The bitterness of his outspoken invective against the clergy, against all priestcraft and priesthood, was a new feature in deistic literature, and injured the author more than it furthered his cause.
Blount, a man of a very different spirit, did both, and in so doing may be regarded as having inaugurated the second main line of deistic procedure, that of historico-critical examination of the Old and New Testaments.
Diderot was for a time heartily in sympathy with deistic thought; and the Encyclopedie was in its earlier portion an organ of deism.
Before passing on to a summary of the deistic position, it is necessary to say something of the views of Conyers Middleton (q.
These passages were replaced much later by purely Deistic formulas under the Grand Mastership of the free-thinking Duke of Sussex in 1813.
It is surely therefore reasonable to conclude that Freemasonry at the time of its reorganization in 1717 was Deistic only in so far that it invited men to meet together on the common ground of a belief in God.
The early deistic rationalism of Reimarus and Lessing met its opponents in contemporary writers named in the notes to Lecture VI.
The rise of the Deistic movement may be defined in a sentence.
As a boy he had been fond of reading French plays, had learned Latin against his father's will, had filled his mind with the ideas of deistic philosophers, and had seemed likely to become a dreamer instead of a ruler.
Full of enthusiasm for the ideas of his English friends, he wrote Letters on the English--a triumph of deistic philosophy and sarcastic criticism of church and society.
The two tracts are both by Passerano, and are on deistic lines, the text of the Sermon being (in English) "The Religion of the Gospel is the true Original Religion of Reason and Nature.
Only after the death of Romilly was it tacitly avowed, by the publication of a deistic prayer found among his papers, that he had had no belief in revelation.
The next intellectual step in natural course would have been a revision of the deistic assumptions, insofar, that is, as certain positive assumptions were common to the deists.
During the first half of the eighteenth century, despite the movement at the end of the seventeenth, specific anti-Trinitarianism was not much in evidence, the deistic controversy holding the foreground.
The circumstances and tone of thought which gave rise to the Deistic and its attendant controversies mark with tolerable definiteness the chief period of transition.
As a matter of fact, it is only through misunderstanding that these deistic representations are designated hermaphroditic in the medical sense of the word.
Footnote 71: The English translation, in the original issue, is in parts completely perverted to the language of Theism, whether out of fear or of Deistic prejudice on the part of the translator.
Deistic it might be, as it was in the last century; deistic it can be no longer, unless it defiantly rejects the truth which science is giving us, and the claims which the scientific reason makes.
It was even doubted, in the deistic age, whether God's delegation of His power was not so absolute as to make it impossible for Him to 'interfere' with the laws of nature.
The deistic movement was called into life by Lord Herbert of Cherbury (pp.
It is evident that in order to be able to deal with their opponents, the apologetes are forced to accommodate themselves to the deistic principle of a rational criticism of revelation.
That which we have here summarized as the general position of deism, gained gradual expression through the regular development and specialization of deistic ideas in individual representatives of the movement.
Morgan looks for the final victory of the rational morality of the pure, Pauline, or deistic Christianity over the Jewish Christianity of orthodoxy.
To these logical considerations is added an historical position, which, though only cursorily indicated at the beginning, is evidenced in increasing detail as the deistic movement continues on its course.
Priestley not only combated the atheism of Holbach, but also entered the deistic ranks with works of his own on Natural Religion and the Corruptions of Christianity.
Suppose the deistic view be true: God created men and left them; surely no man could complain of the results.
He can attribute this only to the semi-deistic spirit of the time, with its distant God and imperfect apprehension of the omnipresence and omnipotence of Christ.
The list of the English deistic writers of the eighteenth century closes with one whose name is more familiar than any of his predecessors, Thomas Paine.
The deistic attacks, on this line, were almost exhausted by the middle of the century, and the orthodox thought that they had been satisfactorily answered.
It contains some remarkable pages on religion, the profession of faith of a Savoyard vicar, in which the authors deistic faith is strongly affirmed and revelation and theology rejected.
But in 1695, the Press Law was allowed to drop, and immediately deistic literature began to appear.
In England the prevalent deistic thought did not lead to the same intellectual consequences as in France; yet Hume, the greatest English philosopher of the century, showed that the arguments commonly adduced for a personal God were untenable.
Religions without gods--Rites indeistic religions which imply no idea of divinity 29 III.
But even within deistic religions there are many rites which are completely independent of all idea of gods or spiritual beings.
The deistic controversy involved a fresh investigation of the basis of morals; and it is to the credit of the investigators that they attempted to provide it in social terms.
Thus, judging from what we have been able to learn of this subject, the worship expressed in the mysteries revolved about sexual union, the desire being to dramatize the continued activity of deistic qualities.
In a number of myths, the god is said to have visited the earth to cohabitate with the women, an occurrence which was doubtless desired, in order that the deistic attributes might be continued in the race.
They had warmly opposed his views, even denounced them, but the controversy seems to have died away until he took part in the deistic propaganda of Elihu Palmer.
His Origines Sacræ (1662) deals chiefly with deistic views, but calls unbelievers in general "atheists.
Religio Medici” sets forth a mystical supernaturalism, took up a purely deistic ground in his “Vulgar Errors,” published three years later.
Illuminati=, which spread its deistic ideas of culture and human perfectibility through Catholic South Germany.
Their fundamental doctrine was deistic monotheism, and of the Bible they accepted only the ten commandments and the Lord’s Prayer.
Chateaubriand in his "Génie du Christianisme" attempted a sort of aesthetic revival of Catholic Christianity, which had suffered so heavily by the deistic teachings of the last century and the atheism of the Revolution.
In particular, deistic France, arbiter elegantiarum, felt with a shiver of repulsion, "How grim the master was of Tuscan song.
So long as deistic views of the relation of God to man and the world held the field, revelation meant something interjected ab extra into the established order of things.
The popular theology which so abhorred deism was yet essentially deisticin its notion of God and of his separation from the world.
As long as deistic leaders are deified by their followers, and regard themselves as peculiarly inspired, they will preach in vain.
On the other hand, while Krishnaism and Ramaism begin as deistic (tribal) cults, they are soon absorbed into Brahmanic Vishnuism.
It is now just in this period of Mohammedan power when arise the deistic reforming sects, which, as we have shown, were surrounded with deists and trinitarians.
The S[=a]nkhya system is taught elsewhere as a means of salvation, perhaps always as the deistic Yoga (i.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "deistic" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
