Deism & Miracles
Introduction
One of the most common conceptions about the deists is that they believed in a watchmaker God who never performed miracles because he governed the world through immutable natural laws.[i] This supposed disbelief in miracles is the foundation for the common idea that the deist God was remote, cold, and unloving.[ii] This paper challenges this oft repeated assertion by focusing on the most influential group of deists,[iii] the English deists, and showing that almost all of them believed in miracles.
Deism has been notoriously difficult for scholars to define, but most scholarly definitions rightly focus on the deists’ belief in natural, or non-revealed, religion.[iv] The deists thought natural religion was the essential core of all revealed religions, and its main positions were that we should worship God and be moral to other people. Most people mistakenly think the deist conception of natural religion means that God only works through natural means; they think the deists believe God had created the world, and then left it to run by natural laws. In this view, the deist God never performs any miracles and never reveals himself to people except through the regularity of nature. The deists were major advocates of natural religion, but this paper will show it is a mistake to think the English deists believed God only worked through natural means and eschewed miracles. The English deists did not have an uninvolved distant God who gave them little comfort; instead, almost all of them believed in miracles and a surprising number of them believed in related things such as God answered our prayers or gave divine signs to people or directly inspired thoughts in our minds.
By looking at seventeenth and eighteenth century works on deism (such as John Leland and Philip Skelton) and modern scholars, a list of English deists who left a meaningful body of signed, written work can be compiled. These deists are Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Charles Blount, Charles Gildon, John Toland, Anthony Collins, Bernard Mandeville, Thomas Gordon, John Trenchard, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Bolingbroke, Thomas Woolston, William Wollaston, Thomas Morgan, Thomas Chubb, Henry Dodwell, and Peter Annet. This paper will show that only one of these deists consistently argued against miracles, eleven were consistently for miracles, and four were ambiguous or inconsistent on the point.
what’s considered a miracle?
It is important to understand at the outset that most English deists defined a miracle in a different way than the philosopher David Hume did. Hume said that “a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature,”[v] and seemed to deny they ever happened because nature’s laws were inviolable. On the other hand, most deists did not think nature’s laws were inviolable; many of them maintained that the same God who made nature’s laws could suspend them whenever he chose. For example, in his “Essay on Miracles,” John Trenchard made no mention at all of a miracle being a violation of the laws of nature. Instead he said a miracle was when God altered the usual order of the universe: “A Miracle or actio mirabilis, is an action to be wondered at; as when God Almighty interposes, and by his omnipotent power alters the order he at first placed the universe in, or enables or empowers other beings to do so.”[vi] Most other deists said that miracles were actions that exceeded human power and which did not happen in the ordinary operations of nature. A miracle therefore was not a violation of natural law, but, as John Toland put it, “some Action exceeding all humane Power, and which the Laws of Nature cannot perform by their ordinary Operations.”[vii] Many times the deists used the phrase “particular providence” interchangeably with the word miracle. A particular providence was when God or an angel cared for someone outside the general course of nature.[viii]
deists who denied miracles
The only English deist who consistently and unambiguously denied God did miracles was Peter Annet. Annet was a schoolmaster who was jailed for blasphemy as a result of some of his deist writings. He made a clear statement of the anti-miracle position: “God has settled the Laws of Nature by his Wisdom and Power, and therefore cannot alter them consistent with his Perfections: This is a demonstrative Proof of the Impossibility of Miracles a priori.”[ix] It is important to remember that the vast majority of Protestants distinguished themselves from Catholics by saying that miracles stopped in the Apostolic time or shortly thereafter. Annet distinguished his view from this traditional Protestant one by making it totally clear that no miracles had ever happened, not even the supposed ones in biblical times. So of the most important Christian miracle—Jesus’ resurrection– he said, “To believe it possible, contradicts this Maxim, That Nature is steady and uniform in her Operations: For one Miracle or Action done contrary to her Laws, contradicts all her steady uniform Springs and Movements and all that Mankind call Truth and Reason.”[x] This a priori argument against the possibility of miracles exemplifies the position which many modern commentators say that most or all of the deists held. James A. Herrick said that Annet “expresses well the Deist attitude towards miracles,”[xi] but the following survey of all the significant English deists will show that Annet’s view on miracles is very much the exception, not the rule.
