What is a Christian Deist?

[Guide To The Bible]

Warden_of_the_Storm

Warning in a Storming?

 

[South Bound]

What is a Christian Deist?

"Christian deist" is a logical impossibility. I will get an infraction for saying that because the moderators consider it the utmost of sins to say that anything isn't Christian, but it's true.

Deism believes that God does not interact with men, but that He essentially just set the world in motion and wandered off somewhere never to be seen or heard from again.

Christianity, at least, Biblical Christianity, on the other hand, believes that God can be known and is known through His creation, through His Word, and most importantly, through the incarnation of Christ.

Furthermore, Christianity is a personal relationship with God and requires a transformation act of God to be saved, at which time man is adopted by God as His child.

How anybody can reconcile Christianity and deism, let alone combine the two, is beyond me.

 

[AV1611VET]

Warning in a Storming?

Be nice.

 

[dysert]

When I was in a spiritual desert for years I called myself a Christian deist. By that I meant that I was a Christian (i.e., I believed in Christ for my salvation), but that I didn't think God was active in the world any more. Seemed to make perfect sense at the time, since it would explain the problem of evil and other paradoxes.

Now that I think I'm out of the desert I've dropped the "deist" part of my self description, and when it comes to the problem of evil, etc., I just shrug with an "I don't know".

 

[AV1611VET]

When I was in a spiritual desert for years I called myself a Christian deist.

I think the term you're looking at is: BORN AGAIN DEIST, CONVERTED DEIST, or COMPLETED DEIST.

 

[Albion]

Really? There is a definition for what a Christian Deist believes, and I think you'll find it is perfectly possible to be one.

...only to the extent that someone might have created a definition for a "square circle."

To use the terms Deist and Christian together is to invent a new concept that does not partake of the standard meaning of either word.

 

[AV1611VET]

To use the terms Deist and Christian together is to invent a new concept that does not partake of the standard meaning of either word.

Yup.

It's a disarrangement.

The whole is less than the sum of its parts.

 

[Guide To The Bible]

Be nice.

It's only cause I like them

 

[cre8id]

Don't you think you should check these things before you start proclaiming that there is no such thing?

Google

Sure there are such things as oxymorons! ;^D

I have not seen a reasonable explanation as to how one can be a real Deists and a real Christian at the same time. They are mutually exclusive. Deists deny the deity if Christ, and therefore, also the Trinity. Real Christians can deny neither.

 

[Speedwell]

Sure there are such things as oxymorons! ;^D

I have not seen a reasonable explanation as to how one can be a real Deists and a real Christian at the same time. They are mutually exclusive. Deists deny the deity if Christ, and therefore, also the Trinity. Real Christians can deny neither.

I don't believe Christian Deists think of themselves as Christians in the same sense as you do, nor care very much about your opinion of their theology. That's why they call themselves Christian Deists rather than just Christians.

 

[AV1611VET]

I Don't believe Christian Deists think of themselves as Christians in the same sense as you do, nor care very much for your opinion of their theology.

More like they want their cake and eat it too.

 

[Speedwell]

More like they want their cake and eat it too.

What cake is that?

 

[Albion]

I don't believe Christian Deists think of themselves as Christians in the same sense as you do, nor care very much about your opinion of their theology. That's why they call themselves Christian Deists rather than just Christians.

They can call themselves pretty much whatever they want. The point is that the term "Christian Deist" is self-contradicting, even if its appeal comes from giving the impression that we're talking about a religious view that is more or less conventional.

 

[AV1611VET]

What cake is that?

Angel food cake.

 

[cre8id]

I don't believe Christian Deists think of themselves as Christians in the same sense as you do, nor care very much about your opinion of their theology. That's why they call themselves Christian Deists rather than just Christians.

A lot of people call themselves Christians but are not. I shall again refer to Anglican Bishop Shelby Spong as an example. He, and his congregation, called themselves Christians, yet he denied several Essential Doctrines of the Christian faith! You cannot deny the deity of Christ and the Triune nature of God and call yourself, justifiably, a Christian.
That, I have shown, is NOT MY OPINION! It is in keeping with long standing Christian Creed's, doctrines, and teachings.

 

[Speedwell]

A lot of people call themselves Christians but are not. I shall again refer to Anglican Bishop Shelby Spong as an example. He, and his congregation, called themselves Christians, yet he denied several Essential Doctrines of the Christian faith! You cannot deny the deity of Christ and the Triune nature of God and call yourself, justifiably, a Christian.
That, I have shown, is NOT MY OPINION! It is in keeping with long standing Christian Creed's, doctrines, and teachings.

What Episcopalians will get up to these days is hard to predict. Many people feel that they are on the tipping point of not being Anglicans at all.

Spong's case is interesting, though. He was raised a strict Fundamentalist Protestant and subject within that context to physical abuse. I think of him as PTSD victim and am not surprised that he threw doctrine overboard and became a mystic. And don't forget, we are saved by faith, not the precision of our doctrine--at least I assume this conversation is about whether Spong is justified in naming himself a Christian, not whether he is saved.

 

[AV1611VET]

He, and his congregation, called themselves Christians, yet he denied several Essential Doctrines of the Christian faith!

I think it was [the late] Curtis Hudson that identified six fundamentals of our faith; none of which can be denied by a born again believer:

1. The Deity of Christ

2. The Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ

3. The Resurrection of Christ

4. The Second Coming

5. The Millennial Reign

6. Verbal Plenary Inspiration and Preservation of the Scriptures

 

[Speedwell]

I think it was [the late] Curtis Hudson that identified six fundamentals of our faith; none of which can be denied by a born again believer:

1. The Deity of Christ

2. The Vicarious Sacrifice of Christ

3. The Resurrection of Christ

4. The Second Coming

5. The Millennial Reign

6. Verbal Plenary Inspiration and Preservation of the Scriptures

That list smells like Darby, the most pernicious manifestation of the Antichrist since Calvin. 5 and 6 have nothing to do with Traditional Christianity

 

[Albion]

A lot of people call themselves Christians but are not. I shall again refer to Anglican Bishop Shelby Spong as an example. He, and his congregation, called themselves Christians, yet he denied several Essential Doctrines of the Christian faith! You cannot deny the deity of Christ and the Triune nature of God and call yourself, justifiably, a Christian.
That, I have shown, is NOT MY OPINION! It is in keeping with long standing Christian Creed's, doctrines, and teachings.

Well, that's to use an even more stringent definition of "Christian." What we've been saying so far is that even by the loosest or broadest definition of the word, "Christian Deism" doesn't qualify to be called "Christian."

 

[AV1611VET]

5 and 6 have nothing to do with Traditional Christianity

You're wrong there.

Jesus fulfilled 109 of 333 prophecies at His first advent.

He needs to fulfill another 224, and will complete them during the Millennial Reign.

If one prophecy is left unfulfilled, then Jesus isn't God, and we're all doomed.

As to verbal plenary inspiration: faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God.

No word of God = no faith = no Heaven.