Is Deism a form of Theism?

[BlackLight]

I've heard this suggested recently, first by avowed theists, but also seemingly by some atheists.

As I always imagined the 'God Spectrum," I had Theism on one end, Atheism on the other, and Deism in between (and far closer to the Atheism side). But an opposing view to this seems to be that Deism is itself a form of Theism, almost a subset of it, like Christianity of Judaism.

My definitions have held that Theism is a belief in a Personal God, one who knows you're here, cares about you, looks after you, tells you how to behave, and intervenes on your behalf in certain circumstances. While Deism is simply a belief in a Prime Mover, an Impersonal God who created the Cosmos and everything in it, and since has done nothing but sit back and watch (if that). Given that there are few, if any stakes involved in holding strictly Deistic belief, the margin between it and Atheism seems vanishingly small.

Assuming my definitions are correct, I don't know how you get to Deism through Theism. How you accept a belief in a Personal God that cares about, and then, when choosing your flavor of Theism, you decide on the one that insists that God might not even know you're here (or cares).

 

[scorpion9]

I would flip it around.
Theism is probably a subset of Deism, since deism is more vague and less defined.
Theism inherits the properties of deism and builds on that, adds more details about god.


I think that Deism is far more rational than theism, since it makes only one assumption, that there was a prime mover who set it all in motion. As far as i know, deists dont claim any insanities that they cannot know. The only part irrational about deism in my opinion would be conviction or gnosticism about the belief that there was a prime mover at the beginning. Simply contemplating it or leaning towards that belief is ok.

 

[Squawk]

I would flip it around.
Theism is probably a subset of Deism, since deism is more vague and less defined.
Theism inherits the properties of deism and builds on that, adds more details about god.


I think that Deism is far more rational than theism, since it makes only one assumption, that there was a prime mover who set it all in motion. As far as i know, deists dont claim any insanities that they cannot know.

I'd agree with this

 

[RichardMNixon]

I would flip it around.
Theism is probably a subset of Deism, since deism is more vague and less defined.
Theism inherits the properties of deism and builds on that, adds more details about god.

It depends on your definition. If you use theism as I do to mean belief in a god, then is belief in a god, then Deism is certainly under that umbrella. If you define theism as having a personal god (wikipedia's theism article uses both in the first two sentences), then I could see placing it as a brother to Deism, but still not necessarily under it. I'd suggest you need a new word to cover both.

I also don't think Deism is in anyway slighted by being theistic. It's certainly among the most rational forms of Theism, and was a stop along my deconversion route.

As an amusing sidenote: I've heard several Christians object to being called theists. It's an oddly loaded word for something so vague.

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

In practical terms (ie in regard to our view of what shapes events in our day-to-day lives) atheism arrived at by reason is pretty much identical to deism, which is why I have absolutely no problem with deists. To my eyes this doesn't stop deism being a form of theism though. It's just the most rational form.

 

[Squawk]

In practical terms (ie in regard to our view of what shapes events in our day-to-day lives) atheism arrived at by reason is pretty much identical to deism, which is why I have absolutely no problem with deists. To my eyes this doesn't stop deism being a form of theism though. It's just the most rational form.

I ended up a deist after my christian upbringing, and stayed that way until I realised that "I don't know" is a much better answer to the question of origins. In practical terms that made no difference at all to me.

 

[WarK]

For me deism is a sort of theism stripped from dogma, all you're left with is that fuzzy feeling.
It's so vague that for me it's hard to even know what's it about. Another strange belief is pantheism, which, to my knowledge, creates another word for the universe and nothing more.

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Deism on Wikipedia.

I was a pantheist for a very brief period before I transitioned into being an atheist. During that period I believed that if you take all the laws of the universe and bundle them up together, that's God. Silly me, now I know it's just a bundle of laws. I don't think I was ever a deist.

I suppose a theist becomes a deist when he rejects the concept of there being a deity watching over us and expecting us to perform according to his rules. He doesn't become an atheist outright because he's yet to grasp the reality that the universe could have come about without it having a Creator. Hence he becomes inclined to imagine a god that created the universe then left it to evolve on its own.