Deists who believed in Immutable Natural Laws and Miracles
The most interesting deist to start with is Thomas Morgan because he believed in immutable laws but also believed in particular providences or miracles. Morgan lost his job as an ordained minister because he did not ascribe to the orthodox view of the Trinity. In one of his later works, Morgan said that God does not break the general laws he has made by doing miracles:
God governs the World, and directs all Affairs, not by particular and occasional, but by general, uniform and established Laws; and the Reason why he does not miraculously interpose, as they would have him, by suspending or setting aside the general, established Laws of Nature and Providence, is, because this would subvert the whole Order of the Universe, and destroy all the Wisdom and Contrivance of the first Plan.[xii]
It seems this insistence on immutable laws leaves no room for miracles. Yet, in the same book, he said he believed in miracles, it is just these miracles are done by angels in accordance with the general, established laws of nature. Morgan sought to explain angelic miracles by a comparison to animal husbandry. He said that humans care for animals and control their lives without breaking general laws, and from the animals’ point of view our work must seem miraculous or “all particular Interposition, and supernatural Agency.”[xiii] In the same way, Morgan asserted, the angels can do what seem like miracles to us without breaking the uniform laws of nature. He said that if we could but see the “other intelligent free Agents above us, who have the same natural establish’d Authority and Command over us, as we have with regard to the inferior Ranks and Classes of Creatures, the Business of Providence, moral Government, and particular Interpositions by general Laws of Nature would be plain enough.”[xiv]
Morgan finished off this section by arguing that we should pray to these angels as well as to God for miraculous assistance. He said, “I cannot conceive what has given some Philosophers, if I may call them so, such an Antipathy to divine Assistance, as if God, or other superior Beings above us by the Constitution and Laws of their Natures, might not assist us as well, or better, than we can one another.”[xv] Morgan finally talked about the efficacy of prayer and affirmed God’s “continued Presence, Agency and Concurrence in all human Affairs.”[xvi]
Morgan was not the only English deist who believed in immutable natural laws while having angelic miracles. Another minister, William Wollaston, also thought there were particular providences or miracles wrought by angels in accord with immutable laws. Wollaston said that there “most probably are beings invisible, and superior in nature to us, who may by other means be in many respects ministers of God’s providence, and authors under Him of many events to particular men, without altering the laws of nature.”[xvii]
More interestingly, Wollaston said divine beings performed miracles without violating immutable laws by influencing our minds through direct inspiration. He said that God or the angels could influence us “by means of secret and sometimes sudden influences on our minds” or by “suggestion, and impulse, or other silent communications of some spiritual being.”[xviii] He said these direct inspirations caused a person to want to avoid a street where a building was about to fall or where a dangerous enemy was lying in wait for him. So God or the angels could easily change our actions and thus care for us without altering any laws of nature.
Wollaston thought these divine inspirations happened “so frequently” that anyone who closely observed his thoughts and actions could observe them.[xix] He also thought that these divine inspirations had had important consequences in world history, and he cryptically suggested that God planted it into Hannibal’s mind to never directly attack Rome and thus Hannibal lost his chance to defeat Rome.[xx]
Wollaston agreed with Morgan on the importance of and the efficacy of prayers. In the same book in which he asserted the immutableness of natural laws, Wollaston had a long section on the best forms of prayer, in which he discussed whether they should be private or public, what time was best for them, how loud the prayers should be, what words to say, what physical posture to assume and what our mental state should be when we prayed. He ended by saying that he knew some people would laugh at him for being so concerned about prayer.[xxi]
Wollaston not only believed in angels doing miracles, he believed angels and God planted direct inspiration into our minds to help us and guide us. He was sure direct inspiration happened quite often and had even shaped world history. In important ways, his God was more intimate than the traditional Protestant concept of God, which did not allow direct divine inspiration.
Deists who emphasized angels and prayers
Two deists, Charles Gildon and Thomas Chubb, not only shared Morgan’s and Wollaston’s interest in good angels, but also believed in miracles done by evil angels. Gildon’s book, The Deists’ Manual, includes a long discussion on miracles, which focuses on how to discern if the agent performing a miracle was God, a good angel or an evil angel.[xxii] Thomas Chubb shared Gildon’s belief that good and bad creatures were able to do miracles. From this, he drew a common conclusion among the deists that “miracles prove nothing with respect to the divinity of a revelation,”[xxiii] or that we cannot prove Jesus was divine just because he did miracles. Chubb believed that Jesus and the apostles had performed miracles and that God continues to perform miracles on extraordinary occasions for good purposes.[xxiv]
Like Morgan and Wollaston, Chubb was a strong advocate for the efficacy of prayers. In a long tract on prayer in one of his books, he discussed whether we should pray to angels or not. Unlike Morgan, he thought we probably should not pray to them, even though they are “ministering spirits,” because we cannot be sure that they hear our prayers, and they might not be at liberty to help us without God’s direct guidance.[xxv]
Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who was the English ambassador to France for a time, shared Chubb’s interest in the efficacy of prayer and made it clear that he thought that God performed miracles. He said that “I acknowledge indeed and believe most firmly that God can do miracles, and which is more, that he hath done them.”[xxvi] He was so sure that God did miracles he thought that this doctrine and the related notion that God answered our prayers was an idea God put into every human. He said that “every religion believes that the Deity can hear and answer prayers; and we are bound to assume a special Providence—to omit other sources of proof—from the universal testimony of the sense of divine assistance in times of distress.”[xxvii] For Herbert, this universal testimony of divine assistance to our prayers meant that it was a common notion, or something engraved into our breast by God.
