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# Deity
Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable and the purpose of existence is to know, serve, and love God. It is the Muslim belief that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial faith that was revealed at many times and places before, including through Abraham, Moses and Jesus, who are considered prophets. Muslims maintain that previous messages and revelations have been partially changed or corrupted over time, but consider the Qur'an to be both the unaltered and the final revelation of God.
Esoteric, and Ineffable - the Ultimate, the Absolute Infinite, the Transcendent, the One, the All, Existence, becoming or Being itself,
One Supreme Deity is a being, natural, supernatural or preternatural, with superhuman powers or qualities, and who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred. Believers may consider or believe that they can communicate with the deity, who can respond supernaturally to their entreaties.
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# MONISM
Monism is a point of view within metaphysics which argues that the variety of existing things in the universe are reducible to one substance or reality and therefore that the fundamental character of the universe is unity.
In Islam, according to Vincent J. Cornell, the Qur'an also provides a monist image of God by describing the reality as a unified whole, with God being a single concept that would describe or ascribe all existing things: "He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward; He is the Knower of everything (Sura 57:3)".[13]
Another verse in the Quran is "To God belongs the East and the West, Wheresoever you look is the face of God.(Sura 2:115)".
Monism in philosophy can be defined according to three kinds:
1. Only mind is real.
2. That both the mental and the physical can be reduced to some sort of third substance, or energy.
3. Only the physical is real, and that the mental or spiritual can be reduced to the physical.
These positions do not define the meaning of "real".
Certain other positions are hard to pigeonhole into the above categories.
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# God
God usually refers to the single deity in monotheism or the monist deity in pantheism. God is often conceived of as the supernatural creator and overseer of humans and the universe. Theologians have ascribed a variety of attributes to the many different conceptions of God. The most common among these include omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.
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See also:
# Immanence
God is part of matter and within it.
God is manifested in and fully present in the world and the things in the world
# Plane of immanence
"existing or remaining within". PLANE OF IMMANENCE as a pure immanence, an unqualified immersion or embeddedness, an immanence which denies transcendence as a REAL DISTINCTION. a pure plane, an infinite field or smooth space without substantial or constitutive division. immanence is not immanent TO substance but rather that immanence IS substance, that is, immanent to itself.
Deleuze writes: "It is only when immanence is no longer immanence to anything other than itself that we can speak of a plane of immanence."
# Transcendence (religion)
God is wholly independent and removed from matter.
See Islam section
# Transcendence (philosophy)
God is completely outside of and beyond the world.
The prime mover, a non-material self-consciousness that is outside of the world.
# Substance theory
Substance theory, or substance attribute theory, is a theory about objecthood, positing that a substance is distinct from its properties. A THING-IN-ITSELF is a property-bearer that must be distinguished from the properties it bears.
Monism: There is only one substance, often identified as God or Being.
Dualism: World is made of two fundamental substances.
Pluralism: More substances exist in a hierarchy.
Criticisms:
Hume: Since substance is not able to be perceived, it should not be assumed to exist.
Heidegger: "Substance" that by which "we can understand nothing else than an entity which is in such a way that it need no other entity in order to BE." Therefore, only God is a substance as most perfect being.
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# Agnostic atheism
Agnostic atheism, also called atheistic agnosticism, is a philosophical position that encompasses both atheism and agnosticism. Agnostic atheists are atheistic because they do not hold a belief in the existence of any deity and agnostic because they claim that the existence of a deity is either unknowable in principle or currently unknown in fact. The agnostic atheist may be contrasted with the agnostic theist, who does believe that one or more deities exist but claims that the existence or nonexistence of such is unknown or cannot be known.
In 1887, Robert Flint said:
“The atheist may however be, and not unfrequently is, an agnostic. There is an agnostic atheism or atheistic agnosticism, and the combination of atheism with agnosticism which may be so named is not an uncommon one.
If a man has failed to find any good reason for believing that there is a God, it is perfectly natural and rational that he should not believe that there is a God; and if so, he is an atheist... if he goes farther, and, after an investigation into the nature and reach of human knowledge, ending in the conclusion that the existence of God is incapable of proof, cease to believe in it on the ground that he cannot know it to be true, he is an agnostic and also an atheist – an agnostic-atheist – an atheist because an agnostic... while, then, it is erroneous to identify agnosticism and atheism, it is equally erroneous so to separate them as if the one were exclusive of the other.”
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# Agnostic theism
Agnostic theism is the philosophical view that encompasses both theism and agnosticism. An agnostic theist believes in the existence of at least one deity, but regards the truth or falsehood of this proposition as unknown or inherently unknowable. The agnostic theist may also or alternatively be agnostic regarding the properties of the God(s) they believe in.
