Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for today. We thank you for your grace and kindness and patience with us every day of our lives. You see us as we are and yet you delight in us because of the love and sacrifice of your Son. Father, we do desire that we might learn of you and walk in your ways and we pray that you will teach us. Be with us today. Open our minds and hearts. Help us to think clearly we ask for Jesus' sake. Amen. You all should have a copy of some notes on deism and you'll need as well the set of quotations in your syllabus but before we get to this section I've got a couple of more things I want to say just as we finish up what we were talking about last Thursday the issue of challenge but even before that I was asked the question by several of you how you should prepare for your final exam and I need to answer that question. What I'm going to ask you to do is to put into practice these seven principles by giving you a situation in which you're going to have to advise someone about how to deal with an individual. In the past and I mentioned this at the beginning of the semester I had people write a letter to a teacher at Columbine High School and advising them on how they might deal with some issues raised by some of their students after that tragedy there. Now obviously I'm not going to use the same situation again I can't tell you what the situation will be but what you will need to do is to put these principles into practice on your exam and it will also mean you're going to need to interact with the ideas of the culture today we spent the first part of the semester talking about post-modernism and some of the challenges it presents us and what I will be expecting you basically to do is to advise somebody who's having to deal with some contemporary situation which will mean you need both some understanding of the culture in which we live and you also will need to have mastered these principles about which we've been speaking the last few weeks and you're going to need to be able to give biblical justification for them. I can't really tell you any more than that without giving you the question so I don't want you just to regurgitate back to me but I've taught I want you to apply it just as you've had to in these letters okay if you still got questions about that on Thursday let me know reflect about it and see if that makes sense to you and then come back to me okay. Now just as we finish off our section on challenge at the end of class we were looking at some of the areas where we have to challenge people in the culture in which we live the idolatry of money the idolatry of personal freedom and of self-affirmation living for the pursuit of one's own happiness and the idol of tolerance. Now in just finishing off that section I want to say a little bit about just very briefly about how we make the challenge how we challenge people. God's word must come as a challenge to people because coming to faith and Christ requires repentance it requires turning away from what one has believed what one has given one's life to the sins of one's heart and life turning from them to Christ so the gospel has to come with a challenge but I want to make a couple of points about that challenge and how you make it. First of all the challenge itself must always be made with grace even when we challenge people we must be those who are bearing a message of grace. God's word is indeed like a two-edged sword one edge is to wound but the other is to heal and when we challenge someone the purpose is always for their ultimate healing because we are calling them to come to respond to the wonderful grace of God in Jesus Christ so even the challenge itself must conform to that message of grace that's the first point the second is this when you challenge somebody you must always challenge them as someone who is aware that you are a sinner yourself so you can never challenge them from a position of superiority look at you you idolater struggling with this idol of money or freedom or the pursuit of your own happiness or whatever you've got to come down off your pedestal to level ground to the same level as the person to whom you're speaking because you yourself struggle with the same idols and the same sins so you never speak as someone who is not yourself tested and struggling with the same problems and difficulties of those to whom you are speaking so you're going to speak yourself as a sinner who is redeemed by the grace of God who even as you are sharing the challenge of the gospel have in your heart I am a sinner myself I have an idol factory in my heart and that changes the way you speak to people you can address issues like personal freedom and the pursuit of one's own happiness and the idolatry of money because you know you wrestle with the same things and it'll change the way you speak so even the challenge must not come from a position of superiority but must always be tempered by grace and by the knowledge of your own sin now that brings us to the end of that section and what I want to turn to today and because we're reduced from four hours to three I'm going to have to go through these last sections very quickly and that's why has everybody got a copy of the handout
Robbie if you could pass a few more over there anyone else not have one if you pass some back to there and a couple over this way Scott needs one anybody else thank you now as I said you need you're going to need the notes the quotations in your syllabus on deism what I've done is given you very full notes on the first section of what I want to say about deism and you can all those quotations in your syllabus will go with these and so you need to go home and read the quotations alongside this set of notes I've just handed out to you what this section is is a sort of brief introduction to deism and a history of it you'll notice I say right at the top there that deism is the religion of the great majority of Americans today this isn't or yeah this is where we are here on this outline and we'll come down to your notes cover the first section of this outline and I'll send an email version of this to anyone who wants to enter these notes into their computer if you like I'll send you email version of the notes themselves that would probably help and at the outline of the final part deism is the religion of the great majority of Americans today