In his autobiography, Herbert said he once prayed for and received a divine sign. He had written the book De Veritate and was wondering whether he should publish it. So he got down on his knees and prayed fervently to God for a sign instructing him what to do. Even though it was a clear, sunny day with no wind, Herbert said he heard a gentle noise in the clear sky that so comforted him that he decided it was a sign from God he should publish his book. Herbert wrote that
Being thus doubtfull in my Chamber, one fair day in the Summer, my Casement being opened towards the South, the Sun shining clear and no Wind stirring, I took my book, De Veritate, in my hand, and, kneeling on my Knees, devoutly said these words:
‘O Thou Eternal God, Author of the Light which now shines upon me, and Giver of all inward Illuminations, I do beseech Thee, of Thy infinite Goodness, to pardon a greater Request than a Sinner ought to make; I am not satisfied enough whether I shall publish this Book, De Veritate; if it be for Thy glory, I beseech Thee give me some Sign from Heaven, if not, I shall suppress it.’ I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud ‘tho yet gentle Noise came from the Heavens (for it was like nothing on Earth) which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my Petition as granted, and that I had the Sign I demanded, whereupon also I resolved to print my Book.[xxviii]
Herbert did not describe the heavenly noise he heard in any detail, but one religion scholar has said he could have heard angels singing.[xxix]
Strange as it may seem, Herbert, who is often accepted as the founder of English deism, was attacked by orthodox Protestant divines of the eighteenth century as an enthusiast who prayed too much. One English minister, John Brown, said Herbert’s claim to have received a sign from God was “enthusiastic.”[xxx] Another English minister, John Leland, said even asking for such a sign was improper as God does not get involved like that in people’s lives. Leland said that Herbert’s claim “passed for a high fit of enthusiasm…. I think it maybe justly doubted, whether an address of such a particular kind, as that made by his Lordship, was proper or regular. It does not seem to me, that we are well-founded to apply for or to expect an extraordinary sign from heaven.”[xxxi] Clearly the eighteenth century Christian commentators did not see Herbert’s god as distant and uninvolved. Rather, Herbert was attacked for believing in an overly-involved deity who had an overly-intimate relationship with people.
Modern scholars of deism often have difficulty fitting Herbert’s religious views into their scheme of what deists are supposed to believe. For example, the Enlightenment scholar Peter Gay said that Herbert—who lived in the seventeenth century– was atypical of the deists. Gay said that Herbert’s belief that he had received a divine sign showed how very different Herbert was from the later deists.[xxxii] Another modern commentator, Charles Lyttle, also labeled Herbert atypical due to his religious views: “it is perhaps superfluous to point out that such devoutness, such high moral seriousness of inward life, are not customarily associated with the name of Deist. Indeed, it is likely that most of the Deists of the eighteenth century would have felt scandalized.”[xxxiii] But, as it has been shown, Wollaston, Chubb, and Morgan—who all lived in the eighteenth century—also were devout and believed in the power of prayer. Other deists did too, including the next one we will look at, Thomas Woolston.
Woolston, Collins, and Toland
Thomas Woolston had been a fellow at Cambridge University, but he so mocked and ridiculed the scriptural miracles that he was sent to jail for blasphemy, where he died. He wrote hundreds of pages trying to show that Jesus never did the miracles the scriptures said he did, and said that Jesus’s miracles were “full of Absurditys, Improbabilities and Incredibilities.”[xxxiv]
It is important in understanding Woolston to realize that he did not assert that there were immutable laws which showed a priori that miracles were impossible. Instead he repeatedly asserted that he was against the literal interpretation of Jesus’ miracles because he believed they were meant to be interpreted mystically and allegorically. For Woolston, Jesus’ healing miracles were not a literal healing of a person’s bodily ailments, but a deeper healing of spiritual infirmities.[xxxv] In making this argument, Woolston was motivated not by disdain for the authority of revelation, but rather by a reverent regard for the authority of the Church Fathers who also favored mystical and allegorical interpretations of the miracle stories in the Bible. As Woolston wrote:
I shall not confine my self only to Reason, but also to the express Authority of the Fathers, those holy, venerable and learned Preachers of the Gospel in the first Ages of the Church, who took our Religion from the Hands of the Apostles and of Apostolic men… who professedly and confessedly were endew’d with Divine and Extraordinary Gifts of the Spirit; who consequently can’t be supposed to be corrupters of Christianity, or teachers of false Notions about the Miracles of our Saviour, or so much as mistaken about the Apostolic and Evangelical sense and Nature of them. I know not how it comes to pass, but I am a profound Admirer and almost implicit Believer of the Authority of the Fathers, whom I look upon as vast Philosophers, very great Scholars, and most Orthodox Divines. Whatever they concurrently assert, I firmly believe.[xxxvi]
While he was opposed to a literal interpretation of the miraculous stories in the Bible, he gave authority not to reason alone, but to the teachings of the Church Fathers.
Woolston said he believed in Christianity and some of its most important miracles: he said that “I do believe…that Jesus was born of a pure Virgin, and that he arose from the Dead,”[xxxvii] and he said that “I am apt to believe with the Fathers, that Jesus actually did raise the dead.”[xxxviii] He therefore believed in some scriptural miracles, but thought that only a few scriptural miracles could withstand critical examination.[xxxix]
The question is whether we should believe Woolston in his assertion that he is attacking only the literal interpretation of miracles or whether he is hiding his real views and did not believe in miracles at all. If one starts with the idea that the deists in general are part of the grand march to a secularist worldview—they have a God, but an abstract, uninvolved one– it is easy to conclude Woolston was lying. But this conclusion is predicated upon the assumption that the deists thought like modern people or were heading in that direction. In general, it seems intellectual historians should be cautious of too easily accepting interpretations that collapse the difference between older thinkers and ourselves. It seems a more legitimate interpretative strategy to situate these thinkers in relation to the intellectual climate of their time.
