DOCSLIB.ORG

Theology of Faith”

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Theology of Faith” UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO The Core Mysteries: Pierre Bayle’s Philosophical Fideism A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy by Kristen A. Irwin Committee in charge: Professor Donald Rutherford, Chair Professor Stephen Cox Professor Samuel Rickless Professor Cynthia Truant Professor Eric Watkins 2010 Copyright Kristen A. Irwin, 2010 Some rights reserved. Licensed under the United States Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND). SIGNATURE PAGE The dissertation of Kristen A. Irwin is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2010 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page...............................................................................................................iii Table of Contents ..........................................................................................................iv Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................vi Vita .................................................................................................................................x Abstract of the Dissertation...........................................................................................xi Introduction ....................................................................................................................1 A Who is Bayle? ............................................................................................................... 1 B Interpreting Bayle: The proto-Enlightenment, fideist, and rationalist readings............ 5 B.1 The proto-Enlightenment reading and the fideist response .................................... 7 B.2 The subversive atheist reading redux.................................................................... 15 B.3 Problems with Mori’s reading, and a return to fideism ........................................ 17 C The Question of Skepticism ........................................................................................ 18 D Conclusion................................................................................................................... 19 Chapter 1 Bayle’s Cartesian Inheritance: Reason and Faith among Seventeenth- Century Cartesians........................................................................................................21 1.1 Reason and Faith: The Structure of the Question in the Seventeenth Century ........... 21 1.2 The Two Magisteria, via Philosophy: Descartes on Reason and Faith ....................... 23 1.2.1 The Revelation Thesis (RT) and the Epistemic Privilege (EP) Theses ................ 23 1.2.2 The Overlapping Scope Thesis (OS) .................................................................... 25 1.2.3 The Independent Epistemic Authority Thesis (IA)............................................... 30 1.2.4 The Self-Defining Scope Thesis (SD) .................................................................. 33 1.3 The Two Magisteria, via Theology: Arnauld on Reason and Faith ............................ 34 1.4 The Consequences of Cartesianism: Malebranche on Reason and Faith .................... 39 1.5 The Specter of Skepticism: Huet on Reason and Faith ............................................... 43 1.6 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 48 Chapter 2 Pierre Bayle’s Theological Evolution ......................................................51 2.1 Introduction: Calvinism and Bayle’s “Theology of Faith” ......................................... 53 2.2 Amyrauldism and Heterodox French Calvinist Rationalism....................................... 58 2.2.1 John Cameron ....................................................................................................... 59 2.2.2 Moïse Amyraut ..................................................................................................... 62 2.3 The Anti-Catholic Turn: Bayle at Sedan..................................................................... 73 2.4 The Mature Bayle: Between Jurieu & the Rationalist Theologians............................ 78 2.5 Conclusion: A “Creatively Deviant” Protestant.......................................................... 84 Chapter 3 The Limits of Reason: Bayle’s Qualified Academic Skepticism.............86 3.1 The “supersceptical” conception of reason ................................................................. 87 3.2 The “Stratonian” conception of reason ....................................................................... 93 3.2.1 Mori’s “Stratonian” atheism ................................................................................. 93 3.2.2 An Alternative Reading of Bayle’s “Stratonian” Texts........................................ 97 iv 3.3 The qualified skeptical conception of reason............................................................ 109 3.4 Conclusion................................................................................................................. 123 Chapter 4 The Christian Mysteries at the Core of Bayle’s Philosophical Fideism.125 4.1 The Structure of Bayle’s Philosophical Fideism....................................................... 126 4.2 The Tension: Contradictions between Claims of Reason and Claims of Revealed Theology ................................................................................................................... 128 4.3 Epistemic Reliability and Authority.......................................................................... 132 4.3.1 The Limits of Reason.......................................................................................... 