ClassicalDeism.org

Deism is most often distinguished from religions and other worldviews by the limits it places on what can be believed. While Deists are wary of religions and dogmatism, they should be equally wary of intuitionism and mysticism. Reason is the only standard by which propositions can be proven to be true or false.

Deists are a relatively small bunch compared to major world religions. There is no necessary relationship between Deism becoming popular and the philosophical quality of Deists decreasing. However, we should appreciate the opportunity to reason freely, independent of the constraints that plague adherents of religion or other contentious stances.

Deism is concerned not merely with what is believed, but with the conditions under which belief may properly be called knowledge. Every philosophical system presupposes an answer to a prior question, not what is true, but how truth itself may be known. Deism is no exception.

The greatest source of disagreement is rarely a conclusion. It begins much earlier, at the level of first principles. Unless first principles are actually axiomatic and remain arbitrary, philosophical agreement is impossible.

Suffering is often axiomatically accepted as evil in-itself. However, this is a mistake with the possibility to cause large changes in belief systems and worldviews. Under critical examination, suffering ceases to suffice as a complete explanation for evil.

By popular demand, a list of reading material for inquirers, prospective Deists and veterans to seek out knowledge and learn more.

It is a matter of great importance to Deists to distinguish between objective and universal claims. The distinction has massive consequences for the development of philosophical proofs.

Popularity is superficial to truth, and as much as it would be an instrumentally good thing, it is not an intrinsically good thing. In trying to achieve the former, we should not sacrifice the latter. For then, we will have neither.

A major point of contention between various Theists and Deists is the existence of supernatural events. This includes miracles, divine intervention necessary to prove certain Theist narratives. However, supernatural events cannot be proven with certainty due to the epistemic limits we have.

Despite the common view that religions intrinsically promote morality, the opposite is often true. Instead, a perverted form of morality arises.

When people delve into philosophy for the first time, their initial guides are intuition and feelings. While this is natural, they are no substitute for reason in philosophical inquiry.

There are some labels that communicate nothing other than that the primacy of one of the terms in the label invalidates the other. Deism is prey to that on occasion.

"Why would God create a universe and leave it?" and "Why would God create a universe just to meddle in it?" are equally valid propositions that create an antinomy that demonstrate the theoretical limits of philosophical inquiry.

The issue with revelation is that it’s impossible to place a non-arbitrary criterion on what would prove its divinity without the issue of possible multiple sufficiency. We observe this in the real world with competing religions.

The case for God rests upon logical, non-faith based argument. In this article, we explore how such an argument could be constructed avoiding common pitfalls.

Today marks a year from the start of the Classical Deism movement. Now is as good a time as any to look back upon what has been done, and what must be done.

A key point in almost every Deist's journey to Deism consists of leaving behind what they came from. What sets Deists apart is their search for truth, even when it may be uncomfortable.

The consequences of believing what "feels nice" rather than what is true are present within the Deist community as much as they are in other faiths or religions.

Many new to Deism struggle with thinking that Deism is incomplete, but our hesitancy to fabricate answers to unknowable claims is reflective of a superior philosophical tradition.

Any person who wishes to interact with the world around them must have beliefs of some sort. It is impossible to escape this as even asserting that we cannot have beliefs is itself a belief about the way the world is.

The Omnipotence Paradox is a type of argument that attempts to show that omnipotence is inherently contradictory, and that an omnipotent God could not exist. In this article, I demonstrate why the paradox fails on account of omnipotence being the ability to do anything logically possible.

Attempts to prove or disprove God using empirical arguments are fallacious. The case for God necessarily relies on a priori reasoning.

Pelagius was a theologian during the Patristic Age who emphasized the role of free will in morality. In particular, Pelagius disagreed that humans inherited moral guilt from original sin. Christianity abandoned Pelagianism, but we ought not to.

The Trinion Contradictions are a Neo-Deist argument which states that free will, divine intervention (prayer) and destiny are incompatible. While a good expository argument in favor of Deism, it has some shortcomings that Deists ought to be aware of.

The problem of evil is one of the most well-known objections to the existence of God. It has been instrumental to refuting some Theist arguments, but does it also refute Deism? In this article, we look at why that is not the case.

Deists often stress the importance of reason when it comes to arriving at any truths but especially metaphysical truths. If a claim or proposition lacks proper justification, it ought not to be accepted.

While Deism became most popular during the enlightenment, it is important to note that Deism has been around since humans started inquiry into the existence of God.