Flawed Deism

Hannah Simmons

Holly Easttom

English Composition I

September 23, 2015

The Flawed Deism

In The Universe Next Door, James Sire explores the ideas of several worldviews. One of those is Deism: a shift from revelation to reason. This view is scattered with issues that are not strong enough to stand alone, but two resounding themes are that God is not personal and doesn’t care, and that he created humans and their world to be without ability to change and left them to mess up and squirm without rescuing them.

James Sire did well in the writing of this chapter by comparing it to theism throughout the subject. It made the idea easier to understand.

There are several notions that God does not care for His creation. That he just made us and left us to fend for ourselves. He doesn’t love us and has no personal connection to us. Those are a few of the greatest lies ever spoken. God cares more for us than we can imagine and to think that he made us and left us, is insulting. It states simply in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only son, so that whoever believes in Him won’t parish, but have eternal life.” This verse, although cliché, holds so much truth. It is fact that Jesus dies for the sins of the world and that he was God’s only son and that if we accept his free gift of salvation, we will be as spotless as He. You can’t tell me that a God that just dumped me on earth, would send his son to die for me as well. Romans 5:8 “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This implies that he didn’t do it for the blameless or that rich or the holy. He died for everyone because everyone has sins. He was willing to die for me to save me from my sin. That sounds like a pretty caring God to me.

“If we cannot reverse the order, we cannot be significant” (Sire 53). Deist believe that not only did God make us and leave, he made us to be without subject to change. They believe that he made us a certain way and it can’t be changed. This belief is just an excuse. If God made us one way and we can’t do anything about it, then when we mess up, it’s not our fault, right? That’s just how we’re wired. Wrong. Psalm 86:15, “but you, o Lord are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” This shows that at some point, God had to forgive someone for sinning toward Him. If He only made us one way and we can’t control our actions, God wouldn’t make a way to clean us from that. He is forgiving, and faithful, and gracious and merciful. If He created us with the mindset of keeping us the way we are, he wouldn’t be any of those things. God has an overflow of love, grace, and mercy. He wouldn’t need any of it if he knew we were going to fail and he wasn’t planning on helping us, but he does. He is always there to pick us up as soon as we fall. He will never leave us on the ground waiting for help. He helps us make changes, so he obviously didn’t create us to be without the option of change.