This lecture begins a detailed discussion of Deistic thought, starting with the early Deists, Herbert of Cherbury, later plagiarized in Charles Blount’s Reglio Laici, and Baruch Spinoza, with responses from Stillingfleet and Boyle.

Ian Ramsey Centre: The Deist Controversy

Lecture 05: Early Deism: Herbert, Spinoza, Blount

The Deist Controversy was an extended debate that took place first in England and then Continental Europe roughly from the late 1600s through the mid 1700s. The deists, most of whom believed that there was a god worthy of worship who had created the world, denied special divine action beyond creation. Hence they claimed that Christianity as a revealed religion was false or even contemptible. A wide array of scholars responded to the deists and the resulting arguments shaped a landscape of ideas that largely persists to the present day. This podcast series consists of eighteen lectures delivered as a graduate-level online course at Western Michigan University, USA, 11 May - 1 July 2015 by Timothy McGrew, Professor and Chair, Department of Philosophy. The series was 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 Deist Controversy