In presenting the Deist case to those I find willing to converse about it, I often find myself having to discuss the distinction between objective and universal knowledge. Many know the distinction between subjective and objective preferences, knowledge and anything else the distinction applies to. However, many do not know about objectively true claims and universally true claims. This is a matter of great importance to Deists, and it is my hope that this article hopes to function as a source for distinguishing the two.
Firstly, objective knowledge refers to knowing something that is objectively true. For example, the statement "It was raining in Topeka, Kansas at 9:14 AM on March 6, 2023". Assuming that it did really did rain in Topeka, Kansas during that specified time, it would be objective knowledge to know such a thing. If the event in reference is true, then it can be objectively proven that the statement is true and that the knower of that statement possess some form of objective knowledge.
So what makes universal knowledge different? The distinctive characteristic of universal knowledge is that it is knowledge that every being with argumentation (ability to understand propositional logic) will be able to deduce it without reference to any external information. If you were in Nebraska on March 6, 2023 at 9:14 AM, you might not have known that it rained in Kansas at that exact time. Unless you consulted the weather app, or some other source of information, you would not know.
By contrast, people in both Kansas and Nebraska can independently come to the conclusion that 2 + 2 = 4 because it is a form of universal knowledge. This doesn't mean that people cannot err and think that 2 + 2 = 5, math errors are commonplace even if that particular one would be far too rudimentary for anyone to make. A truth may be universally knowable but not universally accepted, because people can be irrational, inattentive, uneducated, dishonest, or simply confused. Simply by virtue of thinking about the problem, one can deduce that adding an identity of two to an identity of two leads to an identity of four. One need not find two batches of two homogenous items and then add them to have four of them to verify the truth of the statement.
This distinction is important for Deists as it is incumbent upon us to ask for universal proof of God as opposed to mere objective proof. Any objective knowledge requires us to assume some validity of the source by which we make a judgement. For example, suppose we accept that the historical Jesus truly existed, that he rose from the dead, and that he transformed water into wine. Could someone who has never heard of Christianity ever arrive at the truth of those claims simply by reflecting on them? Even if they were told of these events, they would still have to rely on testimony rather than deduction. Given the assumption such events objectively occurred, their truth would remain historically mediated, meaning that a person outside that chain of testimony could not independently derive them through argumentation alone.
In Deism, the goal should (ideally) be to have a universal claim on why God exists. Otherwise, we are still within the realm of faith just with different theses. Even if someone has never heard of Deism, they should ideally be able to deduce the existence of God using the same type of argumentation we use to come to the same conclusion. I personally have been examining the Transcendental Argument for God to fit that criteria. Demand universal knowledge in your next discussion, and subject your own reasoning to the same standard of proof.
Many thanks to Knight5593 for proofreading and editing this article.