The ArgumentThe article studies a small Hebrew book called “The Wars of God” composed by an Anglo-Jewish jeweler who lived in London at the end of the eighteenth century. The book is interesting in further documenting the Jewish response to Newtonianism, that amalgam of scientific, political, and religious ideas that pervaded the culture of England and the Continent throughout the century. Hart, while presenting Newton in a favorable light, departs from other Jewish Newtonians in voicing certain reservations about Newton's alleged (...) religious orthodoxy, specifically his fear that the force of gravitation might be explained independent of God's divine providence. The key to understanding Hart's unique stance is his reliance on two eighteenth-century Christian theologians: William Whiston and Robert Greene, particularly the latter. In staking out this position, Hart also endorsed the theological position of his more well known Jewish colleague David Levi, the publisher of his Hebrew text. Both men reveal together the capacity of Jewish thinkers to absorb the dominant trends of thinking by the majority culture while defending honestly and defiantly the integrity of their religious faith and community. (shrink)

The career of John Jackson , Arian theologian and controversialist, provides a key to unlocking the early reception and quick collapse of a Newtonian natural apologetic originally developed by Samuel Clarke. The importance of friendship and discipleship in eighteenth-century intellectual enquiry is emphasised, and the links between Newton and his followers are traced alongside those of a group of Cambridge Lockeans, led by Jackson’s direct contemporary Daniel Waterland, who proved instrumental in the initial dismantling of Clarke’s brand of Newtonian apologetic. (...) The controversial context of this engagement is shown to have been largely provided by the religiously compromising rise of freethinking, and Tindal’s Christianity as old as the creation signalled the dangers to proponents of natural religion as an adjunct of Christian apologetic in such a heated atmosphere. Religious division of the sort that resulted paradoxically played into the hands of the freethinkers in the anticlerical atmosphere of the 1730s, and accusations were exchanged between Newtonians and Lockeans accordingly. The dynamic of England’s Enlightenment experience is, then, a complicated one, and, as the career and writings of Jackson and William Whiston demonstrate, it was one which absorbed as well as repudiated ‘enthusiasm’.Author Keywords: Newtonianism; Enlightenment; Enthusiasm; Natural religion; Arianism; John Jackson. (shrink)

Hume’s arguments against the cosmological argument have, in the past century, often been highly praised by commentators such as H.D.Aiken and E.C. Mossner. While Hume’s argument often receives strong philosophical support, the four major objections raised against the cosmological argument in book IX of his Dialogues hinge upon a misunderstanding of Newtonian natural philosophy. Hence, when the proper historical context is considered, Hume’s objections are weak at best, for they assume an understanding of matter and physical necessity that are inconsistent (...) with Newtonian natural philosophy. This paper will outline Hume’s objections, and explore how the formulation of the cosmological argument put forth by the English philosopher Samuel Clarke was reliant upon the best available scientific evidence, i.e. Newtonian philosophy. Consequently, any contemporary supporter of Hume who believes that his argument was successful in quenching the enlightenment era reiteration of the cosmological argument does so anachronistically. (shrink)