though they would not categorize themselves as deists and there's no point in telling somebody that they're a deist they wouldn't understand what you meant but the fact is the overwhelming majority of the people around us believe in God still well over 90 percent of them that's the practical reality and many people who in churches who attend church who are not genuinely believers who are redeemed by Christ are deists that's the practical reality of where we are this is true in Protestant churches especially in in liberal Protestant churches it's true for many Catholics and Orthodox it's true for many people who are Jews and who attend a synagogue they are actually functionally deists without recognizing it there's not a lot written about deism there's an excellent chapter in James's book the universe next door and then there's a book on it but that was published back in 1934 Karen Armstrong this isn't here on your notes but Karen Armstrong who used to be a Catholic nun and who rebelled against Christianity and hates it has written several books expressing deistic views today and you can see those if you go to any books to or like borders or several books by Karen Armstrong which are basically deist she's an interesting example of a contemporary deist deism is halfway house really that's what i've called it here a halfway house so people on the move between Christianity and full blown secularism now what about the origins of deism i'll just run through this very quickly because i want to get to deism today and you can read these notes with the quotations that go with them as far as the English language is concerned and the English speaking people the father of deism is a man named Lord Herbert of Churbury who was an Englishman who was writing in the period around 1620 to 1650 those are not the dates of his life but of the period in which he was writing his mother lady Madeleine Herbert was a committed a deeply committed evangelical believer and his brother some of you will have heard of who studied poetry he's one of the greatest poets to write in the English language George Herbert also a passionately committed Christian if you look in a Trinity hymn or you'll see a couple of hymns by hymn and Herbert among other things as well as his poetry wrote a book on being a country pastor which was a classic which went through dozens and dozens of editions in fact and when you take past your theology i'll have you read it because it's still a classic but his elder brother Lord Edward Herbert is the father of deism at that time many scholars wrote in Latin rather than in English and he wrote his books in Latin they've never been translated into English but they were still enormously influential because most educated people at that time could read Latin and he wrote in Latin and his works were also translated into French and they were enormously influential in France and the two basic books but which he's known a day very tarte which means concerning the truth and they religion a gentillium which is concerning the religion of the nations you also wrote in autobiography most people often heard of him but he was extremely influential at the time now you'll see there i speak about some factors in the rise of deism the desire to push the reformation further travel which was opening up the world and people in Europe were becoming aware of people in Asia in particular where people were followers of other religions and they were very surprised to discover that they had some belief in God and were had strong moral standards and this kind of surprised them they shouldn't have been surprised if they'd read their bibles a little more carefully because scripture teaches us that God's wisdom speaks to the whole human race and that in every nation there are laws which are just and right see Proverbs chapter 8 so a desire to push the reformation further travel and discovering other cultures and their religions especially those from the far east the new scientific revolution Newton himself was a Christian one who wrote so much about the structure of our solar system and the laws which govern it but many of his contemporaries do the conclusion that if the solar system is so wonderfully structured well then it's basically like a clock which God wound up and has just left there and you don't need God for its ongoing running that was a Newton's conclusion at all but it was the conclusion of people like Lord Herbert and many of his contemporaries the fourth factor in the rise of deism was the religious wars that devastated Europe after the reformation and many people responded to these by calling Christianity itself into question if it produced such terrible fighting of course those wars were banned up also with all sorts of nationalism and the desire for power in rulers and not simply religious factors but they were religion was a part of them now those four factors had a great influence on Herbert and also many of his contemporaries and Herbert himself asked the following questions three questions how may truth be distinguished from error we need an infallible test to discern what is true that is what is true religion how can we formulate a faith that receives the agreement of all people and how can we find a religion that can avoid the bitter wars and controversies that plague Europe after the reformation basically was saying we want a common denominator for religions and that's really what deism is now in his answers to these questions and this is where you'll see there's some extensive quotes from his works in your quotations in your syllabus his answer was basically that universal consent that is those areas where all religions agree on the sort of basics of religion those are going to be the test of what it's true so he basically said how do we find out what this universal consent is and he said there were two sources we study religions so the study of comparative religion some of this sounds very contemporary people are still doing the same thing today if you some of you studied religion at university this is basically what you will have got the study of comparative religion and what Herbert called the oracle within that is our own reason and our moral conscience my own heart in the end is going to tell me what the truth is and for him that was the ultimate test of truth we can study other religions but in the end it's up to me to discern what is religiously true what were Herbert's basic beliefs you go down your handout here and you see a series of beliefs five basic ones to which I've added a couple more one of belief in God is a supreme power secondly that God must be worshiped again your quotations go with this third that human beings should commit themselves to moral behavior fourth we can expiate our own sins by