Rather than seeing Woolston as a secularist, it is better to see him as searching for the pure primitive meaning of the scriptures like his contemporaries, the English scientists William Whiston and Isaac Newton. Woolston had first written about the importance of the Church Fathers and their mystical interpretation of scripture twenty years before he published his book arguing against miracles.[xl] He had a long track record of respect for the Church Fathers, and so it is much less likely that he was just using this as a rhetorical strategy to advance a position against miracles. Even more importantly, in an earlier work he said that he felt God had called him to attack the literal interpretation of miracles, and he had prayed to God to pass over him and call someone else instead. He said that he knew society would condemn him for his attacks on Jesus’ miracles, but he was guided by God to do it anyways:
I am comforted in this, that I am no less fit Instrument in the Hand of God, for the Promulgation again of that Gospel, which for many Ages and Generations has been hid…. As often as I thought on this Work, which at Times I believed God would call me to, very melancholy Thoughts arose in my Mind; and I have prayed that God would pass me by, and take another to it: Nay, to the utmost of my Power, I have study’d how to avoid the doing of it: But God’s Will is irresistible, and therefore I humbly submit to him, and by his Grace and Assistance will perform all that he shall enable me to in the Work that is before me.[xli]
Rather than being a secularist, Woolston was a religiously motivated individual who saw himself as God’s instrument to restore the Church Fathers’ mystical interpretation of the Bible. He could have been released from prison if he had retracted his views or promised not to write anymore, but he refused. While many people hated his views, it was commonly thought at the time, even by his enemies, that he was “a man of great temperance, patience and humanity, even while he was in prison.”[xlii] Like Socrates, he felt he was called by God, and so he could calmly accept his death in prison.
Anthony Collins, a major freethinker and wealthy country squire, is often lumped with Woolston in current secondary literature because they both attacked the then accepted rational proofs of Christianity: while Woolston attacked miracles, Collins attacked prophecy.[xliii] But they were not allies in the grand march towards secularism, and Collins even published a pamphlet in 1729 forcefully criticizing Woolston’s attack on miracles. Collins said that Woolston’s attack was “stupidity and madness”[xliv] and his work was “a heap of absurd and contradictory Reasonings” which was “absurd and inconsistent with right Reason and tend to no less than downright Infidelity.”[xlv] In this same work, Collins praised Jesus’ miracles, saying how extraordinary they were: “The multitude of Miracles CHRIST had already done (some of the most stupendous, that can be well imagined, contrary to all those Laws of Nature Providence has established)… Those Miracles, I say, were such evident Testimonials, such emphatical Proofs of a divine Mission, that it was unnecessary to offer any more.”[xlvi] Collins not only believed in miracles, he also wrote a long pamphlet defending the use of spiritual or non-verbal prayer from the accusation that the devil encouraged people to pray that way.[xlvii]
Among modern scholars there is a debate about whether Collins is sincere in stating he believed in miracles and was a good Christian. James O’Higgins believes that Collins was sincere in his belief in miracles and states that Collins saw himself as a Christian and hated being called hypocritical for criticizing the church in his books while still being a member of good standing in his local parish.[xlviii] David Berman, on the other hand, asserted that Collins lied when he said that he openly subscribed to such Christian beliefs as the Athanasian doctrine of the trinity and the authority of scriptures. Berman said that “a deist, it is agreed, must minimally, reject Christian mysteries and the authority of the Scripture. Hence those scholars who see Collins as a deist must also accept that he was a liar—that is he did not mean what he said.”[xlix] Berman’s key assumption is that no deists accepted the mysteries or scriptural authority and so Collins must be lying when he said he accepted these positions or miracles. Similar to many commentators who assume that all deists were against miracles, Berman seems to just take it for granted that all deists were against mysteries and the authority of the scripture. While I have not done a survey of the deists’ attitude on these points, in a very quick check I found that Mandeville, Chubb, Trenchard, and Gordon accepted some of the points that Berman said no deist accepted.[l] So Berman’s case falls apart and I agree with O’Higgins that Collins is a sincere Christian who believed in miracles.[li]
John Toland was intimately involved in the same small circle of freethinkers as Anthony Collins. Like Collins, Toland was an associate of John Locke and was influenced by Locke’s empiricism. Toland asserted in his first major book, Christianity Not Mysterious, that miracles happened. He thought that miracles were not contrary to nature’s laws, just above them. He said that “Miracles are produc’d according to the Laws of Nature, tho above its ordinary Operations, which are therefore supernaturally assisted.”[lii]
The question among commentators is similar to the one asked of Collins: was Toland sincere in endorsing miracles or was he hiding his disbelief to save himself from social opprobrium? The case that he is hiding his disbelief is strengthened if one attributes to him an earlier anonymous work called “Two Essays Sent in A Letter from Oxford to a Nobleman in London.” This short pamphlet argued against miracles, and in his book on Toland, the scholar Robert Sullivan uses it as evidence that Toland did not believe in miracles.[liii] Rhoda Rappaport, however, makes a very convincing case that modern commentators are incorrectly assigning this work to Toland. She says there is no good evidence he wrote it, and it does not match his style or concerns.[liv] Stephen H. Daniel in his book on Toland gives another reason to think Toland stated his true beliefs when he said he believed in miracles. Daniel argued that a major part of Toland’s philosophical and political agenda at the time was spreading enlightenment through free and open discussion. So Toland would not want to hide his message from the public at this time; it is not until much later that Toland adopted a more circumspect attitude and decided to hide his views.[lv] For these reasons, along with many other modern scholars such as R. M. Burns, G. R. Cragg, S. G. Hefelbower, and Hanning Graf Reventlow, I think Toland was sincere in stating that he believed in miracles.[lvi]
Four other English deists who believed in miracles
Four other English deists who clearly believed in miracles can be quickly mentioned before discussing the last four more difficult cases. Thomas Gordon stated that the apostles performed miracles and Jesus proved his divine mission by doing them.[lvii] Henry Dodwell believed that it was a miracle that caused St. Paul to become a Christian and that the Apostles did miracles to appeal to people’s senses.[lviii] Matthew Tindal said that Judas, like the other apostles, had the power of performing miracles, even to the extent of raising the dead.[lix] John Trenchard defended the traditional Protestant position that miracles had happened in biblical times but “none have been performed since the first ages of Christianity, and that they can be proof of nothing which is against virtue and the good of mankind.”[lx] These four deists have little of interest in their writings on miracles and are clear and consistent in their endorsement of them.