There are numerous beliefs that can be included in agnostic theism, including fideism, however not all agnostic theists are fideists. Since agnosticism is a position on knowledge and does not forbid belief in a deity, it is compatible with most theistic positions.
The classical philosophical understanding of knowledge is that knowledge is justified true belief. By this definition, it is reasonable to assert that one may hold a belief, and that belief may be true, without asserting that one knows it.
Agnostic theism could be interpreted as an admission that it is not possible to justify one's belief in a god sufficiently for it to be considered known. This may be because they consider faith a requirement of their religion, or because of the influence of plausible-seeming scientific or philosophical criticism.
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# Deism
Deismis the belief that reason and observation of the natural world are sufficient to determine the existence of a creator, accompanied with the rejection of revelation and authority as a source of religious knowledge. Deism holds that God does not intervene with the functioning of the natural world in any way, allowing it to run according to the laws of nature that he configured when he created all things. God is thus conceived to be wholly transcendent and never immanent. For Deists, human beings can only know God via reason and the observation of nature, but not by revelation or supernatural manifestations (such as miracles) – phenomena which Deists regard with caution if not skepticism.
Deism does not ascribe any specific qualities to a deity beyond non-intervention. Deism is related to naturalism because it credits the formation of life and the universe to a higher power, using only natural processes. Deism may also include a spiritual element, involving experiences of God and nature.
Deists hold a variety of beliefs about the soul. Some are materialists and either denied or doubted the immortality of the soul. Some held that souls exist, survive death, and in the afterlife are rewarded or punished by God for their behavior in life. Some believed in reincarnation or resurrection. Others were agnostic about the immortality of the soul.
Thomas Paine said:
“I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. I content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power that gave me existence is able to continue it, in any form and manner he pleases, either with or without this body; and it appears more probable to me that I shall continue to exist hereafter than that I should have had existence, as I now have, before that existence began.” [The Age of Reason]
PROOF OF GOD
Thomas Hobbes – a 17th century deist used the cosmological argument for the existence of God at several places in his writings.
Hobbes said:
“The effects we acknowledge naturally, do include a power of their producing, before they were produced; and that power presupposeth something existent that hath such power; and the thing so existing with power to produce, if it were not eternal, must needs have been produced by somewhat before it, and that again by something else before that, till we come to an eternal, that is to say, the first power of all powers and first cause of all causes; and this is it which all men conceive by the name of God, implying eternity, incomprehensibility, and omnipotence.”
RELIGION
Most deists saw the religions of their day as corruptions of an original, pure religion that was simple and rational. They felt that this original pure religion had become corrupted by "priests" who had manipulated it for personal gain and for the class interests of the priesthood in general.
Over time "priests" had succeeded in encrusting the original simple, rational religion with all kinds of superstitions and "mysteries" – irrational theological doctrines.
Laymen were told by the priests that only the priests really knew what was necessary for salvation and that laymen must accept the "mysteries" on faith and on the priests' authority. This kept the laity baffled by the nonsensical "mysteries", confused, and dependent on the priests for information about the requirements for salvation. The priests consequently enjoyed a position of considerable power over the laity, which they strove to maintain and increase. Deists referred to this kind of manipulation of religious doctrine as "priestcraft", a highly derogatory term.
Deists saw their mission as the stripping away of "priestcraft" and "mysteries" from religion, thereby restoring religion to its original, true condition – simple and rational. In many cases, they considered true, original Christianity to be the same as this original natural religion.
Matthew Tindal said:
“It can't be imputed to any defect in the light of nature that the pagan world ran into idolatry, but to their being entirely governed by priests, who pretended communication with their gods, and to have thence their revelations, which they imposed on the credulous as divine oracles. Whereas the business of the Christian dispensation was to destroy all those traditional revelations, and restore, free from all idolatry, the true primitive and natural religion implanted in mankind from the creation.” [book, Christianity as Old as the Creation]
One implication of this deist creation myth was that primitive societies, or societies that existed in the distant past, should have religious beliefs that are less encrusted with superstitions and closer to those of natural theology.
Tindal articulated a number of the basic tenets of deism:
He argued against special revelation: "God designed all Mankind should at all times know, what he wills them to know, believe, profess, and practice; and has given them no other Means for this, but the Use of Reason."
BELIEFS
Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury (d. 1648) is generally considered the "father of English deism".
He said:
There were five common notions.
There is one Supreme God.
He ought to be worshipped.
Virtue and piety are the chief parts of divine worship.
