Creator, Father, King #142

I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit.

ON NOVEMBER 13, 1861, M. R. Watkinson, a Pennsylvania minister, wrote a letter to Salmon P. Chase, the US Department of the Treasury secretary. Watkinson knew Chase was about to submit an annual financial report to Congress. So he asked for “the recognition of the Almighty God in some form on our coins,” specifically requesting the engraving of the words “GOD, LIBERTY, LAW.”

Chase agreed. By 1864, “IN GOD WE TRUST” first appeared on the two-cent coin, and the phrase has been printed on various forms of US currency ever since.

But what kind of God do we trust in? It’s often said that the United States was founded on Judeo-Christian ethics and that our Founding Fathers were Bible-believing Christians. Certainly some might have been. But a number of the founders seem to have been deists.

Deism claims that a supreme being (i.e., God) initially created the universe but has had little interaction with it since. This philosophical system was especially popular during the Enlightenment era of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe (and later, America), when various advancements and discoveries led people to value human reason and intellect above spiritual matters.

To deists, the idea of a loving, caring God is utterly irrational. God—to the deist—is nothing more than a distant, cosmic Clockmaker who wound up the universe like a timepiece, then stepped back to let it run on its own.

This, of course, is ludicrous, contradicting the entire testimony of Scripture.

What’s It Mean?

Look at today’s verse from Isaiah again. One of the most beautiful realities about God is that he is both indescribably majestic and amazingly relational. These are not paradoxical statements. They are both true!

God is so holy and exalted; he cannot be contained by the vast universe he created. As Psalm 113:4 says, “For the LORD is high above the nations; his glory is higher than the heavens.”

Yet he is a heavenly Father, showing great love to his children through Christ, and his Spirit dwells in the hearts of those who call on his name. He is near, always accessible through prayer, and he loves showering us with spiritual blessings. What glorious truths!

This is the God in whom we trust.

Now What?

Deism prizes human reason. Scripture calls us to desire godly wisdom. With that in mind, read 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:16.

Did You Know?

Benjamin Franklin confessed to being “a thorough Deist” in his Autobiography, but interestingly, he proposed that he and his fellow delegates open the 1787 Constitutional Convention in prayer.