There are deists who invoke the concept of Intelligent Design (ID) as an indication there is God behind/within/beyond the universe. This poses a significant difficulty; the association of ID with creationism.
Deism, if it is anything, is a natural religion or philosophy based on the use of reason to discern there being God or Deus*. Science is the source of human insight and understanding the deist embraces, dismissing supernatural and superstitious “explanations” of the world.
Does that mean, therefore, that Intelligent Design must be abandoned as implying some anthropomorphic super being meticulously drawing up plans for the universe?
Perhaps a better way of describing the deist position would be to replace Intelligent with Natural, Natural Design (ND). After all, even the most insistent atheist biologist promotes Natural Selection as the vector for evolution.
Selection implies choosing – this feature not that – attributes carried forward, enabling a simple life form to eventually evolve into the complexity that is a human being. This does not require some deity to act as arbiter. Selection is a natural choosing.
Similarly, there is no need for there to be a celestial design studio in which a CAD (Creator Assisted Design) system is employed. Natural Design is universally intrinsic, enabling cause and effect to act as divine purpose.
Why divine purpose? God denotes for deists something so far beyond human comprehension there can only be vague intimations. As First Cause, for example, all subsequent cause and effect are an expression of it, a furtherance of its purpose, and so divine purpose in that sense.
The universe is not a random place; even at sub-atomic level the apparent chaos has its patterns. Design is not perfect, but that is the nature of design, it is how development takes place. Should design ever become perfect then development would cease, it not being possible to design beyond perfection.
That the universe is dynamic is due to it always being less than perfect, allowing Natural Design to manifest in great variety. That it does so according to discernable laws deists attribute to the law maker, God or Deus or whatever word is preferred to indicate what is beyond human definition.
Natural Design is fundamental to creation without being compromised by association with creationism.
* Some deists adopt the Latin Deus to differentiate between their concept of a natural God and the traditional supernatural God.
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