133 4.3.2 The Independent Authority of the “Christian Mysteries”................................... 136 4.4 The Domain of Faith’s Epistemic Authority............................................................. 141 4.5 Faith as Certainty ...................................................................................................... 146 Chapter 5 The Role of Conscience in Bayle’s Philosophical Fideism....................151 5.1 Bayle’s conception of conscience ............................................................................. 154 5.2 The duties and rights of conscience .......................................................................... 162 5.3 The doctrine of the “erring conscience”.................................................................... 170 5.4 Religious toleration and the erring conscience.......................................................... 178 5.5 Conclusion................................................................................................................. 184 Conclusion..................................................................................................................186 Bibliography...............................................................................................................193 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is difficult to know where to begin in acknowledging the debts that one accrues over the course of a graduate career, and over the course of writing a dissertation in particular. Initial thanks must surely go to the director of this dissertation, Donald Rutherford, for his unflagging support of a project that was off the beaten path, and for his consistently challenging feedback. Any particularly intelligent or insightful moments in the dissertation are due to his suggestions and comments. Thanks also to Eric Watkins, Sam Rickless, Cynthia Truant, and Stephen Cox for believing enough in the value of Pierre Bayle to agree to sit on my dissertation committee; they made it possible for me to pursue this project. The international community of Bayle scholars has been a source of intellectual sustenance and encouragement since I first walked into the Paris office of Hubert Bost in the fall of 2005. My deepest thanks to M. Bost for allowing me to sit in on his Bayle seminar at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes that semester; his patience with and advocacy for me has been a great source of strength, and this dissertation is the partial fruit of his investment. Other members of the Bayle community that have been important partners in philosophical discourse include Thomas Lennon, Gianni Paganini, Todd Ryan, Jean-Luc Solère, and José Maia Neto. Other Bayle scholars who, unbeknownst to them, have deeply influenced this work through their writings include Olivier Abel, Elisabeth Labrousse (requiescat in pacem), and Gianluca Mori. I cannot emphasize enough the importance to this dissertation of my participation in the November 2006 conference on Bayle’s vi Eclaircissements, sponsored by the Association Pierre Bayle; the fruits of my interchanges there are found primarily in Chapters Two and Four. The October 2008 conference on Bayle as historian and critical philosopher – sponsored by the Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia da UFMG (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris, France), and the Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale “A. Avogadro” (Vercelli, Italy) – was also pivotal in the development of my thinking on Bayle; the fruits of the helpful comments from that conference are found primarily in Chapter Three. I owe more diffuse, but no less significant, intellectual debts to those who have mentored me and to those who have walked alongside me in the scholarly life. As an
Load more

Recommended publications
  • More Visible but Limited in Its Popularity Atheism (And Atheists) in Finland
    TEEMU TAIRA More visible but limited in its popularity Atheism (and atheists) in Finland his paper argues that atheism has become more atheism has become more visible in the public sphere, visible in Finland, but it is a relatively unpopular especi ally in the media. Some suggestions will be of­ Tidentity position. The relatively low popularity of fered as to why this is the case. This will be done by atheism is partly explained by the connection between using different kinds of data, both quantitative (sur­ Lutheranism and Finnishness. In public discourse athe- veys) and qualitative (mainly media outputs). ism has been historically connected to communism This paper proceeds as follows. First, surveys and the Soviet Union (and, therefore, anti-Finnishness). about Finnish religiosity and atheism will be exam­ However, atheism has slowly changed from being the ined in order to chart the modes and locations of other of Finnishness to one alternative identity among Finnish non­religiosity. This section is based on a many, although it has not become extremely popular. fairly detailed exploration of surveys, including an Recently, with the rise of the so-called ‘New Atheism’, examination of the popularity of religious beliefs, re­ atheism has become more visible in Finnish society and ligious behaviour, membership and identification in this development has led to a polarised debate between Finland. It demonstrates that atheism is relatively un­ defenders and critics of religion. Despite being a study popular in Finland, despite the low level of religious on locality, the aim is to develop a methodological ap- activity. In order to examine why this is the case, pub­ proach that can be applied to other contexts.
