What is Deism?

Deism is a current of philosophy that admits, through reason and experience, the existence of God as creator of the natural world. The doctrine, however, does not accept other characteristic elements of religions in their relationship with the divinity, such as the existence of revelations or the practice of cults.

It can therefore be said that deists believe in God but not in religious practices and dogmas. Deism recognizes that God has created the universe although it does not believe in his subsequent intervention to orchestrate its destiny.

Deism views God as the creator of the natural world.

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Principles of deism

For deists, there are no miracles or the Holy Trinity. The manifestation of God occurs through natural laws, which can be analyzed from science. In general, deism rationally accepts that God cannot be proven to exist since the act of believing is ultimately a matter of faith.

The deist movement therefore approaches God through reflection. It does not support organized and institutionalized religion, nor the doctrines and precepts emanating from supposedly sacred books.

The approach to God by deism is done through reflection.

Rationalism and ethics

The deists guide their behavior from rational thought and ethics linked to their own conscience. That is why they also reject the orders imposed by ecclesiastical leaders who claim to act as messengers of God and communicators of his Word.

Deism does not agree with the most important affirmations of the religions, and they question them again and again due to the lack of satisfactory answers on the part of their dogmas. Some characteristics of deists are the following:

* they do not accept that the existence of God has been fully represented or explained in the scriptures generally called sacred;

* to reflect on the characteristics of God they use reason and do not allow a doctrine to impose a series of immovable concepts on them;

* with respect to ethics, they try to be guided by their own conscience and their reasoning when making important decisions, instead of following rules imposed by institutions;

* seek spirituality through spontaneous and unexplored paths, unlike those who adopt a tradition;

* they do not usually call themselves religious, but prefer the term spiritual to describe their relationship with God;

* They put aside the superstitions that contaminate certain religious teachings and rescue the rational aspects that can be truly useful for the life of any person, religious or not.

From religion to deism

Many self-styled religious people should consider themselves adherents of deism, since they do not practice or respect the tenets of the religion they claim to follow. This is especially the case with Christianity: in countries like Spain and Argentina, dozens of people claim to be Christians even though they never go to mass, have never read the Bible or can fluently tell the story of Jesus Christ, not to mention that they oppose most the ideas of the Church.

The origin of deism dates back to Ancient Greece and its heyday took place around the end of the 17th century. Great personalities of history have been identified or have been considered as deists. Aristotle, Plato, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Edison, Voltaire, and Walt Whitman are just a few of them.

The notion in grammar

In grammar, deism is understood as the incorrect tendency to use the preposition de ; Although it does not have as much prominence as dequeismo and queísmo, it also represents a problem that contaminates the communication of many Spanish-speaking people.

Let’s see some examples of deism: «They told me that they were going to come in the afternoon», «I told him to stay at his house tomorrow» ; in the first case the preposition “of” should be omitted, and in the second it is advisable to say “I proposed to stay”.

DEISM