During the early stages of the Renaissance, when intellectuals (for example, Voltaire) aimed their critical disregard at the Church, several men wrote effectively against deism. Yet none of them proved more effective than Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752). His monumental work, The Analogy of Religion, virtually ended the debate for thinking people. Skirmishes continued for years, but after Butler it was clear that all the fundamental issues had been settled.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Joseph-Butler, Renaissance, Voltaire[/tags]

Perhaps the most popular propagandist of deism was Voltaire, who had many disciples, and his only serious rival was a set of books — the Famous French Encyclopedia edited by Denis Diderot.

Deism promoted reason and rationality over faith. Revealed religion was seen as nothing less than a scheme to exploit the ignorant. The primary weapon aimed at the church was "truth." "We think that the greatest service to be done to men," said Diderot, "is to teach them to use their reason, only to hold for truth what they have verified and proved." Debate was difficult at best, for Deists only scoffed at those who allowed their arguments to be drawn from authority, revelation, miracles, or tradition embodied in the Bible or the church. These were simply not "reasonable". While in England several men wrote effectively against Deism, the most effective being Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752), in the end