First, this point:
"Could you elaborate on the misuse of the term "Deist" by the more liberal
side. I didn't really follow your description. You would be called a
"deist" because you hold to beliefs that God does really act in the world
now - as in sustaining the universe and drawing unbelievers to Himself.
Sounds like they (liberals) have more misused the terms than the others
(like Johnson, I believe) who demand that "God leave his fingerprints all
over the place."
Sorry this wasn't clear enough. In certain Templeton gatherings I have
mentioned my commitment to a God who is not only immanent (the main
characteristic of God in modern liberalism is God's immanence) but also
transcendent: that is, we need to retain language about God acting "outside"
of creation, "prior to" creation, etc., along with language about God acting
"within" creation and "continuing to create". This has prompted some to
label me a "deist" who believes in a "god of the gaps." Anyone who knows
real deism and knows my theology knows how ridiculous this is. But the
charge is made because (IMO as someone researching the history of modernism
and science, not just IMO as a person) at the turn of the century, leading
liberal theologians (such as Shailer Mathews, AC McGiffert, or esp. Gerald
Birney Smith) actually defined divine immanence as standing in contradiction
to divine transcendence. They actually believed that "science" had made it
"impossible" to believe in a God who (for example) could raise Christ bodily
from the grave. Needless to say, they were overdosing on Enlightenment
rationalism, not genuine science, but they have been very influential on
modern thinkers such as ... NO, I won't start naming names, at least not
yet, though they surely exist. (I'm prepared to support my statements about
the historical persons, but don't want to get into the moderns here and
now.) In terms of their theology of creation and also (at least for Smith)
their christology, they ran miles from anything sounding like transcendence.
Thus, as Mathews liked to say, we need the religion of Jesus, not the Jesus
of religion (think about that one, and the point should start to emerge
after a few days). They might (or might not) be comfortable affirming the
"divinity" of Christ, but not the "deity" of Christ (again, think about this
and the point will eventually emerge). They thought of themselves as
"Christians" but not "theists," partly for reasons given by George Murphy
(that I would sympathize with) but partly (perhaps more so) for reasons
having to do with their views of "science" and politics. On the latter,
they were convinced of the need to update Christianity for a democratic era,
in which monarchial views of God must be discarded as irrelevant to modern
believers. Another one I haven't named here actually proposed the "death of
God" theology 60 years before it is generally thought to have been
proposed.
OK. So folks who think along these lines will use the label "deist" to
categorize someone who thinks God is somewhat monarchial and not necessarily
of the constitutional variety. God, for them, must emerge only from the
experience of faith; God cannot insert Godself into the experience; to think
otherwise is to believe in a "god of the gaps." Am I clearer this time?
Ted Davis