The English Deists: Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Dodwell, Bolingbroke

The Deistic controversy died out in England about the middle of the eighteenth century. The Deistic literature had exhausted its stock of materials, while its tenets had never obtained a strong hold on the people. The cold, inflexible, rational supernaturalism of Paley (d. 1805) was considered as the final settlement of these long conflicts.

From the beginning, however, there had been a class of critics, representatives of the old Renaissance spirit, and inimical, therefore, to the Stoic and Christian ethics, who had only partially shared the views of the Deists, and in some ways had advanced to a position far beyond them. Shaftesbury (d. 1713), in opposition to the utilitarian and supernaturalist ethics of Locke and Clarke, developed the conception of a strictly autonomous moral code having its basis in a moral instinct in man whose end is to bring individual and society to harmonious self-perfection.

Bernard Mandeville (1733) adopted the Epicureanism of Hobbes and Gassendi, studied moral problems in the skeptical spirit of Montaigne and La Rochefoucauld, gave the preference to Bayle over the Deists, and developed empiricism into a sort of Agnosticism. He criticized the prevailing morality as a more conventional lie.

Christianity-which the Deists had wished, while reforming, to maintain the declared impossible, not only as a religion, but as a system of morality. His Free Thought on Religion (1720) has caused him to be included in the ranks of the Deists; but his real position is brought out in the Fable of the Bees (1714). Henry Dodwell (d. 1711), in Christianity not Founded on Argument (1742), attempted to demonstrate the invalidity of the rationalistic basis for Christian truth constructed by the Deists, from the very nature of the religious impulse, which, being opposed to rational argumentation, calls for the support of tradition and mystery, and finds fascination in the attitude of credo quia absurdum.

The only proof proceeds from a mystic inner enlightenment; logical demonstrations like those of Clarke or the Boyle lectures are only destructive of religion. Bolingbroke (d. 1751) voices the French influence in a capricious and dilettante manner. Despising all religions as the product of enthusiasm, fraud, and superstition, he nevertheless concedes to real Christianity the possession of moral and rational truth; an advocate of freedom of thought, he supports an established church in the interest of the State and of public morals (Letters on the Study and Use of History 1752; Essays, 1753).

The Founders of English Deism with John Locke as a bridge between Deism, Unitarianism, and Christianity.
• The English Deists: Introduction
• The English Deists: Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Founder
• The English Deists: Matthew Tindal (redefined)
• The English Deists: Henry St. John Bolingbroke
• Information on John Locke (Unitarian)
• John Locke on reason and faith.
• The English Deists: Thomas Hobbes
• The English Deists: Charles Blount
• The English Deists: John Toland
• The English Deists: Morgan, Annet, Middleton
• The English Deists: Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Dodwell, Bolingbroke
• The English Deists: David Hume (atheist?)
• At the Origins of English Rationalism

See the following in three parts:

• French Deism: deistic Humanism, Pantheism
• The English Deists: Introduction
• Is it Unitarianism or Deism?

The sections on Gnostic themes on this site have been updated and moved. See the following:

• Gnosticism mainpage
• Gnostic Internet Listing
• The Genesis Factor
• The Testimony of Truth
• On the Origin of the World

• Universal Pantheist Society - Socinianism - A forerunner to Modern Pantheism
• Socinianism: Unitarianism in 16th-17th Century Poland and Its Influence
• Natural Rights Rest Upon Deism by Bryan Black
• Cult Behavior and Christian Fundamentalists
• My View of Other Faiths
• Jerry Falwell Attacks Americans
• Fundamentalists use 9/11 to destroy separation of church/state.
• Bible Contradictions
• Occam's Razor and Reason
• Religious Confidence Games
• Cult Behavior and Some Christians

[ Article archive 1 ] [ Article archive 2 ] [ Article archive 3 ] [ Article archive 4 ]
[ Article archive 5 [ Homepage ] [ Guestbook ]

Overview of Religion

Deism	Christianity	Judaism	Islam	Gnosticism	Unitarianism
Zoroastrianism	Pantheism	Fundamentalism	Evolution	Original Sin	Trinity
End Times	Apostle Paul	Apostle John	John Calvin	St. Augustine	Pelagius
Martin Luther	Real Jesus	Identity	Willie Martin	Royal Race	Pat Robertson

Also see New Age Religion and What is paganism?