Something I have been thinking about recently is the tendency for some Christians to not get the full picture in their description of God. This can be done in two ways, and I will be focusing on the second way in my next post. This first way of thinking is called moral therapeutic deism. That’s a big fancy term, so let’s break it down. First, what is deism? Deism is the belief that God exists, but he has no concern for his creation. He is simply someone who creates the universe and let it run wild without any divine providence whatsoever, like someone who took a windup toy, wound it up, then let it roam free, not caring what path it took or what happened to it after it stopped running. This is a far cry from the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible intimately wants to know each person he created, so much so that he is willing to become human and die for them.
At the same time, this deism is not alone. This is a special kind of deism. A morally therapeutic deism is a deism which not only says that God does not care for creation of a personal level, but also has no opinions about human morality. He is morally therapeutic in the sense that he is completely fine with all our decisions, kind of like an “anything goes” type of parent. There is no such thing as sin under this belief system. Everyone is going to heaven no matter what they do, and that the moral commands of Jesus like “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15) have no inherent meaning.
Why worry about hell then, if humans can do nothing wrong? We need a healthy fear of hell because despite the comforting feelings of moral therapeutic deism, we still have free will. We can still freely choose to separate ourselves from God by disobeying him through our words and actions. God truly does love us, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t hurt by our sins. Repentance combined with an active effort of pursuing holiness is necessary for heaven. We can (and should) rely on God, but not get too comfortable. Being a part of God’s family means having real responsibility.
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