We ought to be sorry for our sins and repent of them
Divine goodness doth dispense rewards and punishments both in this life and after it.
The following lengthy quote from Herbert can give the flavor of his writing and demonstrate the sense of the importance that Herbert attributed to innate Common Notions. He said:
“No general agreement exists concerning the Gods, but there is universal recognition of God. Every religion in the past has acknowledged, every religion in the future will acknowledge, some sovereign deity among the Gods. ...
Accordingly that which is everywhere accepted as the supreme manifestation of deity, by whatever name it may be called, I term God.
While there is no general agreement concerning the worship of Gods, sacred beings, saints, and angels, yet the Common Notion or Universal Consent tells us that adoration ought to be reserved for the one God. Hence divine religion— and no race, however savage, has existed without some expression of it— is found established among all nations. ...
The connection of Virtue with Piety, defined in this work as the right conformation of the faculties, is and always has been held to be, the most important part of religious practice. There is no general agreement concerning rites, ceremonies, traditions...; but there is the greatest possible consensus of opinion concerning the right conformation of the faculties. ... Moral virtue... is and always has been esteemed by men in every age and place and respected in every land...
There is no general agreement concerning the various rites or mysteries which the priests have devised for the expiation of sin.... General agreement among religions, the nature of divine goodness, and above all conscience, tell us that our crimes may be washed away by true penitence, and that we can be restored to new union with God. ... I do not wish to consider here whether any other more appropriate means exists by which the divine justice may be appeased, since I have undertaken in this work only to rely on truths which are not open to dispute but are derived from the evidence of immediate perception and admitted by the whole world.
The rewards that are eternal have been variously placed in heaven, in the stars, in the Elysian fields... Punishment has been thought to lie in metempsychosis, in hell,... or in temporary or everlasting death. But all religion, law, philosophy, and ... conscience, teach openly or implicitly that punishment or reward awaits us after this life. ... [T]here is no nation, however barbarous, which has not and will not recognise the existence of punishments and rewards. That reward and punishment exist is, then, a Common Notion, though there is the greatest difference of opinion as to their nature, quality, extent, and mode.
It follows from these considerations that the dogmas which recognize a sovereign Deity, enjoin us to worship Him, command us to live a holy life, lead us to repent our sins, and warn us of future recompense or punishment, proceed from God and are inscribed within us in the form of Common Notions.
Revealed truth exists; and it would be unjust to ignore it. But its nature is quite distinct from the truth [based on Common Notions] ... [T]he truth of revelation depends upon the authority of him who reveals it. We must, then, proceed with great care in discerning what actually is revealed.... [W]e must take great care to avoid deception, for men who are depressed, superstitious, or ignorant of causes are always liable to it.” [Lord Herbert of Cherbury , De Veritate]
Herbert's De Veritate, innate ideas had been the foundation of deist epistemology. John Locke's famous attack on innate ideas in the first book of the Essay effectively destroyed that foundation and replaced it with a theory of knowledge based on experience. Innatist deism was replaced by empiricist deism. Locke himself was not a deist. He believed in both miracles and revelation, and he regarded miracles as the main proof of revelation.
After Locke, constructive deism could no longer appeal to innate ideas for justification of its basic tenets such as the existence of God. Instead, under the influence of Locke and Newton
21st Century
A modern definition has been created and provided by the World Union of Deists (WUD) that provides a modern understanding of deism:
“Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation.”
INTERNET
In 1993, Bob Johnson established the first Deist organization since the days of Thomas Paine and Elihu Palmer with the World Union of Deists. The WUD offered the monthly hardcopy publication THINK! Currently the WUD offers two online Deist publications, THINKonline! and Deistic Thought & Action! As well as using the Internet for spreading the Deist message, the WUD is also conducting a direct mail campaign.
1996 saw the first Web site dedicated to deism with the WUD site Deism.com. In 1998, Sullivan-County.com was originally the Virginia/Tennessee affiliate of WUD and the second deism site on the Web. It split from Deism.com to promote more traditional and historical Deist beliefs and history. From these effort, many other Deist sites and discussion groups have appeared on the Internet such as Positive Deism, Deist Info, Modern Deism and many others. In the last few years, the Deist Alliance was created so that many of the sites on the Internet could come together to support each other and advocate deism. The Enlightened Worldview Project, a member of the Deist Alliance, was created to explore the relationship between deism and other subjects including morality and spirituality. Another Alliance
In 2009, the World Union of Deists published a book on deism, Deism: A Revolution in Religion, A Revolution in You written by its founder and director, Bob Johnson. This book focuses on what deism has to offer both individuals and society.
In 2010, the Church of Deism
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