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deists |
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deists (dē`ĭsts), term commonly applied to those thinkers in the 17th and 18th cent. who held that the course of nature sufficiently demonstrates the existence of God. For them formal religion was superfluous, and they scorned as spurious claims of supernatural revelation. Their tenets stemmed from the rationalism of the period, and though the term is not now generally used, the tenor of their belief persists. The term freethinkers is almost synonymous. Voltaire and J. J. Rousseau were deists, as were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.
BibliographySee E. R. Pike, Slayers of Superstition (1931, repr. 1970); G. A. Koch, Religion of the American Enlightenment (1933, repr. 1968). How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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According to Holmes, America's founding fathers were largely creatures of the Enlightenment, Deists who believed the Creator had endowed all people with a freedom of conscience and religion on which no government should trample, and who had good reason to fear an intolerant religion at the helm of the ship of state. But as Barry Alan Shain has so brilliantly shown, to focus the study of the American founding on a coterie of intellectuals who were at best deists ignores the beliefs and values of the ordinary Americans who actually fought the Revolution and ratified the founding documents. New Light evangelicals such as Isaac Bachus and John Leland joined forces with Deists and skeptics such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson to fight for a complete separation of church and state. |
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