Four Deists who were Ambiguous about miracles
So far I have shown that most of the English deists believed in miracles. Four English deists—Blount, Mandeville, Shaftesbury, and Bolingbroke—are left to consider, but it is more difficult to pin down their views, as they are ambiguous and sometimes inconsistent. Of these four, I think Blount came to believe in miracles, Mandeville believed in them, Shaftesbury most likely believed in them, and Bolingbroke did not.
Charles Blount
Charles Blount, who killed himself over his tragic love for his sister-in-law, had an inconsistent position on miracles. In an early pamphlet, Blount said quite categorically that there were no such things as miracles because nature was governed by immutable laws. In one passage he said that a miracle was “contrary to the Laws of Nature, or which cannot possibly follow from her fixt and immutable Order: then I dare not believe that any such Miracle hath ever happen’d in Nature, lest I oppose God to God, that is, admit that God changes his own Decrees, which from the Perfection of the divine Nature I know to be impossible.”[lxi] Blount defended his position by saying that immutable natural laws revealed God more clearly than miracles; miracles only revealed a power that was greater than ours, while immutable laws led us to see God’s infinity and eternity.[lxii]
If this was Blount’s only view of miracles, then he would have had a clear and consistent position against them. But ten years later, in a work published posthumously, Blount wrote about biblical miracles in a different way. He said most readers made a great error in reading scripture “in relation to Divine Miracles.” He said that we misunderstand the scriptural description of miracles because we interpret miraculous acts in a general sense while they were meant in a more particular sense. So when scripture talked of the darkness over the face of the whole earth when “our Savior” died, it meant darkness only over all of Palestine. Likewise, the star which led the wise men to Jesus was not a heavenly star, but one more localized that marched before the wise men like a torch. He then mentioned several more miracles which should be interpreted in a more restricted sense than they are commonly interpreted. Blount ended this section with an endorsement of miracles and a critique of those who are so arrogantly confident in their reason that they questioned God’s power to do miracles: “God seldom alters or perverts the Course of Nature, however Miracles may be necessary sometimes to acquaint the World with his Prerogative, least the Arrogance of our Reason should question his Power; a Crime no wise Man can ever be guilty of.”[lxiii] In this work, Blount is less concerned with immutable laws and more interested in the power of God to control all things.
While the common view of the Enlightenment is that people gradually became more secular as the period went on, that is not the case with Blount. His early work was heavily influenced by Spinoza’s writings against miracles, and he moved to a more affirming attitude towards them as he got older. This is consistent with the English Enlightenment in general which was more conservative and religious than the French version and did not share the later French Enlightenment’s virulent anti-Christianism.[lxiv] Some may think that Blount was covering up his real beliefs in his later work, but two points argue against that interpretation. First, his publisher, good friend, and co-writer Charles Gildon was a firm believer in miracles, so it is quite possible that Blount could have been influenced by him. Second, social acceptance was not a primary concern for Blount at this time as he had incurred tremendous social opprobrium by falling in love with his dead wife’s sister, and the book was published posthumously. I agree with the modern scholars S. G. Hefelbower and Walter Merrill that Blount did accept miracles, although he did not accept them in the uncritical way orthodox Christians do.[lxv]
Bernard Mandeville
Bernard Mandeville, a Dutch physician who moved to England, wrote some passages in The Fable of the Bees that make him seem to be against miracles. These passages assert that it would be an inferior God that needed to patch up his own handiwork: “you entertain Notions of the Deity that are unworthy of him…to make a Scheme first, and afterwards to mend it, when it proves defective, [this] is the Business of finite wisdom.”[lxvi] He also wrote about “the Work of Providence, by which I mean the unalterable wisdom of the Supreme Being.”[lxvii] Nevertheless, in the same book, Mandeville said that religion came into the world “from God, by miracle.” He said that “all true Religion must be reveal’d and could not come into the World without Miracle.”[lxviii]
The question is which of Mandeville’s statements we should believe. This is made more difficult because this book is in dialogue form and there is a scholarly debate over which, if any, interlocutor represents Mandeville’s true beliefs. Mandeville himself claimed that the more religious interlocutor represented his real views. If one accepts, as does the scholar E. D. James,[lxix] that Mandeville was sincere in this claim, then one must be open to the possibility that Mandeville believed in providence and miracles.
Mandeville wrote a later book entitled Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church and National Happiness and along with the scholar Stephen H. Good, I think that Mandeville straightforwardly revealed his beliefs in this book.[lxx] In Free Thoughts, Mandeville wrote that Moses performed miracles, as did Jesus and the apostles. He said that “in the time of our Saviour and his Disciples the Wonders that were daily wrought to the Astonishment of all who beheld them, were sufficient to awaken the Attention of Carelessness and Stupidity itself.”[lxxi] In the same book, he generalized his view on miracles by saying that miracles are above reason but not against it. When someone said 2+2 may sometimes make seven, that is against reason he said. But what if we hear of a man who could see through a solid, 2 inch thick, plank of wood? If there were ten thousand credible witnesses, Mandeville said he still would not believe it.