    [Show full text]
  • Atheism” in America: What the United States Could Learn from Europe’S Protection of Atheists
    Emory International Law Review Volume 27 Issue 1 2013 Redefining A" theism" in America: What the United States Could Learn From Europe's Protection of Atheists Alan Payne Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr Recommended Citation Alan Payne, Redefining A" theism" in America: What the United States Could Learn From Europe's Protection of Atheists, 27 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 661 (2013). Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr/vol27/iss1/14 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Emory Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Emory International Law Review by an authorized editor of Emory Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PAYNE GALLEYSPROOFS1 7/2/2013 1:01 PM REDEFINING “ATHEISM” IN AMERICA: WHAT THE UNITED STATES COULD LEARN FROM EUROPE’S PROTECTION OF ATHEISTS ABSTRACT There continues to be a pervasive and persistent stigma against atheists in the United States. The current legal protection of atheists is largely defined by the use of the Establishment Clause to strike down laws that reinforce this stigma or that attempt to deprive atheists of their rights. However, the growing atheist population, a religious pushback against secularism, and a neo- Federalist approach to the religion clauses in the Supreme Court could lead to the rights of atheists being restricted. This Comment suggests that the United States could look to the legal protections of atheists in Europe. Particularly, it notes the expansive protection of belief, thought, and conscience and some forms of establishment.
    [Show full text]
  • Theodicy and Toleration in Bayle's Dictionary
    Theodicy and Toleration in Bayle’s Dictionary Michael W. Hickson Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 51, Number 1, January 2013, pp. 49-73 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/hph.2013.0011 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hph/summary/v051/51.1.hickson.html Access provided by Stony Brook University (SUNY) (20 Apr 2014 03:27 GMT) Theodicy and Toleration in Bayle’s Dictionary MICHAEL W. HICKSON* introduction theodicy and toleration seem at first glance to be an unlikely pair of topics to treat in a single paper. Toleration usually means putting up with beliefs or ac- tions with which one disagrees, and it is practiced because the beliefs or actions in question are not disagreeable enough to justify interference. It is usually taken to be a topic for moral and political philosophy. Theodicy, on the other hand, is the attempt to solve the problem of evil; that is, to explain the origin of suffering and sin in a way that does not make God a moral cause of those evils.1 While theodicy concerns the notions of good and evil, and could therefore be considered a moral topic, historical and contemporary discussions of it have been predominantly meta- physical and epistemological in scope. Toleration and theodicy would therefore seem to belong to entirely different spheres of philosophical inquiry. When the paper in question is about Pierre Bayle, however, as this one is, treating these two topics together should seem more plausible, since the first half of Bayle’s career was spent arguing for toleration, while much of the latter half was devoted to defending his controversial thesis that there could be no purely rational solution to the problem of evil.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT on Science and Atheism: Whether Atheistic Belief Is
    ABSTRACT On Science and Atheism: Whether Atheistic Belief is Scientifically Motivated Charles L. Jester Director: Gerald Cleaver, Ph.D. The intent of this paper is to explore the motivation behind the rejection of theistic religious faiths by modern atheist scientists, and whether it is justified to claim that this rejection is scientifically motivated. First, a brief background of the development of the contemporary schism between faith and science is given, noting in particular changes in belief amongst the scientific community. Next, an exposition on the motivations for scientists’ convictions concerning God is laid out, followed by an address to the question of whether atheistic scientists reject all properties of God, or only certain of them. Based on analyses of personal statements, statistical data on beliefs, and developments in twentieth-century physics and mathematics, it is concluded that modern scientists who reject theism are not overwhelmingly motivated by science, and that they in fact do not reject all ideas of God. APPROVED BY DIRECTOR OF HONORS THESIS: _____________________________________________________ Dr. Gerald B. Cleaver, Department of Physics APPROVED BY THE HONORS PROGRAM: _____________________________________________________ Dr. Andrew Wisely, Director DATE: ___________________________ ON SCIENCE AND ATHEISM: WHETHER ATHEISTIC BELIEF IS SCIENTIFICALLY MOTIVATED A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Baylor University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Program By Charles L. Jester Waco, Texas
    [Show full text]
  • Are All Socialists Anti-Religious?
