Berkeley’s Philosophy of Religion

Pearce, Kenneth L.

doi:10.5040/9781474217170.ch-026

The Bloomsbury Companion to Berkeley

DOI: 10.5040/9781474217170.ch-026

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Berkeley’s Philosophy of Religion

Kenneth L. Pearce

Abstract: Berkeley, like many of his contemporaries, holds that natural religion is founded upon two principal doctrines, the existence of God and the natural immortality of the soul. These doctrines provide the foundation for moral motivation, and the resulting moral behavior is the practice of natural religion.1

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Matter, God, and Nonsense

Pearce¹

2018

Oxford Scholarship Online

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In the Preface to the Three Dialogues, Berkeley says that one of his main aims is to refute the freethinkers. Puzzlingly, however, we are then treated to a dialogue between two Christians in which the freethinkers never reappear. This is related to a second, more general puzzle about Berkeley’s religious polemics: although Berkeley says he is defending orthodox conclusions, he also reminds himself in his Notebooks, “To use the utmost Caution not to give the least Handle of offence to the Church or Church-men.” Both of these puzzles are solved by the recognition that the argument against matter in the Three Dialogues is patterned after an argument for atheism that Berkeley attributed to Anthony Collins. Berkeley’s aim is thus to use the freethinkers’ own premises and arguments against them. In doing this, however, he rejects doctrines many churchmen held dear—most notably, the doctrine of divine analogy.

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Matter, God, and Nonsense

Pearce¹

2018

Oxford Scholarship Online

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Berkeley’s Philosophy of Religion

Cited by 1 publication

References 26 publications

Matter, God, and Nonsense

Matter, God, and Nonsense

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