated a rationalist religion and criticized the supernatural or nonrational elements in the Jewish and Christian traditions. In the early 18th century, Anthony Collins, Thomas Chubb, and Matthew Tindal sharpened the rationalist attack on orthodoxy by attempting to discredit the miracles and mysteries of the Bible.

Although these challenges to traditional and orthodox interpretations of Christianity aroused much opposition, the deists did much to establish the intellectual climate of Europe in the 18th century. Their emphasis on reason and their opposition to fanaticism and intolerance greatly influenced the British philosophers John Locke and David Hume. In France, Voltaire became a particularly effective proponent of deism and intensified his predecessors' rationalist critique of Scripture. Nonetheless, he retained the British deists' view that a deity certainly exists. Versions of deism, some of them approaching atheism, were advocated by many other prominent figures of the European Enlightenment.

Deism was also influential in late 18th-century America, where deistic views were held by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. The most vociferous American deists were Ethan Allen and Thomas Paine.

Deism in Europe and America played an important role both in exposing traditional religion to rationalist criticism and in encouraging the development of rationalist philosophy. Elements of the deists' ideas have been absorbed by Unitarianism, Modernism, and other modern religious tendencies.

See also Rationalism.