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Lirias Are all Socialists Anti-religious? Anti-religiosity and the Socialist Left in 21 Western European countries (1990-2008). Egbert Ribberink1 Peter Achterberg Dick Houtman February, 2015 7953 words Please direct correspondence to: Egbert Ribberink, Centre for Sociological Research, University of Leuven, Parkstraat 45, box 3601, 3000 Leuven, Belgium. E-mail: [email protected] The data used in this article comes from the ZA4804: European Values Study Longitudinal Data File 1981-2008 (EVS 1981-2008) dataset, which can be found on the Gesis.org website. 1 Egbert Ribberink is a PhD-student at the Centre for Sociological Research, University of Leuven, Belgium. His primary research interests include atheism, anti-religion and the secularization of Western Europe. Peter Achterberg is Professor of Sociology at Tilburg University, the Netherlands. He is a cultural sociologist with a general interest in studying cultural, political, and religious change in the West. For more information, please visit www.peterachterberg.com. Dick Houtman is Professor of Sociology of Culture and Religion at the University of Leuven, Belgium. His latest book is Things: Religion and the Question of Materiality (Fordham University Press, 2012, edited with Birgit Meyer). 1 Are all Socialists Anti-religious? Anti-religiosity and the Socialist Left in 21 Western European countries (1990-2008). Abstract The political situation in the Soviet Union during the twentieth century has led some to suggest that socialism is some kind of secular religion as opposed to ‘normal’ religion. In modern Europe, however, there have also been vibrant Christian socialist movements.
    [Show full text]
  • Historiography of the Crusades
    This is an extract from: The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World edited by Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh published by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection Washington, D.C. © 2001 Dumbarton Oaks Trustees for Harvard University Washington, D.C. Printed in the United States of America www.doaks.org/etexts.html The Historiography of the Crusades Giles Constable I. The Development of Crusading Historiography The crusades were from their inception seen from many different points of view, and every account and reference in the sources must be interpreted in the light of where, when, by whom, and in whose interests it was written.1 Each participant made his— and in few cases her—own crusade, and the leaders had their own interests, motives, and objectives, which often put them at odds with one another. They were all distrusted by the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenos, whose point of view is presented in the Alexiad written in the middle of the twelfth century by his daughter Anna Komnene. The Turkish sultan Kilij Arslan naturally saw things from another perspective, as did the indigenous Christian populations in the east, especially the Armenians, and the peoples of the Muslim principalities of the eastern Mediterranean. The rulers of Edessa, Antioch, Aleppo, and Damascus, and beyond them Cairo and Baghdad, each had their own atti- tudes toward the crusades, which are reflected in the sources. To these must be added the peoples through whose lands the crusaders passed on their way to the east, and in particular the Jews who suffered at the hands of the followers of Peter the Hermit.2 The historiography of the crusades thus begins with the earliest accounts of their origins and history.
    [Show full text]
  • Against Quasi-Fideism De Ridder, Jeroen
    VU Research Portal Against quasi-fideism De Ridder, Jeroen published in Faith and Philosophy 2019 DOI (link to publisher) 10.5840/faithphil201951123 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record document license Article 25fa Dutch Copyright Act Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) De Ridder, J. (2019). Against quasi-fideism. Faith and Philosophy, 36(2), 223-243. https://doi.org/10.5840/faithphil201951123 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 AGAINST QUASI-FIDEISM Jeroen de Ridder Duncan Pritchard has recently ventured to carve out a novel position in the epistemology of religious belief called quasi-fideism. Its core is an application of ideas from Wittgensteinian hinge epistemology to religious belief. Among its many advertised benefits are that it can do justice to two seemingly con- flicting ideas about religious belief, to wit: (a) that it is, at least at some level, a matter of ungrounded faith, but also (b) that it can be epistemically rationally grounded.
