Deism

[ReformedChristian]

I am looking for some resources on how to go about refuting the worldviews of Deism specifically it's flaws on how can Deism believe in a Creator when he has not made himself known to creation but sits back as if he is a blind watchmaker and an abusive parent? or who is God in Deism since God seems to be in everything hence Pantheism. What I want to do is expose the weaknesses and dismantle the arguements.

 

[jwright82]

I would go about attacking what they claim to know about God. For instance how do they know he is just sitting back doing nothing? Did He tell them somehow? For us at least we claim to have revealation from Him so we can claim to know things about Him. As far as the abusive parent part that assumes a standered of ethics outside His being and charector to judge Him against. This makes no sense since as creator He makes things what they are, including right and wrong.

 

[jwithnell]

A deist cannot get "outside" of creation long enough to know anything about God. C. Van Til sees a separation between the creator and creation and argues that no one in creation can vault his way up to the creator -- the creator must reveal himself to his creation.

A deist is likely going to have to work from either the Cosmological Argument for the existence of a God (notice, I still don't think he could say anything about what that God is); David Hume among others refuted that well. Or the deist may work from the Teleological Argument, which in part depends on natural revelation: that the world shows evidence of intelligence and purpose -- however, once again, one would find it logically impossible to therefore demonstrate that a God stands behind this intelligence and purpose.

There are lots of sources for this kind of discussion. Mr. Van Til, as I already mentioned, and Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology discusses these points in his section on The Doctrine of God.