Apologetics to the Glory of God

An Informal Introduction to Covenantal Apologetics: Part 40 – Deism.

By C.L. Bolt

The covenantal apologist should highlight the many fundamental differences between the Christian and deistic positions, for they are not so similar as many would presume in the context of covenantal apologetics. A deist god may of course be posited as solving many of the same problems that the Christian God does insofar as this clock-making god provides an immaterial absolute to ground such things as logic and morality in, but this objection to covenantal apologetics comes mostly as the result of having been trained to think like a classical apologist. Once we take a closer look at this concept of a god it is seen that even logic and morality are not justified by positing its existence.

The entirety of the Christian worldview is presupposed by the Christian by virtue of the one who speaks it. There is no classical case built using every traditional theistic argument built up bit by bit into the concept and existence of the Christian God. When the lines of communication are broken between the alleged deistic god that wound the world up like a clock and then let it free to do whatever it will there is no human knowledge possible. The knowledge of this god is not delivered analogically to humans created in God’s image and redeemed epistemologically by virtue of a communication, and so logic and morality and other such principles of intelligible human experience are at once not any more knowable than they are in the purely atheistic manifestation of the non-Christian worldview.

Recall that the God of the Bible connects every fact to every other, and authoritatively calls everything what it is. The God of the Bible reveals Himself to us, because if He did not do so then we as humans left alone to ourselves would never, ever be capable of reasoning our way to Him. So it is that the deist, if he is to make a case that his god is capable in any way of justifying the knowledge that the deist claims to possess, must prove the existence of his god. Yet if one cannot get to the knowledge of the Christian God who does exist by virtue of traditional proofs or arguments, then it is certain that one cannot get to the knowledge of the deistic god who does not exist by virtue of those same or similar proofs or arguments. The deist then is at once disconnected from his or her god every bit as much as he or she is disconnected from every other fact of existence.

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