    [Show full text]
  • RETHINKING the CRUSADES University of South Africa PROMOTOR: PROF. E. OLIVER January 2014
    RETHINKING THE CRUSADES By JACQUES THERON submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology in the subject Church History at the University of South Africa PROMOTOR: PROF. E. OLIVER January 2014 Student number: 31640761 I declare that RETHINKING THE CRUSADES is my own work and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. J. Theron Date TABLE OF CONTENTS Page number Chapter 1 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Area of investigation 2 1.2 Justification 2 1.3 Aims and objectives 3 1.4 Research method and procedures 4 1.4.1 Research methodology 4 1.4.2 Research design 5 1.4.3 Research limitations 5 1.4.4 Theoretical framework 6 1.5 Literature review 6 Chapter 2 The rise and spread of Islam 12 2.1 The origin of Islam 12 2.2 The expansion of Islam 14 Chapter 3 3.1 The world of the eleventh century 18 3.2 The Islamic world of the eleventh century 19 3.2.1 The Turks as the eleventh century Muslim power 20 3.3 The Byzantine Empire 22 3.4 Western Europe 23 3.4.1 Pilgrimage 26 3.4.2 Holy War 28 Chapter 4 4.1 The Crusades 31 4.2 The ideology surrounding the First Crusade 31 4.2.1 Violence 32 4.2.2 What Christians thought and knew about Muslims 33 4.2.3 The call to arms 35 4.2.4 On Crusade for Christ 40 4.3 Crusading over the centuries after the First Crusade 45 4.3.1 The Twelfth century aftermath of the First Crusade 46 4.3.2 The Third Crusade 48 4.3.3 Pope Innocent III 50 4.3.4 Crusading: from increasing popularity to eventual decline 55 4.3.4.1 Philip IV
    [Show full text]
  • Not “For God and Country”: Atheist Military Chaplains and the Free Exercise Clause
    Not “For God and Country”: Atheist Military Chaplains and the Free Exercise Clause By ANTONY BARONE KOLENC* Introduction THROUGHOUT HISTORY, CHAPLAINS HAVE MINISTERED to the religious needs of military members. They provide “spiritual care and the opportunity for [military] members, their families, and other authorized personnel to exercise their Constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.”1 The motto of U.S. Army chaplains captures this fundamental spiritual core: Pro Deo et Patria 2—“For God and Coun- try.”3 But nontheists4 are now demanding their own chaplains as a religious accommodation. Although some quip that an atheist chap- * Antony Barone Kolenc, JD, University of Florida College of Law, is an Assistant Professor of Law at Florida Coastal School of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law. He served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps before retiring in 2012. The views expressed in this Article are those of the author alone and do not reflect the official policy of the Department of Defense (“DOD”) or Florida Coastal School of Law. Professor Kolenc also acknowledges Noah B. Benton and Sara L. Goodin for their keen research assistance and contributions to this paper. 1. U.S. DEP’T OF THE AIR FORCE, POLICY DIRECTIVE 52-1, CHAPLAIN SERVICE para. 1 (2006) [hereinafter AFPD 52-1]. 2. U.S. Army Chaplaincy Mission, CHAPNET, http://chapnet.chaplaincorps.net/index .php/about-2/ (last visited May 27, 2014). 3. Randy Murrey, Army Chaplains Corps: Serving ‘God and Country’ for 234 Years with 25,000 Chaplains, U.S. ARMY (July 9, 2009), http://www.army.mil/article/24086/army- chaplains-corps-serving-god-and-country-for-234-years-with-25000-chaplains/.
