Ordering the World in the Eighteenth Century
Ordering the World in the Eighteenth Century

Author: Frank O'Gorman

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2005-12-14

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0230518885

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The Eighteenth century is often represented, applying Tom Paine's phrase, as 'The Age of Reason': an age when progressive ideals triumphed over autocracy and obscurantism, and when notions of order and balance shaped consciousness in every sphere of human knowledge. Yet the debates which surrounded the development of Eighteenth-century thought were always open to troubling doubts. Was nature itself truly an ordered entity, as Newton had argued, or was it a mass of chaotic, randomly moving atoms, as some materialist thinkers believed? This book explores the tensions and conflicts in these debates through a series of interdisciplinary essays from leading international scholars, each challenging the idea that the Eighteenth century was an age of order.

The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists
The Radical Rhetoric of the English Deists

Author: James A. Herrick

Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 9781570031663

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Focusing on the works of lesser-known yet influential Deists, the author examines the 70-year polemic between the Church of England and the English Deists, illuminating the rhetorical war which raged between them. He contends that Deism owes its significance to these skilled controversialists.

The Religious Innatism Debate in Early Modern Britain
The Religious Innatism Debate in Early Modern Britain

Author: R.J.W. Mills

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-09-20

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 3030843238

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This book demonstrates that the common belief that humanity is naturally disposed to religion did not disappear with the emergence of the Enlightenment. Going beyond a narrow focus on John Locke’s empiricism, this vivid analysis reconstructs the vociferous, multivocal debate over the natural origins of religious belief in England and Scotland between c. 1650 and c. 1750. It enriches our understanding through examining hundreds of discussions of the relationship between human nature and religion, from a variety of genres and contexts. It shows that belief in religious innatism was a ubiquitous and enduring claim about human nature across the continuum of Christian thought in early modern Britain, and one deployed for a variety of reasons. While the doctrine of innate religious ideas did fall out of use, the belief that human nature was framed for religion continued in new forms into the eighteenth century.