repentance he didn't like at all the notion that we have to put our trust in Christ to have our sins dealt with he rejected that completely I have to be able to take care of my own problems so I can expiate my own sins by repentance and he believed strongly that there is an afterlife with rewards and punishments he didn't think everyone was going to heaven interesting deism today is is much more vague even then Herbert was but here's Herbert defining what he calls a universal religion a natural religion he even called it common sense Christianity and you'd find people using the same sort of expression today as they think about deism there's lots of nominal Christians out there who think that their views are basically those of common sense Christianity a sort of basic natural worldwide religion those are his five basic beliefs someone can add two more there is a universal church made up of all people who were sent to these basic beliefs and he rejects the Bible as revelation revelation and he said is every divine and happy sentiment within it's fascinating reading him today there's an extraordinary kind of optimism about his writings which just sounds quite bizarre in the present context but at the time his ideas were fairly radical now the next section here on your notes looks at the history of deism and again I'm going to go through this just very quickly because you can read these notes and again there's some extensive quotations going with some of this the history of deism deism had a huge impact it's difficult to underestimate the influence of deism William law some of you will have seen his little classic on the Christian life called a serious court with deviant and holy life William law writing around 1700 said that Christianity was universally scoffed at and a lot of that is the consequence of deism it had a huge impact most people in the churches basically became deists by 1700 so one of the reasons there was the need for the Evangelical revival starting in the 1740s under the leadership of Wesley and Whitfield and others because the churches themselves were predominantly deistic by that time oh so shortly after the Reformation and even more shortly after the great Puritan revival in the early 1600s but at the same time deism is at work having a devastating impact and I look there at some of the impact on the church and you can read this and look at the quotes that go with it the Cambridge plaintiffs many of them had it who had a reformed background because the reformed churches weren't exempt from the influence of deism with its very strong emphasis on reason so that reason and good conduct rational truth and moral conduct became more important for many people in the church than supernatural Christianity and the revelation of God in his word second person there is John Locke the very famous political theorist and philosopher one of the people who's most influential on the development of our own political system here in the states and also in Britain and many other places as well hugely influential writer and thinker but in Locke very interesting in his book the reasonableness of Christianity you'll see there's some extensive quotes from that in your syllabus he argued that true Christian faith and he may well have been personally a Christian that's something we have to leave in God's hands but the true Christian faith is found only in the gospels and acts and that the letters of the apostles are on a necessary addition and what you really God is the beginnings of what's later called higher criticism in the writings of people like Locke who are deeply influenced by the deists they're subjecting the Bible to their own ideas about what true religion is and how it developed so their own thinking their own reasoning processes become the arbiter of what is true another example is John Toland and he's the first one who really comes up with the view that there is a radical distinction in the New Testament between Jewish and Gentile Christianity and as you study the gospels and acts today and the Pauline Epistles in your New Testament classes that's an idea you'll come across constantly from from liberal critics today as well but Toland appears to be the first person to make this argument very seriously these guys all writing 1730 1740 around that time at Toland now Matthew Tindall the next person there is the best known deist historically he was called at the time the greater possible deism and his book Christianity as old as creation was called the Bible of deism his subtitle there the gospel a republication of the religion of nature he was saying that reason is the ultimate judge of truth and he's one of the first writers in an influential way to draw attention to what the apostles teach about the second coming he said the apostles seem to expect the second coming in their life they were wrong it didn't happen why should we believe them about anything else now you again you'll still hear that argument from people today both on a popular level but also on a more sophisticated level in some of the liberal critics you will read of the scriptures we can't trust the Bible then or we can trust his reason Tindall Tindall gave four arguments for natural religion again he's writing around 1740 something like that and I won't go through those you can see them basically he's saying that the original religion that is long before Moses or any biblical figure existed which came from God when he first created the human race the original religion that's the best religion and nothing else can change it so he's basically arguing for natural religion there are five basic beliefs and they're very interesting you see the change from Herbert to Tindall Tindall writing 110 120 years after Lord Herbert but his basic beliefs a belief in God and the worship of God and then I think this is probably the first time we find this expression appearing and and then being vastly influential right up to our own time his third belief was the pursuit of happiness that's what we're here for to pursue our own happiness and also then to work for the common good and common happiness of other people and a belief in life after death backed off a bit from the strong emphasis on judgment that you get still in Lord Herbert and his book was enormously influential you may never have heard of him but at the time it was hugely influential it went through many many editions and 150 Christian books and pamphlets were written in response to it by believers because it had such a huge impact at the time other examples here Thomas Chabb another of the deistic