Deism Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==={{anchor|The rise of British deism (1690β1740)}}The peak of Deism (1696β1801)=== <!-- This Anchor tag serves to provide a permanent target for incoming section links. Please do not move it out of the section heading, even though it disrupts edit summary generation (you can manually fix the edit summary before saving your changes). Please do not modify it, even if you modify the section title. It is always best to anchor an old section header that has been changed so that links to it won't be broken. See [[Template:Anchor]] for details. (This text: [[Template:Anchor comment]]) --> {{See also|Deism in England and France in the 18th century}} The appearance of [[John Locke]]'s ''Essay Concerning Human Understanding'' (1690) marks an important turning-point and new phase in the history of English Deism. Lord Herbert's [[epistemology]] was based on the idea of "common notions" (or [[innate ideas]]). Locke's ''Essay'' was an attack on the foundation of innate ideas. After Locke, deists could no longer appeal to innate ideas as Herbert had done. Instead, deists were forced to turn to arguments based on experience and nature. Under the influence of Newton, they turned to the [[argument from design]] as the principal argument for the existence of God.<ref>Note that Locke himself was not a deist. He believed in both miracles and revelation. See Orr, pp.96-99.</ref> [[Peter Gay]] identifies [[John Toland]]'s ''[[Christianity Not Mysterious]]'' (1696), and the "vehement response" it provoked, as the beginning of post-Lockian Deism. Among the notable figures, Gay describes Toland and [[Matthew Tindal]] as the best known; however, Gay considered them to be talented publicists rather than philosophers or scholars. He regards Conyers Middleton and [[Anthony Collins (philosopher)|Anthony Collins]] as contributing more to the substance of debate, in contrast with fringe writers such as [[Thomas Chubb]] and [[Thomas Woolston]].<ref name="Gay, 1968, pp.9-10"> {{Cite book |last=Gay |title=(see above) }} βAmong the Deists, only Anthony Collins (1676β1729) could claim much philosophical competence; only Conyers Middleton (1683β1750) was a really serious scholar. The best known Deists, notably John Toland (1670β1722) and Matthew Tindal (1656β1733), were talented publicists, clear without being deep, forceful but not subtle. ... Others, like Thomas Chubb (1679β1747), were self-educated freethinkers; a few, like Thomas Woolston (1669β1731), were close to madness.β (pp.9-10)</ref> Other English Deists prominent during the period include [[William Wollaston]], [[Charles Blount (deist)|Charles Blount]], [[Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke]],<ref name="Britannica"/> and, in the latter part, [[Peter Annet]], [[Thomas Chubb]], and [[Thomas Morgan (deist)|Thomas Morgan]]. [[Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury]] was also influential; though not presenting himself as a Deist, he shared many of the deists' key attitudes and is now usually regarded as a Deist.<ref> {{Cite book |last=Gay |title=(see above) }} Gay describes him (pp.78-79) as "a Deist in fact, if not in name".</ref> Especially noteworthy is Matthew Tindal's ''Christianity as Old as the Creation'' (1730), which became, very soon after its publication, the focal center of the Deist controversy. Because almost every argument, quotation, and issue raised for decades can be found here, the work is often termed "the Deist's Bible".<ref>{{cite book | last=Waring | title=(see above) }} p.107.</ref> Following Locke's successful attack on innate ideas, Tindal's "Bible" redefined the foundation of Deist [[epistemology]] as knowledge based on experience or human reason. This effectively widened the gap between traditional Christians and what he called "Christian Deists", since this new foundation required that "revealed" truth be validated through human reason. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page