Scottish Philosophical Theology

David Fergusson

Description

This volume concentrates on the period from the beginning of the 18th century to the latter part of the 20th. It is impossible to depict a single school of philosophical theology in Scotland across three centuries, yet several strains have been identified that suggest some recurrent themes or intellectual habits. These include the following: the mutually beneficial cross-fertilisation of the disciplines of philosophy and theology; the tendency to eschew powerful philosophical systems that might threaten to imprison theological ideas; a stress on both the providential limitations and reliability of human reason; a suspicion of reductive theories of a materialist inclination; and a determination to inspect critically the proposals of theology and to place these in positive relation to other disciplines.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Escocia
• Philosophy
• Philosophy of religion
• Scotland

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 05 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781845404482
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title page
Scottish Philosophical Theology 1700–2000
Edited and Introduced
by David Fergusson



Copyright page
Copyright © David Fergusson, 2007
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
No part of any contribution may be reproduced in any form without permission, except for the quotation of brief passages in criticism and discussion.
Originally published in the UK by Imprint Academic
PO Box 200, Exeter EX5 5YX, UK
Originally published in the USA by Imprint Academic
Philosophy Documentation Center
PO Box 7147, Charlottesville, VA 22906-7147, USA
2012 digital version by Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
Full series details:
www.imprint-academic.com/losp



Series Editor’s Note
The principal purpose of volumes in this series is not to provide scholars with accurate editions, but to make the writings of Scottish philosophers accessible to a new generation of modern readers in an attractively produced and competitively priced format. In accordance with this purpose, certain changes have been made to the original texts: Spelling and punctuation have been modernized. In some cases, the selected passages have been given new titles. Some original footnotes and references have not been included. Some extracts have been shortened from their original length. Quotations from Greek have been transliterated, and passages in foreign languages translated, or omitted altogether.
Care has been taken to ensure that in no instance do these amendments truncate the argument or alter the meaning intended by the original author. For readers who want to consult the original texts, full bibliographical details are provided for each extract.
The Library of Scottish Philosophy was originally an initiative of the Centre for the Study of Scottish Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. The first six volumes, published in 2004, were commissioned with financial support from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, and the texts prepared for publication by Mr Jon Cameron, administrative and editorial assistant to the Centre. In 2006 the CSSP moved to Princeton where it became one of three research centers within the Special Collections of Princeton Theological Seminary. The next four volumes were prepared for publication by the new administrative and editorial assistant, Ms Elaine James.
Acknowledgements
The CSSP gratefully acknowledges the support of the Carnegie Trust, the first class work of both Mr Cameron and Ms James, the enthusiasm and excellent service of the publisher Imprint Academic, and the permission of the University of Aberdeen Special Collections and Libraries to use the engraving of the Faculty of Advocates (1829) as the logo for the series.
Gordon Graham,
Princeton, May 2007