writers and again you get ideas here which become part of criticism of the Bible later on right up till the present time we have to distinguish between Jesus teachings and the teachings of the apostles both in the epistles but also unlike in the gospels as well. Locke said the gospels are pure but Chabb was saying the gospels aren't pure either we've got to distinguish between what Jesus really said and the opinions of the apostles which are superimposed into the gospels again an idea that's in higher criticism and my point here is that much of what we see in liberal criticism and that you still get from liberal pulpits and in liberal seminaries today is already there in the deists in the 1700s and that's really where it comes from and you can actually trace it historically in terms of the ideas. At Thomas Morgan another one a quaker who introduced the idea of the inner light and he in particular drew attention to the conflict between Peter and Paul in Galatians this time puts a different spin on it that Paul is the true follower of Jesus whereas Jewish Christianity as represented by Peter and James is not faithful to Christ in the way that Paul was. Now 1740 1750 is the high watermark of deism and we could think about why deism declined and there are several reasons humanly speaking that we can look at as to why deism declined which did dramatically certainly in Britain at the time one was the apologetic arguments given by Christians the responses to the works of Tyndale and others which some of which were fine works a second of course was the evangelical revival which brought the gospel back into the churches when Wesley and Whitfield started preaching they weren't allowed to preach in the churches because they were so influenced by deism and that's why they began to preach in the fields and marketplaces later on as God prospered their work and brought so many people to faith they couldn't get in the churches anyway because there were tens of thousands of people listening to them you think of Whitfield he could speak easily to 60,000 people in the open air they didn't have microphones and last speakers he had they say his contemporaries of voice like a trumpet you know he could speak to 60,000 people without any means of magnification without any difficulty and not just for 10 minutes but for hours they preached for a long time and they sang for a long time if you the hymns of Charles Wesley and he wrote thousands of them the brother of John Wesley the preacher the hymns of Charles Wesley many of them were 30 or 40 verses long when people say oh we should sing all the verses of a hymn you need to remember that in your hymn book you've often only got a very few of the original verses it's not a very sensible thing to say we have a selection already but Wesley wrote hymns 30 or 40 verses long and they were primarily written to be sung by unbelievers at evangelistic meetings that was the context in which many of them were sung those hymns that were by Wesley that so many of you know still today that was their context of their original composition and the purpose of their singing to support the gospel that John Wesley and other evangelists were proclaiming that was a second reason perhaps the primary reason for the decline of deism the evangelical revival which had an enormous impact on all the churches and bought probably millions of people to faith by the power of the spirit the third reason is the philosophy of David Hume David Hume showed that reason is not an adequate source of truth and that really dealt a kind of death blow to the thinking of deism which was absolutely dependent on the validity of reason now deism declined very rapidly in written but it had to it had several ongoing consequences it continued to be very influential in France herbots works were translated into French as were some of these other writings too and very influential in France a deism and rationalism took a very deep hold in France and rationalism is still dominant in France probably more than any other country in the world that even to this day and there is some particular historical reasons for that one of them was the dreadful persecution of the Protestants under Louis XIV when many were killed many were enslaved many were put in galleys many fled the country to save their lives and that history is extraordinarily moving but the radical destruction of the Protestant church in France which was huge even before the death of Calvin there are probably two million Protestants at least in France converted through the ministry of people trained under Calvin and Geneva primarily so a vast church in France which was almost totally destroyed under the reign of Louis XIV so deism had a great influence in France one of its consequences was the rise of historical criticism in Germany and you'll see some quotes on this in your in your notes in your syllabus several of the founders of historical criticism of the Bible or the higher criticism of the Bible in Germany were directly influenced by the deists went to England to study read their works and developed these ideas into what was called the science of biblical criticism and also here in the USA while deism diminished some degree in Britain it continued to flourish here in the United States and you can read and I think I've got in your syllabus there a extensive quotation from the deistical society of New York but particularly in New England up in the northeast deism continued to have a huge impact and again it was greatly diminished by the first and second great awakenings but never really died out unitarianism is which is very strong in New England is an ongoing form of deism one can say so deism continued to be very powerful here in the United States and its ideas and particularly the idea of the pursuit of happiness and the nature the god of nature which you get in both the founding documents of the country but very especially in the writings of Thomas Jefferson who was a passionate committed deist who hated evangelical Christianity continued to be very influential here now I want to come to deism today after that very rapid going through those notes and you do need to read them carefully if you're interested in that history it's a fascinating history the history of deism but my primary reason for going through it and drawing your attention to it is to notice if you go back and read it carefully has similar the arguments for deism of people are today to those made by people like Lord Herbert and Matthew Tindall there's nothing new under the sun now as I said most people today