As a non religion/religion, deism is the most truthful.

I hope we can have a fruitful discussion about which religious position is the most truthful. I'll first clarify for readers the basic beliefs of deism, and then compare the probability of deism with its theistic alternative. I. Deism vs. Theism. In The Routledge Companion to Theism, deism is defined as “natural or rational religion stripped of all revealed, mystical, inspired, parochial, and mysterious elements” (Taliaferro et al. , 135). The author later refines this definition by describing some of its loosely related views: “God is a supremely good and wise person; God created the world but does not intervene in its operation,” among other views (Taliaferro et al. , 135). As such, the deist affirms with his religious brother that there is a Divine reality external and independent of the created world. He simply rejects any act of Divine intervention in the world beyond that of creation. Theism, broadly defined, is the belief in God(s), coming from the Greek word theos. Deism, although technically theistic, is often classified as non-theistic simply because it differs so contrastingly from the intervention and revelation characterized by other theistic belief systems (Taliaferro et al. , 135). The divide between deism and theism therefore centers on the question of Divine intervention. If God is more likely to have intervened in the world than not, I will have proven my position. Allow me to continue. II. Human perfection in God. The human mind is innately directed towards the truth of existence. This is true from simply surveying our cognitive power of reasoning. Through our empirical senses, we grasp effects, and then we use our power of reasoning to progress to an understanding of their causes. In other words, our mind tends towards the more fundamental principle, towards the abstract, theoretical, or universal. Deism agrees with theism, at the very lest, that God is the ultimate principle of the world, as seen above. In other words, He is the universal cause, the necessary and fundamental source from which all else originates. Now because the human mind seeks the universal, it is clear that the human intellect is essentially directed towards God as the highest truth of existence. The perfection of the intellect, then, is the final end of God. III. God distrubutes this human perfection. Plato once wrote that “good is diffusive of itself. ” This philosophical principle is verified by the very idea of goodness. Goodness consists in the existence of perfection. To perfect others in addition to oneself is therefore becoming to goodness, as more perfection exists if it is communicated to others rather than contained to itself. Deism once again agrees with theism that God is “supremely good,” as referenced in the definition above. Because God is supremely good, it follows that He is likely to distribute His goodness to exterior creatures, perfecting them by His very nature. Thus, God, in His sublime purity, is likely to transmit the truth of His infinite existence to man, for the sake of man’s perfection. IV. God’s diffusion of that human perfection. Now, God could go about this process of perfecting humans in two ways. He could either allow man to find Him through rational deliberation and introspection, or He could reveal Himself to man efficiently and painlessly. The ancient Greeks, step by step, over centuries of unaided and often erroneous reason, came to a shadowly reflection of God. Aristotle relates to us the history of the Greek philosophical campaign to find the source of the world. He states that “most of the earliest philosophers conceived only of material principles as underlying all things” (Aristotle, 983b). Afterwards, “since they were insufficient to account for the generation of the actual world, men were again compelled by truth itself to investigate the next first principle” (Aristotle, 984b). Left without revelation, it took generations of sophisticated Greek metaphysicians finally come to the rational knowledge of God. This is why, of course, religious theists believe that God revealed Himself to man. In that revelation, man understands the end to which his very nature tends, so that God might perfect him with that knowledge. And thus God revealed Himself to the prophets of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The French philosopher Étienne Gilson writes of Moses, the greatest prophet, “instead of engaging upon deep metaphysical meditations to discover the true name of God, he took a typically religious short cut,” which is, of course, simply asking his Creator for that Divine revelation (Gilson 40). V. Conclusion. My case rests on three parts: first, that human perfection ultimately consists in God; second, that a supremely good God delivers that human perfection; third, that God would most effectively accomplish that perfection through revelation of Himself. Thus, I believe I have shown it more likely than not that God would reveal Himself to man. VI. Sources. Aristotle. Metaphysics. Trans. W. D. Ross. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967. Bullivant, Stephen, and Michael Ruse. The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford UP, 2013. Gilson, Etienne. God and Philosophy. New Haven: Yale UP, 1941. Taliaferro, Charles, Victoria S. Harrison, and Stewart Goetz. The Routledge Companion to Theism. New York: Routledge, 2013.