Introduction
The term ‘philosophical theology’ is itself a contested one. In the current collection, it designates the very fluid boundary between philosophy and theology that has characterised Scottish thought since the middle ages. The related notion of ‘philosophy of religion’ typically signifies the rather abstract and detached study of the arguments for God’s existence, the possibility of miracles and the problem of evil. These remain the staple diet of much teaching in foundational university courses and increasingly also certificate work in secondary schools. By contrast, ‘philosophical theology’ is a richer and more diffuse category. Within Scotland, it reflects the ways in which currents of philosophical thought were perceived to carry far-reaching religious significance that could not be reduced or confined to a narrow sub-division entitled ‘philosophy of religion’. This is apparent negatively in the case of David Hume’s scepticism, but it applies more positively to the appropriation of rationalist arguments for God’s existence, the study of ethics, discussions about the human person, and theories of knowledge that situate the self in relation to the world. In this respect, important theological issues have been tacitly present in much philosophical work.
The flourishing of philosophical theology in Scotland also has an institutional explanation. Until quite recently, the four ancient universities existed in close relationship to the church. Three medieval universities (St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen) were all established by crown and church, followed shortly after the Reformation with the foundation of a university in Edinburgh by the town council in 1583. [1] From this period until around the mid-twentieth century Scotland was in important respects a Presbyterian society. Its identity as the national church guaranteed by the Act of Union and the Act of Security in 1707, the Church of Scotland (the Kirk) exercised a significant influence over much of society, including the life of the universities. Unlike other European contexts, 18th century Enlightenment thought in Scotland was largely facilitated by the Presbyterian church, even if the theology that typically accompanied its philosophy, history and social thought was often of a markedly different character to that of the preceding century. In this respect, the institutional position of the Kirk together with its doctrinal tenets, particularly as set out in the Westminster Confession [2] , provided a point of reference against which much philosophical study took place. While the role of the Confession undoubtedly diminished from the 18th century onwards, the continuing influence of the Kirk inevitably ensured that many Scottish intellectuals, albeit often in a revisionist spirit, remained conscious of the theological context in which they laboured. This applied also to natural scientists as well as to professional philosophers.
The present volume concentrates on the period from around the beginning of the eighteenth century to the latter part of the twentieth. The start of this era coincides with the emergence of a philosophical professoriate—the first established chair of philosophy was held by Gershom Carmichael in Glasgow from 1727. It also initiates a movement of thought that emerges in the early modern period and leads to the Scottish enlightenment and its aftermath. A more comprehensive coverage, perhaps through a separate volume, would require attention to that distinguished group of medieval scholars who worked in the universities of Europe and, in many cases, played an important role in the early years of St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen universities. This group includes Duns Scotus ( c. 1266–1308), John Ireland ( c. 1440–96) John Mair ( c. 1467–1550), George Lokert ( c. 1488–1547) and Hector Boece ( c. 1470–1536). As Alexander Broadie has shown, their philosophical work was often directed towards issues concerning the nature of faith, free will, political authority, and our knowledge of God. [3] Although the theologians of the Reformation were largely preoccupied with doctrinal controversies, they borrowed heavily from their medieval predecessors and shared some of their preoccupations, including for obvious reasons the nature of political authority in relation to divine sovereignty. Yet sustained work in philosophical theology becomes a more pressing priority with the incursion of new ideas from England and the European continent in the late 17th century. The emergence of rationalism, deism, empiricism and higher criticism of the Bible generated theological problems that required engagement with philosophical arguments and approaches. This is apparent in the first group of writers presented.
The Early Enlightenment
At the beginning of the 18th century, fresh currents of thoughts had entered the mainstream of Scottish theology. A striking indication of this is the case of John Simson (1667–1740), Professor of Divinity in Glasgow, who was tried for heresy twice. One of the charges levelled against Simson at his first trial was that he tended ‘to attribute too much to natural reason and the power of corrupt nature’. [4] Although Simson was prevented from teaching, he was never deposed from his office, a decision that provides evidence of a change in the intellectual climate. The Reformed orthodoxy of the seventeenth century was gradually being replaced, at least in some sections of the Kirk, by a milder, more latitudinarian theology that conceded a greater degree of autonomy to philosophical thought while simultaneously turning away from the internecine doctrinal controversies of the 17th century, particularly the struggle against Arminianism. [5]
The influence of these newer philosophical trends from England and the continent generated a set of theological issues, some of which are explored in the first part of this volume. The following four problems can be readily identified, each of which is treated in the respective selections from this period.
The role of reason in establishing the existence and nature of God. In the face of scepticism and to avoid appeals to sources of special revelation, a wide range of rationalist and empiricist scholars had rehabilitated older arguments for God’s existence in the early modern period. These tended to blend cosmological and design arguments, giving them a more central epistemological status than was the case in the theologies of the Reformation. In the deist thinkers of the late 16th and early 17 centuries, this reached its apogee with the claim that a rational religion stripped of revelation and its claims of special divine action was alone acceptable. At best, the claims of Scripture could provide only a ‘republication’ of truths generally accessible to reason. This presented a significant challenge to philosophical theologians. To what extent could there be a rational demonstration of the existence of God, and what sort of God was here at stake? As M.A. Stewart has p