In this book, Mandeville clearly asserted that miracles did happen in biblical times and that God could still do them.
But had GOD revealed to me, that he had made such a one, I would immediately submit, and as soon as I was satisfy’d that the Revelation was really Divine, believe it as surely, and if it be possible, with less scruple than now I believe that there is such a Place as Japan…I would…despise all Reasoners, who should pretend to demonstrate the impossibility of it. Here a Man would have nothing to do, but to Conquer the good Opinion he has of Human Understanding, the shallowness of which, the most knowing are so well convinc’d of on Thousand Occasions. In this case I would not only call it Presumption, but the highest Insolence, to oppose [the miracle]. [lxxii]
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury, who was tutored by John Locke, said that while he was incredulous of modern miracles, he believed in scriptural ones: “I have a right faith in those of former times by paying the deference due to sacred writ.”[lxxiii] He also said that he was “satisfied of the truth of our religion by past miracles.”[lxxiv] The scholar Alfred Owen Aldridge has argued that Shaftesbury is only making these short statements and others like them to protect his social position, and he probably does not really believe in scriptural miracles.[lxxv] Shaftesbury, as an earl, had a high social position to protect and if these were his only statements on miracles, I would agree with Aldridge that he does probably not believe in them.
Shaftesbury discussed miracles most clearly in a section of his book, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. He said that miracles do not tell us much about the miracle-doer. He asserted that all a miracle can show is that there is some power greater than man, not that this power is a god worthy of worship. Shaftesbury thought we can only know the theist God by contemplating the laws governing the universe. In particular, he thought we had to realize these laws were just and unchanging: “The contemplation of the universe, its laws and government, was I averred, the only means which could establish the sound belief of a Deity …To whom therefore the laws of this universe and its government appear just and uniform, to him they speak the government of one Just One; to him they reveal and witness a God.”[lxxvi] For Shaftesbury, these just and uniform laws led to knowledge of a theist God, while miracles only showed that some being had greater power than humans.
If this were all that Shaftesbury had to say about miracles, I would agree with Aldridge that he did not believe in them and his occasional very short statements about the scriptural miracles were just polite lies. But immediately after his statement about uniform laws leading to knowledge of God, he said that once people knew the just, eternal God, they are able to receive a revelation or a miracle. He said that while contemplating uniform laws gave a person “the foundation of this first faith, they fit him for a subsequent one. He can then hearken to historical revelation, and is then fitted (and not till then) for the reception of any message or miraculous notice from above, where he knows beforehand all is just and true. But this no power of miracles, nor any power besides his reason can make him know or apprehend.”[lxxvii] This allowance for miracles is at the climax of his only important writing on the subject. So his position is that miracles are secondary, but he still allows for them once we have a prior knowledge of the total goodness and justness of God.
The interpretation that Shaftesbury believed in miracles is reinforced by another passage in his book, Ten Letters, where he again said that miracles were secondary to a better knowledge of God. He said:
[T]hat, which to the Vulgar is only knowable by Miracles, and teachable by positive Precepts and Commands, to the wise and virtuous, is demonstrable by the Nature of the Thing. So that how can we forbear to give our Assent to those doctrines, and that Revelation, which is deliver’d to us, and enforced by Miracles and Wonders? But to us, the very Test and Proof of the Divineness and Truth of that Revelation, is from the Excellence of the Things reveal’d: Otherwise the Wonders themselves would have little Effect or Power.[lxxviii]
Shaftesbury allowed a place for miracles once we had the knowledge of a totally just and good God in another way.
Bolingbroke
Unlike Shaftesbury, who offered no arguments against miracles, Bolingbroke sometimes said he believed in miracles,[lxxix] but offered many lengthy arguments against them. In the last volume of his Philosophical Works, Bolingbroke has a discussion of almost a hundred pages about particular providences or miracles. This discussion starts with the statement that “I NEITHER deny nor affirm particular providences.”[lxxx] While Bolingbroke asserted this, he had many philosophical problems with miracles, particularly because he thought they could not be intelligibly reconciled to God’s general providence of working through immutable laws. He insisted on “the constant, visible and undeniable course of general providence” and he thought “in what manner, God may act by particular and occasional interpositions, consistently with the preservation of that general order of causes and effects which he has constituted, seem to me quite unintelligible.” [lxxxi] He also said that nothing could be more unlike a wise God than for him to undo by a miracle what he had originally made.[lxxxii]
Bolingbroke had other practical arguments why a wise God would not work miracles. First, he thought that they would increase the power of the clergy as people would believe in the intercession of saints, the church, and the need for external, devotional rites.[lxxxiii] Secondly, he stated that miracles, which rewarded good people and punished evil ones, would make us into children or galley slaves who were virtuous for the sake of rewards or for fear of being whipped.[lxxxiv] He also thought that miracles would subvert or take away human free will, as people’s actions would be continually determined by secret inspiration or subtle divine whispers.[lxxxv] Finally, he questioned the practical effectiveness of miracles: Though miracles were done daily for the ancient Jews, they only had a temporary effect, as the Jews rebelled and wanted a king instead of God ruling them.[lxxxvi] For all these reasons, he thought it would be unwise for God to do miracles.
