DEISM. A term which has been used in various senses. "The term is now commonly applied to that view of the relation of God to the world which, in opposition to Atheism, affirms the existence of God, and in opposi tion to Pantheism, affirms the personal, independent, extra-mundane existence of God, but which at the same time, in opposition to Theism strictly so called, denies the continuous, ever-present action of God upon the world and His activity in it " (B. Plinjer). Pfinjer observes that the roots of Deism, which was prepared for in politics by the doctrines of the Levellers and in philosophy by Francis Bacon, " lay in the sober, practi cal. common-sense character of the English people, and its beginnings took their rise in the characteristic move ment of the English Reformation." J. B. Bury (Hist. of Freedom of Thought) speaks of the English deists as doing memorable work by their polemic against the authority of revealed religion. " The controversy between the deists and their orthodox opponents turned on the question whether the Deity of natural religion— the God whose existence, as was thought, could be proved by reason—can be identified with the author of the Christian revelation. To the deists th-is seemed impos
sible. The nature of the alleged revelation seemed incon sistent with the character of the God to whom reason pointed. The defenders of revelation, at least all the most competent, agreed with the deists in making reason supreme, and through this reliance on reason some of them fell into heresies. Clarke, for instance, one of the ablest, was very unsound on the dogma of the Trinity. It is also to be noticed that with both sections the interest of morality was the principal motive. The orthodox held that the revealed doctrine of future rewards and punishments is necessary for morality; the deists, that morality depends on reason alone, and that revelation contains a great deal that is repugnant to moral Ideals."