American Literature / Unit 5 AML 0402 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Deism and the Clockmaker God
Captions available
The idea
Deism holds that a rational God made an orderly world and left it to run by its own laws, knowable by observation rather than revelation. Several of the period's leading writers were deists, and the position explains why their religious language is so different from the Puritans'.
In practice
A made world, running by law.
Where people slip
Deism is a belief, not an absence of one.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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