The writers known as the English deists were not simply religious controversialists, but agents of reform who contributed to the emergence of modernity. This title claims that these writers advocated a failed ideology which itself declined after 1730. It argues for an evolution …
In this book, old, accepted ideas about the English deists are challenged and overturned. The author provides a contemporary reinterpretation of the English deists and raises important methodological questions about the way we view and study the Enlightenment.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth century the terms 'atheism' and 'deism' involved fine distinctions that have not always been preserved by later scholars. The original deployment and usage of these terms were often more complicated than much of the historical scholarship sugges…
