The deception of Deism

by Lewis Loflin

Deism isn't Pantheism, the belief that nature is somehow god/divine. Pantheism is in reality atheism. Another related belief system (or philosophy) is panentheism (what I refer to as pseudo-pantheism), defined as "Panentheism says that all is in God, somewhat as if God were the ocean and we were fish. If one considers what is in God's body to be part of God, then we can say that God is all there is and then some." Thus if everything "is in God" thus everything becomes divine, reducing any concept of god to relativism. This is a recent invention that like pantheism belongs under New Age religion or perhaps broadly pseudorelgion. This is part of the continuing process of religious syncretism. Panentheism is what Christianity is and is not monotheism such as classical Deism, Unitarianism, Judaism, etc. The Apostle Paul was a panentheist. Another recent and deceptive innovation is pandeism and panendeism, which are really just variations of pantheism and new age type mysticism. While I have nothing against these beliefs as such, they need to end the deceptive practices of using Deism to lure people into their groups. If one rejects the transcendent God of Deism, then by definition they are not Deists. Just as Christians reject the monotheism of Judaism, they shouldn't call themselves Jews. Panentheism is the "Holy Spirit" or "Holy Ghost" of Christianity.

My purpose is to clarify the issue based on historical evidence and the beliefs of those others claim authority from, the actual Deists.

Related issues:
• The gospel roots of Christian pantheism
• Panentheism versus Pantheism
• Alexander, the Jews, and Hellenism
• Hellenistic period
• Syncretism
• Platonism and Christianity
• ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION
• Neo-Platonism

French Deism was anti-religious and shaded into atheism, pantheism, and skepticism and in reality was better called deistic Humanism.
See French Deism, religious English Deism, and Deism Mainpage.

The "Enlightenment" was mainly a French affair. To quote, "A rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic issues promoted a secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility. Some "philosophes" at first proposed that their theories be implemented by "enlightened despots" or rulers who would impose reform by authoritarian means." And: "The main figures of the enlightenment are fairly well known: Descartes, Pascal, Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. There were others whom we could call antagonists to the dominant note, people like Rousseau, Zinzendorf, Wesley, Vico, and Hume." It also set the stage for secular disasters such as socialism, fascism, Nazism.

Voltaire
• The French Deists: Voltaire
• Voltaire a History
• Deism Depicted (Voltaire) by Tracy Van Pelt
• The Religion of Voltaire: He was an atheist, anti-Semite, hated Islam
• Voltaire's Deism
• The French Deists: The Encyclopedists
• Left vs Right, Montesquieu, Corporatism
• French Enlightenment overrated, historian says
• The Age of the Enlightenment
• The Enlightenment
• Quick Overview of the Enlightenment
• Enlightenment: mainstream of thought of 18th-century Europe and America.

  Rousseau

• The French Deists: J. J. Rousseau
• Romanticism, Rousseau, and Primitivism
• Rousseau: An Interesting Madman
• Rousseau and the Revolt Against Reason

Anti-Deism
• The deception of Deism
• The Deist Minimum
• Natural Law and a Nihilistic Culture
• Reasonable Science, Reasonable Faith
• Was Washington Really a Deist?
• The God of Abraham and the Enemies of "Eurocentrism"

God and reason:
• Isaac Newton and Arianism
• Isaac Newton's God

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Also see New Age Religion and What is paganism?