1624–1780

English Deism, Locke, and Hume's Critique; the French Enlightenment

In the 17th and 18th centuries deism took shape in England, with a similar rationalist current in France. English deism began with Lord Herbert of Cherbury and his treatise De Veritate (1624). John Locke published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) and The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) and insisted on toleration for all but Catholics and atheists.

John Toland (Christianity Not Mysterious, 1696) and Matthew Tindal (Christianity as Old as the Creation, 1730) reduced Christianity to "natural religion." Critics, meanwhile, attacked prophecy and miracles. The orthodox response came from Joseph Butler in The Analogy of Religion (1736). The decisive blow to deism came from the Scot David Hume (1711–1776) in Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779).

In France a similar rationalist critique was pursued by Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Denis Diderot led the Encyclopédie (35 volumes, 1751–1780). It united anticlerical rationalists and helped prepare the ground for the French Revolution.