God in the Enlightenment

In the light of various recent political events, the role and place of religion in liberal democracies is an especially potent topic for discussion. As Bulman notes in his introduction, the teleological narrative of the secularization thesis no longer prevails. Indeed, historians are becoming increasingly cautious of describing the Enlightenment as a secular, anti-religious phenomenon. Bulman and Ingram's impressive collection of essays embodies this ethos by placing God firmly within the Enlightenment. A couple of standout essays focus on non-Western religions and cultures. Claudia Brosseder's essay discusses the Spanish Jesuit Bernabé Cobo's (c.1582–1657) mission in Peru. Unlike some controversial missionaries, Cobo did not believe that the Incas practised a pre-Christian religion, which could be acculturated with Christianity. On the other hand, Cobo also refused to dismiss Inca religion as simply a form of idolatry that needed to be extirpated. Rather, Cobo viewed the Incas from the perspective of a ‘natural scientist’ (99). In other words, while Cobo denied that the Incas practised a godly religion, he still believed that one could find examples of God-given ‘genius’ in their cultural expressions (100). Joan-Pau Rubiés explores the works of several European authors who studied Hinduism, including the Amsterdam publisher, Jean-Fréderic Bernard (1683–1744). By adopting a comparative approach to the study of religion, Bernard aimed to ‘reduce religious life to a simple spiritual worship, supposedly primitive and universal’ (130). As Rubiés notes, Bernard's sentiments were not intended as an attack on God per se. Rather, Bernard was launching an anticlerical attack on such ‘superstitious’ ideas as hell, demons, and angels.Often debates on God and reason stemmed from problems associated with sola scriptura. Jonathan Sheehan's essay explores the eighteenth-century reception of the Book of Job, incorporating discussions on such individuals as the Anglican divine, William Warburton (1698–1779), and the German philosopher, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–81). According to Sheehan, this Old Testament text presented problems for Enlightenment philosophers because it neither ‘dismissed God nor inflated man's capacities’ (197). Other essays emphasize continuities with the past. Justin Champion pushes the Enlightenment back to the writings of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), who, as a means of maintaining political stability, called for religion to be excluded from the public domain. Hobbes's views, as Champion notes, subsequently influenced various eighteenth-century philosophers. Paul Lim considers the persistence of Augustinianism among such heterodox authors as the anti-Trinitarian, Stephen Nye (1648–1719). Lim argues that—rather than harbouring an irreligious agenda—Nye merely sought the restoration of ‘primitive Christianity’. Brad Gregory argues that some of the philosophical assumptions that undergirded the Enlightenment can be traced back to the late medieval period. Gregory also notes that, during the Reformation, various Protestant groups claimed to have ‘scripture, tradition, the Holy Spirit, and ecclesiastical authority’ (206) on their side. Thus, it was futile for Protestants to appeal to these various tenets when they attempted to resolve their differences. Such futility, according to Gregory, was what caused Protestants to appeal to reason—something that, inevitably, led to further disagreements over how one should apply reason to religion. Therefore, Gregory concludes that many of the questions that arose during the Enlightenment need to be located within a lineage of long-standing controversies, which can be traced back to the late medieval period and the Reformation.In a particularly thought-provoking essay, J. C. D. Clark similarly emphasizes such continuities with the past, though, unlike Gregory, he pushes the origins of these late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century debates back much further than the Middle Ages. As Clark argues convincingly, the views of nature that have traditionally been attributed to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Deists can be traced back to the writings of such ancient authorities as Democritus and Epicurus. Because of these continuities with the past, Clark questions whether it is accurate for scholars to describe an ‘Enlightenment’ that marked a sudden irreligious break with a religious past. H. C. Erik Midelfort's essay on Pietist visionaries in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Germany similarly denies that there was a sudden transition from ‘sacred’ to ‘secular’. While Midelfort notes that German medical practitioners increasingly sought scientific explanations for the Pietists' visions and trances, he is careful to add that these physicians were still willing to consider religious explanations (such as demonic possession) if no scientific explanation could be found. Finally, Sarah Ellenzweig explores the Anglican divine Richard Bentley's 1732 edited edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667). More specifically, Ellenzweig discusses those extracts in Milton's epic poem, which Bentley associated with Spinozism. Therefore, God in the Enlightenment incorporates many insightful discussions on a diverse range of topics, and embodies the ethos of recent trends in Enlightenment studies. While this volume is by no means an easy read, it will be of great interest to those who wish to explore the origins of contemporary discussions on the role and place of religion in liberal democracies.

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