deism

plural deisms · alternative Deism

1. uncountableusuallyhuman sciencesA philosophical belief in the existence of a god (or goddess) knowable through human reason; especially, a belief in a creator god unaccompanied by any belief in supernatural phenomena or specific religious doctrines.

   As the Epicureans had a Deism without a God, so the Unitarians have a Christianity without a Christ, and a Jesus but no Saviour.

   1847, Julius Charles Hare, Augustus William Hare, Guesses at Truth, page 39

   2 more examples

   If my supposition be true, then the consequence which I have assumed in my Poem may be also true; namely, that Deism, or the principles of natural worship, are only the faint remnants or dying flames of reveal'd religion in the posterity of Noah.

   1682, John Dryden, Religio Laici, Or A Layman's Faith

   In place of the idea which runs through the Tanakh and New Testament of a God intimately involved with his creation and providentially repeatedly intervening in it, there was the concept of a God who had certainly created the world and set up its laws in structures understandable by human reason, but who after that allowed it to go its own way, precisely because reason was one of his chief gifts to humanity, and order a gift to his creation. This was the approach to divinity known as deism.

   2009, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, Penguin, published 2010, page 786

2. uncountableusuallyBelief in a god who ceased to intervene with existence after acting as the cause of the cosmos.

plural Deisms

1. countableuncountableA religious philosophy and movement prominent in 17th-18th-century England, France, and what is now the United States which rejected supernatural events such as prophecy and miracles, divine revelation, and holy books or revealed religions that assert such things exist.
2. countableuncountableAlternative letter-case form of deism.