Those of us who embrace Christianity often forget that there are many religious philosophies sheltered by the great umbrella of Christianity. We often think that our way is the only way, yet there are millions of people who do not adhere to the exact same beliefs as those we profess.
Let's consider the Deists, and there are many Deists among us. Those who profess to be Deists accept a movement or system of thought that advocates what is sometimes called "Natural Religion." In other words, they believe we should base our beliefs on human reason rather than revelation.
Deism found many advocates in England where the movement started in the seventeenth century. The Deists believe in a very personal God who created the world but takes no interest in what happens or has happened since the creation. The Deist will tell you that the world is a clock which God made and wound. When the clock was finished, God stepped back, folded his arms and since that time watches what man does with the world. When the clock has run down, God will be back either to wind the clock again or let it remain silent.
According to the Deists, when God created man and the earth and set the earth in motion, he did not and does not interfere in the laws of the universe which he created. In other words, a great storm might take place or a volcano might erupt and cause great destruction, but the earth was created so that it can restore itself and God reveals himself in this restoration.
I am not a Deist and do not intend to ever become one, but I must relate a happening which the Deists would point to as proof of their philosophy. Shortly after my father-in-law passed away, a huge oak tree in his back yard, an oak under which he spent many hours working on his tractor or just talking with family and friends, was struck by lightning and soon was dead. He died in May and by September the tree had to be taken down.
We grieved about losing the tree, but then something surprising happened. A young oak sprouted near the stump and today is a fully-grown tree with birds nesting in its branches and squirrels scampering up and down its trunk. Members of the family think of it as a sign that he is still among us. This man was a farmer, and he accepted the laws of nature without complaint. If it did not rain, he never argued with the Lord or complained. Using the intellect God had given him, he just hooked up a long hose and ran water to his garden.
Our third President Thomas Jefferson is often described as a Deist. Jefferson believed God gave man the power to think and rationalize; therefore, it is up to man to follow the moral rules of the universe and to do something about the ills of the world. Jefferson thought God revealed himself in the seasons but did not participate once he had set the seasons in motion. Jefferson believed the great laws of nature had been put into motion by God and that man should abide by them.
Jefferson never thought that God was nature or that God revealed himself through nature. Jefferson did think that the laws of nature were the creation of God and that those laws guided our lives. It was through nature that man survived. Jefferson lived by the seasons. He always had large vegetable gardens filled with those plants that were suitable for each season.
His orchards surrounded his home Monticello just as they do today. Jefferson was one of the first farmers to rotate crops in order not to deplete the land, and he had several rooms in the basement of his home for storing roots, nuts and pickled produce.
During the 1960s, or what has become known as the "hippie era," there was a great renewal of Deistic thought among those who were known as "the flower children." For that generation, getting close to nature was the order of the day. The flower children delighted in sleeping out of doors, gathering in pastures for concerts and other performances, wearing loose-fitting clothing and a necklace of flowers around their necks or woven into their hair.
The Deists preach a very personal religion, and indirectly Deism played a role in our founding fathers' insistence on a separation of church and state in the formation of the government under which we live today. Not only was Thomas Jefferson a Deist, but George Washington and Thomas Paine also believed that God put the world in motion and then no longer interfered in what happened to his creation.
It is a mistake to think of the Deists as heathens. Deists have never denied the existence of God. The great difference between Deism and other religious philosophies is that most Christian denominations believe in God, the divinity of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Deists believe that God created the universe and now sits on high and watches what man does with what God has provided.