Eventually as he understands that universe does not need a Creator, he will abandon this belief as well, becoming an atheist.

 

[Extropian]

I see the presumption of an invisible supernatural authority as unequivocally excluding any association with atheism.

TMWoT, the dedicated atheist lives his life in the conviction that gods don't exist except in the minds of human beings.

The human mind has developed along with its increased intelligence, the capacity to accommodate the ridiculous, the outrageous and the capacity for self-deception. The atheist has demonstrated an ability to minimise the influence of these functions and recognise the values of logic, reason and rationality as superior modes of thinking.

His reasoning takes him on an interesting journey. He [or she, I'm not a chauvinist] sees the human imagination as capable of inventing a marvellous variety of thoughts and concepts, in fact without being able to quantify this capability, a rational approach entitles him/her to presume that there is no way of knowing how many individual thoughts and concepts of which the human mind is capable. It is therefore not unreasonable to presume an infinite number.

Among this infinite number is the supernatural and among the supernatural we encounter god. Experience has impressed upon me that upon being presented with this reasoning, a theist will ridicule said reasoning but in anticipation of godly wrath, will assiduously avoid rationally and reasonably arguing against such a notion.

A rational and reasoned argument is not available to the theist. His/her god is only one of an infinite number of concepts. Any argument that a god is at the peak of a hierarchy of infinite numbers is a futile one, an argument that leads to absurdity.

It is apt at this juncture to look at Werner Heisenberg's Principal of Uncertainty. This great mathematician proved that nothing can be known with absolute certainty. The reasoning which establishes how Heisenberg can be so absolutely certain of his proof is not available.

But, giving WH his due, many who cleave to reason and the rational insist that regardless of the remoteness of a possibility, the possibility of a god's existence must be acknowledged. This is why Richard Dawkins, in his scale of atheism's credibility claims to a 6 out of 7. However, given that there is an infinity of possibilities and a god is just one in that infinity, what sort of argument can be raised that would credibly put a god at the apex of that hierarchy of infinity, ahead of Bobby Henderson's Flying Spaghetti Monster or Bertrand Russell's teapot or Arthur C.Clarke's Monolith?
These are no less worthy products of the human imagination than gods.

Conclusion: In order that it is firmly established and prospers, pure and posititive atheism [strong atheism to some] should not be forced into compromising with absurdity. The assertion of a Universe, eternal in one form or another, devoid of the supernatural, pristine and unalloyed with gods, ghosts and demons, is a legitimate assertion of primacy and origin carrying with it the imprimatur of William of Ockham and a willing, even eager, vulnerability to scientific falsification.

Note that the positive atheist is not denying with absolute certainty that gods don't exist. He/she acknowledges they exist in the imaginations of other humans.

Extropian

 

[Laurens]

Deism is in many ways far more rational than theism. However it is the product of a time when reason and rationality could dispense with the ridiculous God of the Bible, but the apparent design within the universe was still something that could only be explained with a supernatural being. We now have better explanations for the "apparent design" within the universe, so the deist God is very much a God of an ever closing gap - and for those reasons deism is still irrational albeit more rational than theism.

 

[FaithlessThinker]

Deism is in many ways far more rational than theism. However it is the product of a time when reason and rationality could dispense with the ridiculous God of the Bible, but the apparent design within the universe was still something that could only be explained with a supernatural being. We now have better explanations for the "apparent design" within the universe, so the deist God is very much a God of an ever closing gap - and for those reasons deism is still irrational albeit more rational than theism.

If there's a Like button for your post, I would have clicked it a thousand times by now! (Btw sidenote to mod: I noticed some forums have a "Thanks" feature, which could possibly be converted to a "Like" feature.)

 

[Story]

I always thought that Theism was the belief in some sort of god, as god's come in many sorts, a prime mover is one of them. I suppose it depends on whether they anthropormorphize the prime mover or not. I.e. was it an intentional act? Is it intelligent?. If it's neither intelligent nor a thinking being, then that's just sexed up atheism.