Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A religious belief holding that God created the universe and established rationally comprehensible moral and natural laws but does not intervene in human affairs through miracles or supernatural revelation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The doctrine that God is distinct, and separated from the world. See deist, 1.
  • noun Belief in the existence of a personal God, accompanied with the denial of revelation and of the authority of the Christian church.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The doctrine or creed of a deist; the belief or system of those who acknowledge the existence of one God, but deny revelation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A philosophical belief in the existence of a god (or goddess) knowable through human reason; especially, a belief in a creator god unaccompanied by any belief in supernatural phenomena or specific religious doctrines.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the form of theological rationalism that believes in God on the basis of reason without reference to revelation

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French déisme, from Latin deus, god; see dyeu- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin deus ("god, deity") +‎ -ism.

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