The word deism is first recorded in English in the 1680s and seems to come from the French déisme which, in turn, comes from Latin deus meaning “god.” Initially, it was used as the opposite of atheism and in the 1700s was used as the opposite of theism.
In seventeenth century Europe, deism grew out of new scientific knowledge of the world. In his entry on deism in The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Bill Cooke writes:
“Deism is, in the main, a European movement, and relevant only to the Christian tradition to which it was reacting.”
In general, deists rejected many elements of Christianity—original sin, the Virgin Birth, the Trinity—and felt that while there was a divine creator, this creator was not concerned with daily life. Dismissing the idea of special revelation as fiction, deists saw the essence of religion as reason.
In 1730, Martin Tindal (1657-1733) published Christianity as Old as Creation, which is sometimes called the “deist’s Bible.” Bill Cooke reports:
“Tindale extended the critique of scriptures by arguing that such texts, being human creations, are full of errors and inconsistencies and serve only to deflect our thoughts from the proper constitution of the universe.”
Tindal’s work angered the clergy and he was accused of being an immoral man. In his biography of Tindal in The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, David Berman writes:
“No doubt criticism of his moral character was designed partly to bring his principles into disrepute; for showing that the man who virtually reduced religion to morality was himself immoral would certainly help the enemies of deism.”
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) brought deist ideas to a wider audience with his The Age of Reason (1794-1795), a best-seller in Europe and America. Bill Cooke reports:
“The writings of Thomas Paine struck a nerve that went far beyond the polite disputes over the merits of deism.”
Many religious fundamentalists became alarmed at the book’s popularity. In his short biography of Paine in The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, Kenneth Burchell writes:
“In perhaps the most successful smear campaign in history, Federalists flogged Paine with his religious views in order to discredit his democratic radicalism, while religious conservatives called down anathema and invective on the great ‘Agent of Lucifer.’”
Today, deism refers to the belief that god does exist but does not interfere with human life and the laws of the universe. God is transcendent. Many deists feel that religious beliefs must be based on features observed in the natural world and they tend to dismiss revealed religion—that is, religions which are based on supernatural revelations to prophets—as fiction. They feel that the knowledge needed for happiness is universal and does not depend on revelation. William Wainwright, in his entry on deism in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, writes:
“True religion is an expression of a universal human nature whose essence is reason and is the same in all times and places.”
Steven Doloff, in an article in Free Inquiry, writes:
“Deism prioritized an exclusive reliance upon reason to know God and his universe of natural (scientific) law.”
In comparing theism and deism, Richard Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, writes:
“A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place.”
Deism was primarily a phenomenon of the 17th and 18th centuries and was strongest in England. In the Americas, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine were prominent deists. Bill Cooke writes:
“The separation of church and state is a logical consequence of deism and constitutes its most lasting and positive legacy.”