[From Latin deus: god.]
(metaphysics) The idea, especially popular during the Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that God created the universe but then left it alone to operate on its own principles -- principles that human reason and scientific inquiry can discover. According to deism, God is not involved in the day-to-day workings of the universe and there are no miracles. Contrast with theism, pantheism, etc.