Why would I come out differently from my good friend Mr Boyle? One major
reason (there are others, but space and time are finite in my universe) is
the fact that the 18th century makes it abundantly clear what happens when
God is identified so strongly as creator (read, "distant creator" who
created only in what linguists call the "perfect" tense, not the present,
future, or even imperfect) and not equally strongly as redeemer (read,
"present redeemer" who creates in us now new creatures). Intellectuals on
both sides of the Atlantic elevated creation over redemption, threw out the
biblical miracles with the whole idea of special revelation, and invoked the
clockmaker to undergird "inalienable natural rights." (I think it is this
last part that Mr. Johnson likes most, incidentally.) And they found
evidence for this God all over the place... Mr Boyle would have been
horrified by all this, frankly, though he knew that the cross was a
stumbling block--he did not anticipate the extent to which a type of
naturalism would take over (consonance with Mr. Johnson)--but it took over
because redemption was not central to the Enlightenment enterprise, above
all (I suspect) because the very idea of incarnation went against their
grain. Thus they transformed redemption into political action. Indeed the
whole enterprise was fundamentally political: they wanted constitutional
monarchs, and made God into one also.
There is a double irony in this story, related to the word, "deism" (which
has been used at least since the late 17th century), which is misused today
in at least two ways (again, ironically) by two groups with opposing
theological views. First, when someone like Howard Van Till advances the
notion of creation's functional integrity/formational and functional
economy, he is accused by some conservatives of promoting deism. This is
just wrong: Howard's unflinching belief in the empty tomb, to go no futher,
flies in the face of real deism. One cannot believe in a God who acts in
history and have the label stick: constitutional monarchs do what we tell
them, not what they want to. Second, when someone like me speaks about God
actually bringing the universe into existence, when he speaks metaphorically
(how else can he speak of such things?) of there being a time before there
was a time, when God in Godself willed the world into being (as God
continues to will it in being), or when he confesses his belief that the
disciples went to the right tomb and found it empty, he is accused of deism
by some liberals (this has happened at Templeton gatherings) who actually
think that a God who can act "outside" the ordinary course of nature is ipso
facto a deist's God--a ridiculous position, given the nature of genuine
deism as I have been explaining it.
Neither group would recognize the genuine article if it appeared before
them. To see it, have a look at Mr Jefferson's bible: a slim volume
containing the ethical teachings of Jesus and little more. Conservatives
take note: real deism rejects a God who died to redeem us from sin.
Liberals take note: real deism rejects a God who raised Christ bodily from
the dead. The double irony here is that each group remakes "deism" into a
label suitable to its own purposes. People like Howard and I, who believe
in a God who acts within and without the category of the natural, who
believe in a God who redeems while creating, and who believe that we
crucified the same God who knew us before the foundation of the world, catch
it both ways. On the one hand, we're "deists" because we think God creates
mainly through evolution; on the other hand, we're "deists" because we think
the world is not eternal, that God does not evolve with it, and that God
really raised Christ from the dead. Well, if that's deism, I'm glad of the
company.
Ted Davis