Why No Single Deist Prayer Could Represent the Movement

Because historical Deism was never organized around a shared scripture, ordained clergy or congregational structure, individual Deist thinkers expressed their own personal views on prayer through their own individually authored philosophical and religious writing rather than through any text intended for shared communal recitation, meaning presenting any specific historical Deist author's personal reflection on prayer as representative of Deism generally would misrepresent just how individually varied Deist positions on the question actually were.

Contemporary self-identified Deists, a considerably smaller and less historically prominent group than in the eighteenth century, similarly tend to hold individually developed views on prayer's appropriateness and meaning rather than following any shared organizational practice, since modern Deism, like its historical predecessor, remains fundamentally a philosophical stance about how God can be known rather than an organized religious community with congregational life. This entry accordingly records Deism's general character and the specific reason, its historical and philosophical individualism, that no single representative prayer text can be offered in its place.