Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the idea that God created the universe and then left it for humans to understand by reason not revelation. Edward Herbert, 1583-1648 (pictured above) held that there were five religious truths: belief in a Supreme Being, the need to worship him, the pursuit of a virtuous life as the best form of worship, repentance, and reward or punishment after death. Others developed these ideas in different ways, yet their opponents in England's established Church collected them under the label of Deists, called Herbert the Father of Deism and attacked them as a movement, and Deist books were burned. Over time, reason and revelation found a new balance in the Church in England, while Voltaire and Thomas Paine explored the ideas further, leading to their re-emergence in the French and American Revolutions.
With
Richard Serjeantson Fellow and Lecturer in History at Trinity College, Cambridge
Katie East Lecturer in History at Newcastle University
And
Thomas Ahnert Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Edinburgh
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. |
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| 0:14.9 | I hope you enjoyed the programs. |
| 0:17.1 | Hello, in 17th century England, the public hangman would burn band books. |
| 0:22.2 | He could warm his hands on anything published by daists. |
| 0:25.6 | There were three thinkers who argued that God began the universe and then stood back and |
| 0:30.2 | people could only understand God by reason and not by revelation. |
| 0:35.0 | It was part of an enormous wrench away from the church. |
| 0:39.0 | Daists were attacked by clerics who dealt in revelation and by philosophers who thought |
| 0:43.1 | that reason had its limits, but their ideas were influential as the church began to lose |
| 0:47.9 | importance in the state during the Enlightenment. |
| 0:51.0 | To me, from the Hermes, to discuss the dayism, are Katie East, lecturer in history at New |
| 0:56.7 | Castle University, Thomas Arnett, professor of intellectual history at the University |
| 1:01.6 | of Edinburgh and Richard Sargerson, fellow and lecturer in history at Trinity College |
| 1:06.5 | Cambridge. |
| 1:07.9 | Richard Sargerson, since the Reformation, how free were people to think of a religion |
| 1:14.0 | that was different from an established church? |
| 1:17.2 | Well, they were free to think of a different religion to a very limited extent, but they |
| 1:22.5 | certainly weren't free to publicize ideas about a different religion. |
| 1:27.2 | And a fundamental feature of daism is that its writings are produced sideways, we might |
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