Urbane scepticism, an extension of English Deism, is presented in this lecture mostly through the lens of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with a response by Bishop Richard Watson.

Ian Ramsey Centre: The Great Debate

Lecture 03: Urbane Skepticism: Gibbon vs. Watson

The Great Debated is a series of fifteen lectures by Timothy McGrew, Professor and Department Chair, Department of Philosophy, Western Michigan University. The 'Great Debate' is a convenient umbrella term for a set of theological and philosophocal disputes about miracles, prophecy, and theism itself in the wake of the Deist Controversy. These disputes spanned roughly the years 1760 to 1900, played out across England, Europe, and North America, and associated with seven types of sceptical attack on the grounds of revealed religion: continental, urbane, populist, scholarly, transcendental, establishment, and Dutch/German. The ensuring controversies continue to shape cultures to the present day. This series was delivered as a graduate-level online course in Western Michigan University 10 May - 28 June 2016, produced in collaboration with the Ian Ramsey Centre, Oxford University Faculty of Theology and Religion, as part of the Special Divine Action project, sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.

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Ian Ramsey Centre: The Great Debate