The scholar S. G. Hefelbower said that Bolingbroke was as orthodox in his belief in miracles as any eighteenth century divine,[lxxxvii] but the evidence does not support this conclusion. Walter Merrill in his book on Bolingbroke’s deism stated that Bolingbroke was ambiguous about his belief in miracles[lxxxviii] and that is true in his written work. But I doubt Bolingbroke believed in them. He cared about God’s general providence of working through uniform laws and argued forcefully that miracles could not be intelligibly reconciled to these general laws. He also did not see any wisdom in God working through them. Thus his statements that he believed in scriptural miracles were most likely polite lies, and he probably did not really believe in them.
Of the major English Deists, almost all of them believed in miracles. Many of them also believed in piously praying to God or angels, direct divine inspiration, and signs from God. Rather than having a detached, impersonal God, many or most of the English deists believed in a God and other supernatural powers that were intimately involved with human affairs. Our view of the deists is too often framed by either their orthodox Christian opponents or modern day secularists, both having reasons to portray the deists as believing in an uninvolved, watchmaker God. Hopefully, realizing the vast majority of English deists believed in miracles and some also believed in even more direct divine involvement in our lives will help change our view of the deist conception of God. The deists were not cold rationalists believing in a remote, abstract God that only philosophers could love; their God was personal, comforting and caring.
Copyrighted 2009
FOOTNOTES
[i] Peter Gay, Deism: An Anthology (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1968), 148-49; S.G. Hefelbower, “Deism Historically Defined,” The American Journal of Theology 24 (1920): 217; Kerry S. Walters, The American Deists: Voices of Reason and Dissent in the Early Republic (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1992), 30; Gerald R. Cragg, The Church and the Age of Reason: 1648-1789 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1962), 237; Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 272-73.
[ii] John Orr, English Deism: Its Roots and Its Fruits (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1934), 14; Walters, 41; Sholto Byrnes, “Britain’s Hidden Religion,” New Statesman 13 April 2009, 36.
[iii] Gay, 380-83.
[iv] E. Graham Waring, introduction to Deism and Natural Religion: A Source Book, ed. E. Graham Waring (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1967), viii-ix; R.M. Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Granville to David Hume (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1981), 13; Peter Byrne, Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion: The Legacy of Deism (London: Routledge, 1989), xiii, 8.
[v] David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, ed. Eric Steinberg (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1977), 76.
[vi] John Trenchard, “On Miracles,” in Essays on Important Subjects (London, 1755), 5.
[vii] John Toland, Christianity not Mysterious (London, 1696), 150.
[viii] Thomas Chubb, The True Gospel of Jesus Christ Asserted (London, 1738), 207.
[ix] Peter Annet, “Supernaturals Examined,” in A Collection of Tracts of a Certain Free Thinker (1750; reprint, London: Routledge/Thoemmes Press, 1995), 128.
[x] Peter Annet, The Resurrection of Jesus Considered in Answer to the Tryal of the Witnesses, 2nd ed. (London 1743), 63.
[xi] James A. Herrick, The Radical Rhetoric of English Deists: The Discourse of Skepticism, 1680-1750 (Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1997), 37.
[xii] Thomas Morgan, Physico-Theology (London, 1741), 96.
[xiii] Morgan, 317.
[xiv] Morgan, 314-15.
[xv] Morgan, 322.
[xvi] Morgan, 324-25.
[xvii] William Wollaston, The Religion of Nature Delineated (1724; reprint, Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1974), 107-8.
[xviii] Wollaston, 105-6.
[xix] Wollaston, 106-7.
[xx] Wollaston, 107.
[xxi] Wollaston, 125.
[xxii] Charles Gildon, The Deists’ Manual (London, 1705), 240-50.
[xxiii] Thomas Chubb, A Discourse on Miracles (London, 1741), 27.
[xxiv] Thomas Chubb, True Gospel, 209-14.
[xxv] Thomas Chubb, “An Enquiry Concerning Prayer,” in A collection of tracts on various subjects, 2nd ed. (London: 1754), 1: 277.
[xxvi] Lord Herbert of Cherbury, A Dialogue Between a Tutor and His Pupil (1768; reprint, New York: Garland, 1979), 64.
[xxvii] Lord Herbert of Cherbury, De Veritate, trans. Meyrick H. Carre (Bristol: J. W. Arrowsmith, 1937), 292-94.
[xxviii] Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury (Dublin, 1771), 244-45.
[xxix] Alice Keefe, conversation with the author, 12 December 2004.
[xxx] John Brown, A General History of the Christian Church (Edinburgh, 1771), 2: 278.
[xxxi] John Leland, A View of the Principal Deistical Writers, 3rd ed. (1757; reprint, New York: Garland, 1978), 25.
[xxxii] Peter Gay, Deism: An Anthology, (Princeton: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1968), 30, 53.
[xxxiii] Charles Lyttle, “Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Apostle of Ethical Theism,” Church History 4 (1935): 252.
[xxxiv] Thomas Woolston, A Discourse on the Miracles of Our Saviour (London, 1727), 56.
[xxxv] Woolston, 17-19.
[xxxvi] Woolston, 4-5.
[xxxvii] Woolston, Discourse on Miracles, 55.
[xxxviii] Thomas Woolston, A Fifth Discourse on the Miracles of Our Saviour, 2nd ed. (London, 1728), 5.
[xxxix] Woolston, Discourse on Miracles, 5-6.
