Deist God?
By: Erick Nelson
Last Updated: Thursday January 06, 2005
Question
"Could God be viewed as the creator of the universe, but then just let everything move on its own momentum. He is not really involved with man, doesn't intervene, just lets man run the show and what happens happens?"
Deism
The belief or theory that God created everything and then has no further interaction with the universe is called "Deism." This view was favored by intellectuals in the late 18th century, including Washington and Jefferson.
The attraction of deism would seem to be (a) it does justice to the complexity of the universe and the laws of nature; (b) it explains why there is so much evil in the world and why miracles don't seem to regularly occur.
Continuum of Interaction
Deism sits at one end of the "interaction scale." God has no interaction with the world. At the other end would be (a) a God who either is equivalent with the whole universe (pantheism), so that everything that happens is God acting; or (2) a God who controls the universe as a puppeteer controls his puppets (a strongly deterministic theism), so that everything that happens is God's action.
Process Theology. In between can, then, exist theories which propose various kinds and degrees of interaction with the world. For instance, Process Theology holds that God, having presumably created everything, is somehow not able to act as a cause in the world. He must convince or persuade his creatures (and even atomic elements, which have souls in this view) to follow his will. (I don't know if I'm explaining this well, because very intelligent people have held this view, and on the face of it, it seems far-fetched at best.) The attraction is, once again, a kind of theodicy, or justification of God in the face of evil. He wants to eliminate evil, but he cannot - he can only persuade.
Anti-Miraculous Christianity. There are versions of traditional Christianity which hold that all miracles ended with the end of the apostolic era - they were replaced by Scripture. Therefore, God does not interact directly with the world. However, he presumably speaks to our hearts through the Holy Spirit (via the Word) and hears our prayers, answering them in ways that do not require miracles. Here, we have some interaction, although it is limited.
Charismatic Christianity. In this version of traditional Christianity, all the spiritual gifts present in the early church are available now, God speaks directly to our hearts, God speaks through prophecy and the word of knowledge, and he heals people of their physical diseases and casts out demons just as in the days of Jesus. Miracles are expected, almost common-place.
In some views, God interacts in this way but not that; or interacts thus far but no further. Some views are based on scripture, some on personal experience, others on philosophical reasoning or speculation, some on tradition.
Why Not Deism?
Well, why not Deism? First, it is not necessary to posit Deism as the reason why there is so much evil in the world. C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, does an excellent job of presenting a free-will defense without appealing to God's infinite distance. Additionally, simply saying that God does not get involved needs further qualification? Is this because he cannot be involved (such as in Process Theology)? Then how could he have created the universe in the first place? Is this because he has a policy against it? Then, (a) how could we ever know this? (since he doesn't interact with us), and (b) this doesn't relieve him of the responsibility for the deliberate choice to allow evil to exist as it does. And so, Deism fails in its goals.
Jesus
Why not deism? Why not pantheism? Why not any number of things? The most convincing proof to me is simply the man Jesus. Jesus is not a theory needing justification, he is (as Lewis pointed out) one of those stubborn facts around which we must fit our theory! There are excellent reasons for thinking he really existed, that he really claimed to be God in the flesh, and that he really rose from the dead. He he rose or he didn't. If he did rise, then he vindicated his claims; if he did not, then there is no reason to follow a failed Messiah.
If the evidence supports Jesus (I have written about this elsewhere, and of course there are hundreds of books on the subject), then the question boils down to, "What did Jesus say about this?" His very existence is a counter-example which disproves Deism, for he is God With Us. His Spirit can speak to us. The Father has counted the very hairs on our head. He promises not merely to occasionally interact with the world, but to rule in our hearts and change us from wooden people into "real people."