I looked up Deism on Wikipedia and found this:

Freedom and necessity

Enlightenment thinkers, under the influence of Newtonian science,
tended to view the universe as a vast machine, created and set in
motion by a creator being, that continues to operate according to
natural law, without any divine intervention.

I guess this is really OT now, but just a couple of comments. I think we
run into two sets of issues

1. The danger of regarding wikipedia or for that matter, any other web
page as the ultimate in truth :-(( E.g. elsewhere you can read of his
relationship with Anglicanism:

'Although he appreciated its universalist humanitarianism, he was by no
means a deist inasmuch as he believed in a personal God, omniscient and
omnipotent, but, above all, immanent not only had He created the
universe, but He keeps it under constant surveillance and intervenes in
a providential way from time to time (e.g., paths of comets).'

http://www.adherents.com/people/pn/Isaac_Newton.html

2. The difference between an original thinker and his/her disciples.
Newton certainly had a breadth of vision which may not have been shared
by those who came after him.

Many thanks Alastair for your responses

Cheers


--
James Brown