don't think of themselves as deists my guess would probably be half of you in this class wrote your paper for somebody who is probably in practice a deist though they would never recognize that and it wouldn't help you much to tell them that and what are some of the factors favoring deism today and here you don't have detailed notes so I'm just going to go through this outline point a the powerful emphasis on individual on individualism we live in a culture where the individual is considered to have the primacy in matters of belief religion in America is very much a personal thing people are reluctant to accept anything on authority whether it's the authority of the bible the authority of the church the authority of a pastor you would be amazed how true that is in many of our own congregations that lots of people actually keep their own views to themselves they listen to what pastor say but they reserve their judgment and continue to hold their own views because they like most people around us think of religion as something which is primarily personal in the sense that I can decide for myself what is true now remember earlier I used the example of the Pope's visit to St. Louis where he was rapturously received but the vast majority of the Catholics even who went to hear him and rapturously received him have no intention of believing everything he says or doing what he says and again that's not an attack on Catholics or Catholicism that's true for people in other churches as well that's why in our churches we may preach about abortion and marital fidelity but most of our churches have the same levels of those things as the rest of the culture are very similar that's the practical reality people regard religion as a matter of their own personal choice and authority they're not very good at listening to anybody else point B the fact that we live in a pluralistic society again we spoke about this earlier in the semester but the very fact that we are surrounded by people with such diverse religious views pushes people towards deism in the 17th century it was travel and awareness of what people in other parts of the world believed that pushed Lord Herbert and others to deism in our day it's this factor of being surrounded by people who have other religious convictions it's actually much easier of course to hold on to your convictions as the truth if everybody around you thinks the same way but when you've got decent neighbors who are Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons etc you've got to really be committed to say what I believe is the truth so pluralism pushes people in this direction to water down the distinctive doctrines of Christianity thirdly point C our culture teaches tolerance and respect for other people's views so strongly that many people equate tolerance
with the abandonment of unique beliefs of particular beliefs for many people around us and it's a challenge for everyone in our churches the cult of tolerance seems to undercut truth claims and pushes people in the direction of wanting a common religious denominator if I'm going to respect and be tolerant of my neighbors can I really say that what I believe is the truth and what they believe is false very challenging in our culture D a fourth factor is the reaction against Christian doctrines that it is liked or improperly understood disliked or misunderstood because they go against the spirit of the age if we talk publicly clearly about sin about judgment about exclusive truth about hell about the exclusiveness of the gospel of Christ those are not popular doctrines in our culture then many evangelical churches in which they are not clearly taught because they are so unpopular so people move towards watering down the Christian faith and that pushes them towards deism and point E a fifth factor is the confused teaching that exists particularly in many mainline churches now of course there are mainline churches which are solidly biblical and evangelical but in many mainline churches the teaching is confused and is compromised by the spirit of the age in many mainline churches the majority of people deists that's the reality and there's an article in your syllabus on the reason for the decline of the mainline churches which many of you will have already read and well it doesn't talk about deism directly this is what it's really pointing to that it's a very fine article
we in response to these pressures must proclaim the truth of Christianity and its particular doctrines clearly especially those which are unpopular today it's just like Luther said remember I quoted him last time you can preach the gospel in the loudest voice and in the clearest manner at every point except where it's under attack in the culture you really haven't preached it at all you can talk about Christ and his death and resurrection but if you don't emphasize that this is the only way of salvation you are not preaching the gospel in our moment of history if you don't preach the reality of the judgment of God against unbelief and sin and the reality of final judgment eternal judgment you're not preaching the gospel in our culture today now you have to proclaim that truth in love that's always so but you must proclaim it and if people in the or congregations where you're going to serve don't like it because it offends against the spirit of the age where you've got to still keep preaching it you don't water it down again I spoke about Robert Schule last week I very rarely mention people's names but if you listen to his gospel he never talks about sin and the judgment of God and the exclusive nature of truth and the necessity of coming to faith in Christ to be saved and the substitutionary atonement as the means of our salvation if you listen to him and he is vague on any of those things he doesn't want to be pinned down if he's asked questions and interviews he avoids them when they those issues are erased he's not prepared to address issues which go against the spirit of the age and that's going to be a temptation for every one of you as you go out to proclaim the gospel I was talking yesterday to David Peterson who's invited me to address the chaplains at the day before the General Assembly this year which I'm very much appreciate the honor of doing that but he said one of the challenges that chaplains face because they're having to work in a context where they are working alongside people who are liberal theologically Jewish rabbis who are chaplains radical feminists who have redefined the gospel in extreme ways and all sorts of others it's one of the problems that you'll see even with those who have a solid training is they start watering down what they say because they don't want to offend they want to fit in or it's a pressure suppressor in the chaplaincy it's a pressure in the churches
