Am I a theist?

July 8th, 2024

I spent some time last evening just lying in bed and thinking — am I a theist or a deist? I reread both definitions, trying to apply definitions to myself and my way of thinking, but to no avail…

Looking back at my religious life, I went through several stages of religiousness in order:

• Ambivalent
• Deeply religious (considering seminary as my choice…)
• Questioning and still religious
• Agnostic
• Disinterested
• Atheist
• Militant atheist
• Ambivalent
• Militant atheist again
• Questioning
• Agnostic

Now, I cannot put a good definition of myself about my relationship with religion in the past several years. In those years, I read a LOT on widely and variously perceived subjects of religion — especially about early Christianity, Gnosticism, Sufism, Spirituality, Hermeticism, Alchemy, Comparative Mythology, and such. I have a deep interest in those matters purely from an intellectual curiosity standpoint — I like to know more and more about them and I believe I am becoming somewhat of an expert on those matters. Except maybe for spirituality, but that is a different subject…

Over the last few years, I have never really bothered to define myself in any terms about “me versus religion”. It wasn't even on my mind at all. I was myself, a guy with a deep interest in those subjects and no more than that. Yesterday I, for some undefined as of yet reason, wanted to know — by definition — who I am as a religious person. I wanted to be defined. Am I a deist or a theist now? And I couldn't come to any satisfactory conclusion. The need for a clear definition of myself is not as strong today as it was yesterday. But there is no answer nonetheless…