From matters of faith to matters of fact

This article details philosophical responses to the problem posed by the existence, whether real or perceived, of priestcraft, a problem that boiled down to a fear that if the custodians of God’s tabernacle were corrupt, so too were the contents of the tabernacle. It first explores the attempts of Edward Herbert and Thomas Hobbes to guarantee the truth of revealed matters of faith in response to their perception of widespread priestcraft, arguing that, while each sought to undermine sacerdotal authority, they ultimately exempted matters of faith from the litmus test of reason. This resulted in a less-than-satisfactory solution to the problem. It turns next to Locke’s Essay (1690) and The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), exploring how empirical notions of evidence, fact, and probability, as framed in these works, enabled a radical re-evaluation of the grounds of Christian faith, which subsequently influenced the writings of John Toland, Anthony Collins, and Peter Annet between the 1690s and 1740s. These “Lockean free-thinkers,” it argues, were in fact closer to the position of the Essay and Reasonableness than to the deism of Edward Herbert in their efforts to tackle priestcraft. Concluding, this article proposes that the problem of priestcraft served as a catalyst for early modern British philosophers to increasingly narrow the grounds of faith, until faith was deemed legitimate only when grounded upon fact

Epistemology · Faith · Political science · American Constitutional Law and Politics · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought

• The Law of Nature, Mosaic Judaism, and Primitive Christianity in John Locke and the English Deists

  Open Access•Diego Lucci•Entangled Religions•2019

  Incluir item

• Anthony Collins on toleration, liberty, and authority

  Elad Carmel•History of European Ideas•2022

  Incluir item

• The Two Gods of Leviathan

  A P Martinich•Two Gods of Leviathan•1992

  Incluir item

• An Essay concerning Human Understanding

  John Locke, Peter H Nidditch•The Clarendon Edition of the…•1690

  Incluir item

• John Toland and the Deist Controversy

  Margaret C Jacob, Robert Sullivan et al.•The American Historical Review•1983

  Incluir item

• Anthony Collins The Man and His Works

  Open Access•JAMES O'HIGGINS, James O’Higgins•Anthony Collins the Man and His…•1970

  Incluir item

• Anthony Collins' Essays in the Independent Whig

  David Berman•Journal of the history of…•1975

  Incluir item

• The charge of religious imposture in late antique anti-Christian authors and their early modern readers

  Winfried Schröder•Intellectual History Review•2018

  Incluir item

• John Locke, the early Lockeans, and priestcraft

  Mark Goldie•Intellectual History Review•2018

  Incluir item

• Herbert of Cherbury before Deism

  Richard Serjeantson, R W Serjeantson•The Seventeenth Century•2001

  Incluir item

• The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes

  Tom Sorell, Noel Malcolm•The Philosophical Quarterly•1995

  Incluir item

• John Locke and the Way of Ideas

  John D C Linnell, John Linnell et al.•Philosophy and Phenomenological…•1958

  Incluir item

• Locke's Critique of Innate Principles and Toland's Deism

  John C Biddle•Journal of the History of Ideas•1976

  Incluir item