and if we don't preach the whole council of God and particularly those areas which are under pressure in our culture we end up basically turning people in the churches into deists rather than preaching a genuinely Christian gospel now what are some of the beliefs of deism today one of the beliefs of deists today and you'll see similarities here to the ideas of Lord Herbert and Matthew Tindall but also some differences point A number one people believe the great majority of people believe that there is a God or that there is God rather than a God God who created in some sense but a God who is distant and not truly involved in our lives now most people around you believe in some form of evolution along with affirming that God originally made everything
most people around you think there's a God there and they will even pray to him in moments of crisis in their lives when they're about to take an exam or write a paper or when somebody gets ill or they're having an accident or they're facing the prospect of death themselves somebody in their family most people pray but only in times of crisis or they pray for things for more things for material possessions and health and comfort but they don't pray for righteousness it's one of the marks of whether you've got genuine Christian prayer whether somebody's praying for righteousness or just for things regarding God as a giant kind of slot machine in the sky to give me what I want especially when I'm in trouble rather than the one to who my bow and ask for him to forgive me and direct me and change me and we need to watch it here ourselves
so that's sort of basic belief point B all religions are basically the same that's what the overwhelming majority of people around us believe probably three quarters to 80% of the general population think all religions are basically the same and lead to the same end what's disturbing is that half of the people in evangelical churches do too any surveys that are done on this will come out with those results that's what I meant when I said people don't all listen to what's being preached that's the second basic belief of what we made define as a deus today all religions are basically the same point C the acceptance of natural law natural law in the sense of the physical structure of the world people around us mostly believe that the universe runs like a clock on its own that image of the clock which the early deus used is still very popular people think that the universe is governed by physical laws in which God is not involved in any way now the Christians has something quite different the physical laws are simply a description of the way God governs the world that's how Newton understood them and he was right but most people including many people in our churches really don't think that way all of us are deeply touched by this idea of naturalism that the universe basically functions by itself and that what's going on is that this is a closed system of cause and effect which runs by itself that's not the way scripture speaks God's the one who gives the rain who makes the sunshine it makes the rivers run down the hills the the whole physical universe is governed by God and the laws of physics the laws of biology are simply describing the way God governs the universe in an orderly manner again that's what Newton thought he was discovering the way God rules the world but deus have no expectation of God's intervention in this world
the universe is a clock that runs by itself shaffer wrote an excellent article on this called the universe in two chairs which is I think at the end of the end of the twentieth century that book universe in two chairs and he's asking the question what chair are you sitting in are you sitting in a chair a biblical Christian chair and talking about your daily life there in which you truly believe that this universe is open to the work of God that he is the he can act into your life and does act into your life every day but it's completely open to him that the God's intervention this world is not a kind of extraordinary thing once in a big while for occasions like the Exodus or the resurrection of Christ but that God is constantly at work into this world so basis of all your prayers or are you sitting in the materialist chair or the deus chair and really thinking of the universe as a closed system into which God doesn't act at all or acts only very rarely what chair are you sitting in the deus is sitting in the chair of natural law in the sense of just the physical laws that govern the world point D deism assumes that there is a moral order in the world that this is discoverable by looking at the universe and at humanity now the term natural law is also used here natural law thought of as that moral law which is intrinsic to the way God has structured the world now that emphasis on a natural moral law is very strong in Roman Catholic tradition it's also of course president in the declaration of independence we hold these truths to be self-evident that's any deist can say that and the deists did say that but there's a basic moral structure to the world which is self-evident now even people who don't believe in God at all still hold to this view my father was a Marxist who didn't believe in God but he basically believed the second half the ten commandments was self-evidently true there's a moral structure to reality now we should notice that in our time and this is rather different from the deism of 16 the 1600s or the 1700s that people may hold in theory to natural law in the sense that they say there is a moral law but people are less and less governed by it because of the powerful emphasis on individualism in our culture and being a law to myself so we have two notions that conflict in our culture people appeal to the notion of a moral law when they're criticizing other people but when it comes to their own lives they are a law to themselves that that's actually the tension in which our culture lives and most everybody around us is caught in that with this sense that there really is an ultimate distinction between right and wrong but when it comes to their own lives they want to have the freedom to do what they want to do and they think that's a natural right
