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| Wasdale: The Lake District (trekearth) |
Preface
I have noted this first section from William J. Wainright below in previous articles, linked. Again, I do not think that I need to 'reinvent the wheel' with all my work. It is fine to present work more than once.
But I do prayerfully attempt to present new writing through research and analysis.
Archives
William J. Wainwright explains that deism understands true religion as natural, as opposed to supernatural religion. Wainwright (1996: 188). He writes that some self-styled Christian deists accept revelation although they argue that the content is the same as natural religion. Wainwright (1996: 188). Most deists reject revelation as fiction, but many reason that God has ordained that human happiness is possible through natural means that are universally available. Wainwright (1996: 188). Salvation, therefore, does not come via divine revelation. Wainwright (1996: 188).
Deism and the distrust of the clergy
May 16, 2020
However, there is further interesting material from his entry:
Wainwright writes that within deism, true religion is viewed as an expression of a universal human nature that has essence in reason. (188). Christianity and Islam, in contrast, are within deistic thought stated to present 'credulity, political tyranny and priestcraft, which corrupt reason and overlay natural religion with impurities.' (188).
Wainwright then states that 'Deism is largely a seventeenth and eighteenth-century phenomenon and was more prominent in England.' (188). Further, deism became a vague term of abuse. (188). By the late eighteenth century, the term deism was connected to a belief in an 'absentee God', that creates the world, creates and maintains laws and 'leaves it to its own devices.' (188).
Theological opinion
One of my thesis tutors at the University of Wales, early in the process for my MPhil thesis, told me (paraphrased) that in Britain and Europe there was a distrust of the clergy. Researching this idea, I found that this distrust in the clergy gained much momentum in the enlightenment era and continues to the 21st century.
It seems to me, deism was in part, not in its totality, an enlightenment era philosophical/religious negative response to the former, or at least declining, European and British, church-state (philosophically) (church-kingdoms in context especially the Christian era to that time) religious systems, which unfortunately were a politicized version of Christianity. This politicized Christianity, although technically holding to certain central biblical tenants; as a Kingdom concept, was not in agreement with the New Testament gospel established by Jesus Christ, his disciples and apostles.
For those within the middle-ages (roughly the 5th to 15th centuries) and even the following renaissance era (roughly the 15th and 16th centuries), the various religious, political unions within Christendom in much of Europe, took priority over a citizen's and resident's own conscience, and philosophical views. This would include persons that had a primary religious commitment to the New Testament, Kingdom of God (John 18, 18:36), in a proper context, or persons embracing differing worldviews from the church-state.
As the clergy enforced the religious aspect of these church-state unions, the historical mistrust of them by many is philosophically and practically understandable.
John 18: 33 English Standard Version (ESV)
33 So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” 38 Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
'36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world.'
Christ did represent the Kingdom in the first coming (Luke 17).
The Kingdom of God as culminated was and is not of this present realm, but rather a future realm with a restored creation, heaven and earth (Revelation 20-22), and therefore a church-state Christian model was not New Testament theology. This theology, adequately presented within manuscript evidence in support of New Testament texts.
Of course, Church history indeed eventually included politicization, which did lead to legitimate negative critiques of aspects of Christendom, both within the Church and outside of it, but the original New Testament gospel and theology remain extant.
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| Encountering the New Testament, page 10. |
ELWELL, WALTER AND YARBROUGH, ROBERT W., Third Edition (2013) Encountering The New Testament, Grand Rapids, Baker Academic.
WAINWRIGHT, WILLIAM J. (1996) ‘Deism’, in Robert Audi (ed.), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Related archived articles
Tuesday, April 17, 2007, Deism
Saturday, July 26, 2008, Theism and Deism
Wednesday, June 27, 2012 A Problem of Suffering
Saturday, February 18, 2017, Deism & theism, atheism, agnosticism
Saturday, November 24, 2018, Brief ponderings on Christianity, Theism, Deism, Atheism
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