Historical Theology - Christianity vs. the Skeptics: The Rise of Deism, Unitarianism, and Universalism

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Question: In a world in which we are becoming more and more aware of the scientific basis of natural cause-and-effect, what basis do we Christians have for believing in miracles? In an age when historical scholars have demonstrated that much of the substance of ancient literature is mythology rather than history, on what basis can we insist that our ancient Scriptures are historically true rather than a collection of myths? Finally, if there are myths and culturally-bound perspectives contained in Scripture, what’s to stop us from “modernizing” our theology to do away with distasteful ancient notions, such as eternal punishment in hell?

The traditional Christian answers to these three questions are fairly simple. In answer to the first question, it is logically demonstrable that one needs an “uncaused cause” at some point in the chain of cause-and-effect in order to begin the system—thus, it is essential to believe in “an Unmoved Mover” (in the words of Aristotle), such as God. And if God does exist, there is no reason why he couldn’t act beyond the bounds of simple scientific causation (in acts such as miracles), because he’s the one who wrote the rules of scientific causation, and is not himself bound by them. In answer to the second question, the Bible’s historical sections have held up remarkably well as being a plausible account of ancient history rather than mere mythology, as long as one understands that it was written according to the ancient genre of historiography rather than following our modern conventions. Therefore, in answer to the third question, there is no compelling reason to disregard Scripture as antiquated or mythological, and thus we do not have the freedom to simply rewrite it as we see fit.

Deism

In the 1700s, Western civilization was undergoing a massive shift known as the Enlightenment. Disenchanted with established religion after suffering through the “Wars of Religion” between Catholics and Protestants, many thinkers felt empowered by advances in science and in rationalistic philosophy to question the authority of Scripture and traditional Christianity. Gradually, there emerged a watered-down blend of Christianity and the religious beliefs of the old Greek philosophers. This blend was called Deism: the idea that there was indeed one true God, the Creator of all things, that he was all-powerful and all-good, that Jesus Christ was indeed inspired by him and delivered true moral teachings, and that the souls of the righteous would ultimately go on to an immortal existence. However, as Christian as these ideas sound, this new religious position did not insist on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, on the divinity of Christ, or on the inspiration of Scripture, and it rejected the idea that God ever works through miracles. This became the popular philosophy among many of the educated elite, including many leaders of the American and French revolutions. Thus many of the Founding Fathers can be quoted as saying things that sound remarkably Christian, when in fact many of them (but not all) were Deists.

Unitarianism

Walking hand-in-hand with the rise of deism was a theological position known as Unitarianism. This developed out of a group of Polish Reformed Christians (that is, followers of John Calvin’s theology), who had thrown off a good deal of the Catholic heritage they had grown up with. A few of them decided to go farther and even throw off belief in the Trinity, favoring instead the theological views of Fausto Sozzini, who taught that only God the Father was truly “God,” and that the divinity of Christ was just a lesser derivation of God’s divinity. This belief spread from Poland to Britain and then to America, where it began to be preached in some New England churches, leading to the formation of a new denomination and the liberalizing of Harvard Divinity School (formerly a Puritan institution).

Universalism

Universalism, in Christian theology, is the idea that all people in the world may someday, somehow, be saved by the grace of God. It actually has a fairly long and distinguished pedigree among the early church fathers, but in the 1700s a new form of universalism arose, now as an expression of liberal theology spurred on by a sense of falling confidence in the authority of the Bible. Rather than basing their arguments biblically and theologically, as some early church fathers had done, they went with the mood of their age and decided that the doctrine of hell was simply distasteful. This caught on with great popularity in New England, where several generations had suffered through the aggressive hellfire-and-brimstone preaching of Puritan revivalists (such as Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God”). Choosing to believe that God’s character of love simply would not permit such a harsh and violent destiny for his creatures, the universalists formed their own denomination.

Though both Unitarians and Universalists began as a form of Christianity, today they have merged into the Unitarian-Universalist Church, which is no longer considered Christian (less than 20% of UU attendees call themselves Christians) and which honors all religions as part of humanity’s path toward relationship with the divine.

Conclusion: What we believe about the Trinity and the Bible really matters—softening one’s stance on the traditional Christian doctrines has historically led to a new religion that is not Christian at all. Thankfully, we have a long tradition of scholarly work in theology, archaeology, history, and philosophy that argues that the Christian position is not irrational, but is rather grounded solidly in logic, history, and the evident work of God’s Holy Spirit.