    [Show full text]
  • European Journal for Philosophy of Religion
    EUROPEAN JOURNAL FOR PHILOSOPHY OF ReLIGION Volume 1 Number 2 Autumn 2009 ARTICLES Peter van INWAGEN Indeterminacy and Vagueness: Logic and Metaphysics 1 Mikael STENMARK Religious Pluralism and the Some-Are-Equally-Right View 21 Michael SUDDUTH Revisiting the ‘Reformed Objection’ to Natural Theology 37 Fiona ELLIS Murdoch and Levinas on God and Good 63 Chris DALY Moral Error Theory and the Problem of Evil 89 Stephen MAITZEN Ordinary Morality Implies Atheism 107 Jerome GELLMAN Jean Paul Sartre: the Mystical Atheist 127 BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES Hilary Putnam, Jewish Life As a Guide to Life Reviewed by Yiftach Fehige 139 Dirk Evers, Gott und mögliche Welten. Studien zur Logik theologischer Aussagen über das Mögliche [God and Possible Worlds. Studies in the Logic of Theological Discourse on Possibility] Reviewed by Thomas Schärtl 144 Winfried Löffler, Einführung in die Religionsphilosophie [Introduction to Philosophy of Religion] Reviewed by Peter Schneider 150 INDETERMINACY AND VAGUENESS: LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS PETER VAN INWAGEN University of Notre Dame Vagueness is a special case of indeterminacy—semantical indeterminacy. It may be indeterminate whether a sentence is true or false, indeterminate whether a term denotes a certain object, and indeterminate whether a given set is the extension of a certain predicate. I take the word ‘vague’— my universe of discourse here comprises only linguistic items—to be entirely appropriate only in application to predicates and certain of their constituents.1 A predicate is vague if it is indeterminate, or, at any rate, possibly indeterminate, which set is its extension—or if it is possible that, for at least one object, it is indeterminate whether that object belongs to the extension of that predicate.
    [Show full text]
  • Martin Luther and the Reformation in Historical Thought, 1517-2017
    Martin Luther and the Reformation in Historical Thought, 1517-2017 Dixon, S. (2017). Martin Luther and the Reformation in Historical Thought, 1517-2017. Studies, 106(424), 404- 416. http://www.studiesirishreview.ie/product/martin-luther-and-the-reformation-in-historical-thought-1517-2017/ Published in: Studies Document Version: Peer reviewed version Queen's University Belfast - Research Portal: Link to publication record in Queen's University Belfast Research Portal Publisher rights Copyright 2017 Studies. This work is made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. General rights Copyright for the publications made accessible via the Queen's University Belfast Research Portal is retained by the author(s) and / or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing these publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy The Research Portal is Queen's institutional repository that provides access to Queen's research output. Every effort has been made to ensure that content in the Research Portal does not infringe any person's rights, or applicable UK laws. If you discover content in the Research Portal that you believe breaches copyright or violates any law, please contact [email protected]. Download date:29. Sep. 2021 1 Martin Luther and the Reformation in Historical Thought, 1517-2017 C. Scott Dixon On 10 November 1837 Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen, professor extraordinarius at the University of Berlin, gave a talk entitled ‘Proof, that Dr Martin Luther never existed’. As a specialist in medieval German sagas, von der Hagen used all of his considerable learning to convince his audience that there were too many historico-mythical topoi in Luther’s life to take him seriously as a real historical figure.
    [Show full text]
  • Bayle, Scripture, and Toleration: How Pierre Bayle’S Use of Scripture in the Dictionnaire Informs His Thinking on Religious Toleration
    Bayle, Scripture, and Toleration: How Pierre Bayle’s use of Scripture in the Dictionnaire informs his thinking on religious toleration. by Parker Allan Cotton A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Wycliffe College and the Theological Department of the Toronto School of Theology In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Theology awarded by Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto © Copyright by Parker Allan Cotton 2017 Bayle, Scripture, and Toleration: How Pierre Bayle’s use of Scripture in the Dictionnaire informs his thinking on religious toleration. Parker Allan Cotton Master of Theology Wycliffe College and the University of Toronto 2017 Abstract This thesis examines Bayle’s use of Scripture within the Dictionnaire and attempts to bridge the gap between questions of Bayle’s beliefs and attitudes towards religion and his well- acknowledged interest in religious toleration. Through a survey of the Dictionnaire it demonstrates that Bayle not only referenced Scripture often, and in seemingly pious ways, he does so in articles discussing moral failings of biblical heroes while maintaining that he is not attempting to undermine Christian faith. Two main insights emerge. First, the situating of toleration discussions within biblical/religious contexts in the Dictionnaire connects the two and sees Bayle questioning whether those who believe they are justified in persecuting can really have this confidence. In absence of this assurance, toleration is a preferred path. Second, by demonstrating an alternative possibility to Bayle’s scandalous takes on Old Testament figures and discussions of God, this thesis suggests that an atheistic reading of Bayle is improbable.
    [Show full text]