people are very confused actually at that point and it's a very good issue on which to preach the gospel in our present moment it's good news that there is indeed a moral order which is expanded in the character of God it's very good news in our culture point E at number five here
there is no sense of the corruption of human nature or of the impact of the fall on a moral nature on our will on our minds deists today basically think human beings are good they underestimate consistently the reality of evil and especially the reality of evil in their own hearts now again quite a few of you have written a paper for someone for whom many of these things are true point f six here a confidence in human reason and the moral conscience if you look at someone like Jefferson he has great confidence and the power of human reason and his own conscience as an adequate guide for one's life now again those are still present in our culture though they're being radically undermined in many of the people around us most of the people you're going to talk to are an odd combination of deists they'll say they believe in God and these other things but they're also radically postmodern in the sense that they are doing their own thing being their own authority
point g number seven here g the pursuit of personal happiness we are here for the fulfillment of ourselves that is the purpose of our existence again that's the most widely held conviction in our culture that I'm here to fulfill myself and for my own happiness and I can decide how that's going to be done and very challenging to us am I here to glorify God or am I here to pursue my own happiness and the Christian has to answer that I'm here to glorify God that's the fundamental purpose of my existence and any happiness that comes will come as a fruit of that but I can never say that that's what I'm here for for the pursuit of my own happiness no matter how popular it is around us
number eight h a vague optimism about the future which for many of our contemporaries is bound up with nationalism deism tends towards civil religion flag waving in the name of God now of course this optimism is being radically undermined by postmodernism but it's still there in many older people the younger people are the less optimism you'll find when you examine them deeply but it's still there in some older people and finally I at last point here a vague belief in an afterlife but with no real sense of judgment most of the people around us think that mass murderers and tyrants will be judgment not you or me not them most people believe in an afterlife but they tend to be more like the Greeks in the sense that they believe that the soul will go on they don't have much notion of physical resurrection or a physical future that's true even in many of our churches you teach people clearly that Jesus is physical today and he rose from the dead not just to prove to his disciples he conquered death but he is God and man forever people are really shocked and most churches when you emphasize that if you teach them clearly that they are going to be raised up and be physical forever and they're going to live in a physical universe they're surprised even in many evangelical churches people's idea of the future is very vague kind of walking around like souls on clouds basically I mean that's I mean you just think of the popular images in in in commercials and and in TV shows and that's really what people think including many people who have some genuine Christian faith is very vague ideas of the future and for those who are called deists their ideas of the future are going to be mixed up with ideas of reincarnation more and more with the increasing popularity of new age thinking now those are some of the basic beliefs of deists today and you will run across these in many of the people you meet around us before I talk a little bit about some danger signals within evangelicalism
just a couple of other comments here one of the things that we will increasingly find that we are increasingly finding is that people who are deist if we want to use that word are more and more open to the ideas of the new age movement by which touched only a tiny minority even 20 years ago but today touches a lot of the population somewhere between 25 and 40 percent very difficult to tell exactly where exactly how many but more influential all the time
and there's a couple of ways in which deists become drawn towards new age thinking one is all religions are basically the same and lead to the same goal and destination and you'll constantly find that idea being emphasized in new age thinking that religion is really about spirituality with all these different roads but they're all roads to the same end if you read a book like James Redfield's book The Celestine Prophecy this is one of his main points that all religions are basically taking us to the same end and the second factor here is that deism is not satisfying spiritually of course it isn't it doesn't teach any kind of personal relationship with God it's just a vague idea of God God who's there he provides some satisfying answers in the sense that he made the world and he's there as a sort of person to shout to in a crisis but he has no effect on my daily life at all doesn't make any difference to me it's hard to find a passionate deist Karen Armstrong is a passionate deist but she's very unusual or she passionately believe what she wouldn't call herself a deist so much as a monotheist that's how she describes herself and is much more favorable to Judaism and Christian and Islam than she is to Christianity but very few people are passionate deists I mean there's nothing here to be passionate about and there's nothing here which is going to feed you spiritually the God of deism can't believe he worshipped loved or adored or served he's not going to meet your needs personally in terms of the turmoil of your own soul and that is why the vast majority of people who are in the new age movement have people who've come from dead churches because basically they have been given religion which is not Christianity but is deism and it's spiritually totally unsatisfied and they think they've tried Christianity they've found it wanting they haven't really tried it at all but they turn to the new age movement which offers intensive spiritual experience and that's of course it's great attraction but the overwhelming majority of people who get involved in new age thinking of one kind or another are people who were basically deists and again some of you will have written your paper for just such a person who's getting interested in new age ideas but they've moved there from just vague views of God and the afterlife etc.
