This is a topic often talked about in Deist circles, and one that tends to divide many groups of Deists as well. While certain Deists accept some forms of revelation, and others accept the theoretical possibility of revelation, what distinguishes us from other schools of thought is the doubt which must be placed on it.
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. Many claim to have the truly inspired, non-corrupted work. There have been many debates about which religion is true but anything that hinges on revelation is bound to be unprovable at best. It is a shame how many people devote themselves to this futile task. Theist-to-Theist dialogue is often plagued with hidden acceptance of the premise that revelation can be perfect. This is not the case.
This isn’t to say that revelation can’t occur. For now, I haven’t seen a compelling argument against revelation as a concept itself. In fact, I argued for its theoretical possibility in a past article on the Trinion Contradictions. Although, there is a great speculative argument against revelation which I think many ought to consider. Why would God let us know about himself through imperfect or dubious means? Since anything empirical is hypothetical-contingent on various factors, one ought to wonder why God would choose such means.
There are certain truths that can be considered self-evident and obvious. Logical a priori truths are self-evident and do not need external premises for their validation. Since perfect means exist, why would imperfect means be used? Of course, this doesn’t demonstrate that revelation couldn’t be used, even if imperfect but any proof of it would suffer from being an inherently faith-based argument. In the context of all of this, one can observe how Deism is an attempt to escape faith-based arguments.
Deism doesn’t start with what we want to know, but rather with what we can know. That pushes away a few inquirers who would like direct answers to the exact dilemmas they consider important in their mind. The one that comes to mind most often is “why would God make the universe and then leave it unattended?”. If you stick solely to what can be logically deduced, or what can be absolutely proven, it’s not a question that can be answered. Though, that shouldn’t be an excuse to have an answer for it inspired by “faith” (or what should really be called wishful thinking).
Due to distrust of revelation, Deism doesn’t struggle with multiple sufficiency. If you stick solely to reason or logic, you can’t have a truth criterion which could have multiple conflicting proofs. Any proof for God requires necessity, and so it should be a no-brainer that one ought not to build a case on top of revelation. Revelation itself is non-necessary, as there is no specific reason for why God would necessarily produce revelation. As such, I consider it wise to have distrust of worldviews built on revelation.