[xl] Thomas Woolston, The Old Apology for the Truth of the Christian Religion against the Jews and Gentiles Revived (Cambridge, 1705).
[xli]Thomas Woolston, A Free Gift to the Clergy: Or, the Hireling Priest (London, 1722), 4-5.
[xlii] Norman L. Torrey, Voltaire and the English Deists (n.p.: Archon Books, 1967), 61.
[xliii] Colin Brown, Steve Wilkens, and Alan G. Padgett, Christianity & Western Thought: A History of Philosophers, Ideas & Movements (Wheaton, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1990), 206.
[xliv] Anthony Collins, A Dialogue between Mr. Grounds and Scheme &c. and Tom Woolston (London, 1729), 38.
[xlv] Collins, 4.
[xlvi] Collins, 35.
[xlvii] Anthony Collins, An Answer to Dr. Scot’s Cases Against Dissenters concerning forms of Prayer (London, 1700), 19.
[xlviii] James O’Higgins, Anthony Collins: The Man and his Works (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), 164, 171-74.
[xlix] David Berman, “Deism, Immortality, and the Art of Theological Lying,” in Deism, Masonry and the Enlightenment: Essays Honoring Alfred Own Aldridge, ed. J. A. Leo Lemay (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1987), 61.
[l] Bernard Mandeville, Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness (1720; reprint, Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1981), 62; Thomas Chubb, “An Enquiry Concerning Faith and Mysteries,” in A collection of tracts on various subjects, 2nd ed. (London: 1754), 1: 256-60; John Trenchard, The Independent Whig, 5th ed. (London, 1732), 1: 88-91; Thomas Gordon, The Independent Whig, 5th ed. (London, 1732), 1: 262.
[li] O’Higgins, 164, 171-74.
[lii] Toland, 156-57.
[liii] Robert Sullivan, John Toland and the Deist Controversy: A Study in Adaptations (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), 128.
[liv] Rhoda Rappaport, “Questions of Evidence: An Anonymous Tract Attributed to John Toland,” Journal of the History of Ideas 58 (1997): 339-48.
[lv] Stephen H. Daniel, John Toland: His Methods, Manners, and Mind (Kingston, Ontario: McGill-Queens University Press, 1984), 178-81.
[lvi] R. M Burns, The Great Debate on Miracles: From Joseph Granville to David Hume (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1981), 14; G.R. Cragg, From Puritanism to the Age of Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 151; S.G. Hefelbower, The Relation of John Locke to English Deism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918), 97; Hanning Graf Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 295-99.
[lvii] Thomas Gordon, The Independent Whig, 8th ed. (London, 1752), 1: 52.
[lviii] Henry Dodwell, Christianity not Founded on Argument (London, 1741), 46.
[lix] Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as Creation (London, 1730), 220.
[lx] Trenchard, 4.
[lxi] Charles Blount, “Miracles, No Violations of the Laws of Nature,” (London, 1683), unnumbered last page of the preface.
[lxii] Blount, 9-11.
[lxiii] Charles Blount, The Oracles of Reason (London, 1693), 8-12.
[lxiv] Roy S. Porter, “The Enlightenment in England,” in The Enlightenment in National Context, ed. Roy S. Porter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 6; B.W. Young, Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth Century England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 14-15.
[lxv] S.G. Hefelbower, The Relation of John Locke to English Deism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918), 96; Walter McIntosh Merrill, From Statesmen to Philosopher: A Study in Bolingbroke’s Deism (New York: Philosophical Library, 1949), 63.
[lxvi] Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees, ed. F.B. Kaye (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), 2: 256.
[lxvii] Mandeville, Fable, 239.
[lxviii] Mandeville, Fable, 206, 221.
[lxix] E.D. James, “Faith, Sincerity and Morality: Mandeville and Bayle,” in Mandeville Studies: New Explorations in the Art and Thought of Dr. Bernard Mandeville, ed. I. Primer (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975), 51.
[lxx] Stephen H. Good, introduction to Bernard Mandeville, Free Thoughts on Religion, the Church, and National Happiness (1720; reprint, Delmar, NY: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints, 1981), vi.
[lxxi] Mandeville, Free Thoughts, 37-38.
[lxxii] Mandeville, Free Thoughts, 85-87.
[lxxiii] Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. John M. Roberston (Gloucester, Mass: P. Smith, 1963), 87.
[lxxiv] Shaftesbury, 88.
[lxxv] Alfred Owen Aldridge, Shaftesbury and the Deist Manifesto (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1951), 353.
[lxxvi] Shaftesbury, 91-92.
[lxxvii] Shaftesbury, 92.
[lxxviii] Shaftesbury, Ten Letters Written by…to a student at the University, 3rd ed. (London, 1746), 35.
[lxxix] Bolingbroke, The Philosophical Works (1754; reprint, New York: Garland, 1977), 2: 233-34.
[lxxx] Bolingbroke, The Philosophical Works (1754; reprint, New York: Garland, 1977), 5: 14.
[lxxxi] Bolingbroke, 5: 28-29.
[lxxxii] Bolingbroke, 5: 35.
[lxxxiii] Bolingbroke, 5: 34.
[lxxxiv] Bolingbroke, 5: 46.
[lxxxv] Bolingbroke, 5: 85.
[lxxxvi] Bolingbroke, 5: 48.
[lxxxvii] Hefelbower, 99.
[lxxxviii] Merrill, 74-81.
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