Deism is a halfway has for people who don't grasp what true Christianity is or who don't like it
but it provides no food for the soul now we say a little bit about some of the dangerous singles signals within evangelicalism because I think one of the problems today in the evangelical churches in all of our churches is a drift towards deism and just want to make a series of very quick points here point A a softness on other religions
that they have truth too which will lead to salvation if it's pursued now that's present in much contemporary Roman Catholicism it's present in the documents of Vatican Council 2 from the 1960s very very clearly that other religions Judaism Islam Hinduism etc. are paths towards the knowledge of God and salvation it's clear in the teachings of the present Pope despite the fact that he is a conservative Catholic he quite clearly regards people from other religions as being our brothers and sisters in the same faith in God he uses that kind of expression repeatedly when he's talking to and about Jews and Muslims and others as well so it's a growing movement within Catholicism but it's also a growing movement within evangelicalism as well I spoke earlier in the semester about the book The Wideness of God's Mercy which teaches that people basically who are sincere members of other religious faiths are going to be saved and that kind of teaching that it's not necessary to come to explicit faith in Christ but that there are anonymous Christians that's the expression of Karl who is one of the leading theologians in the Catholic church and has been for more than a generation but that there are anonymous Christians in Hinduism and Buddhism and Judaism and Islam that kind of teaching is getting more and more currency with an evangelical church as well and it's my prediction I'm no prophet but this is a prediction which I I think is very likely to be fulfilled that that teaching is going to become like a flood with an evangelicalism because it is one of those ways in which we are pressured to compromise to the spirit of the age so it's going to become more and more widespread that you don't have to be a believer in Christ in order to be saved by him so a softness on other religions sincerity instead of doctrine is considered to be more important it's not what I believe but the sincerity of my heart that matters sounds good but it's not true of course we have to sincerely believe but we have to believe the truth
thirdly a hesitancy about the supernatural a reluctance to talk about God's intervention in history now whether it's in my own life or the lives of nations and forthly a softness on all kinds of moral issues and one can predict the areas where people in our own evangelical churches are going to struggle with the pressure of the culture and back off from the clear teaching of God's word on all sorts of moral issues I had a I'm in the process of buying a car at the moment and I'll finish with this example I've become good friends with the young guy who's the salesman turns out to be Christian just been a Christian for the last three or four years but it's clear that he's not had any kind of really solid teaching oh he he's clearly come to faith in Christ but he telephone me the other day with this question he said what is the Bible teach a bad my girlfriend moving in with
and he'd obviously never heard a sermon on the subject of chastity before marriage or he's been a Christian for three or four years so he really wanted to know I was quite amazed by his question so I responded and at the end of it I said do you mind telling me why you're asking me this question and though I knew I think very well what his answer was going to be and he said no Mike my my girlfriend and I just talking about having a move into my apartment
and I thanked him for being so open and asking such a question but he he said right that's it that's what God says I won't do it it's an indication there's some genuine faith there
but now here's a man who's been a Christian for three or four years and has not yet heard any clear teaching on this issue in the church that he attends now that's the challenge of our culture if 80% of people are sleeping around having sex casually by the time they're 15 or 16 years old in high school it's very challenging to teach about such moral issues clearly in our churches without treading on lots of people's toes but God's word treads on toes it's a sword which comes the challenge us to repentance as well as to faith so these are some areas of danger signals with an evangelicalism