Qu’est-ce qu’être déiste ? Suivi d’un appendice sur la fausse attribution à Humphrey Prideaux de A Letter to the Deists (1696)

The author poses the question not of « Who is a deist ? » but of what it means to be a deist. To be a deist is to claim a right to that title. Deism is essentially declarative. That does not mean that the deist is not hiding something; he may well, for example, be hiding his atheism. If deism is the claim to a name, it is highly unlikely that deism can be defined as an intellectual movement characterised by a given body of doctrine. Lastly, the question of deism culminates in the development of the category « nominal deism » as opposed to « real deism ». In an appendix, the author treats the question of the false attribution to Humphrey Prideaux of A Letter to the Deists (1696).