History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion

by Adam Storey Farrar

Note 21. p. [118]. On Some Technical Terms In The History Of Unbelief.

There are a few terms, which are frequently used in reference to unbelief, of which it would be interesting to trace the meaning and history. A few notes in reference to this subject may both prevent ambiguity and throw some light on a chapter in the history of language. The words alluded to are the following: 1. Infidel; 2. Atheist; 3. Pantheist; 4. Deist; 5. Naturalist; 6. Freethinker; 7. Rationalist; 8. Sceptic.

1. Infidel.—This word began to be restricted as a technical term, about the time of the Crusades and throughout the middle ages, to denote Mahometan; as being par excellence the kind of unbelievers with which Christians were brought into contact. Perhaps the first instance of its use in the more modern sense, of disbeliever generally, is in the Collect for Good Friday, “all Jews, Turks, infidels, heretics;” which words were apparently inserted by the Reformers in the first Prayer Book (1547); the rest of the prayer, except these words, existing in the Latin Collect of the ancient Service-book from which it is translated. Ordinarily however, during the sixteenth century, it is found in the popular sense of unfaithful; a meaning which the increasing prevalence of Latin words was likely to bring into use. In writers of the seventeenth, the use of it in the sense of unbeliever becomes more common: an instance from Milton is cited in Richardson's Dictionary. In the beginning of the eighteenth century it becomes quite common in theological writers in its modern sense; and toward the end of the century was frequently appropriated to express the form of unbelief which existed in France; a use which probably arose from the circumstance that the French unbelievers did not adopt a special name for their tenets, as the English did, who had a positive creed, (Deism,) and not merely, like the French, a disintegration of belief.

2. Atheist.—This word needs little discussion. In modern times it is first applied by the theological writers of the sixteenth century, to describe the unbelief of such persons as Pomponatius; and in the seventeenth it is used, by Bacon (Essay on Atheism), [pg 414] Milton, (Paradise lost, b. vi.), and Bunyan (Pilgrim), to imply general unbelief, of which the disbelief in a Deity is the principal sign. Toward the end of the same century it is not unfrequently found, e.g. in Kortholt's De Tribus Impostoribus, 1680, to include Deism such as that of Hobbes, as well as blank Pantheism like Spinoza's, which more justly deserves the name. The same use is seen in Colerus's work against Spinoza, Arcana Atheismi Revelata. Tillotson (serm. i. on Atheism); and Bentley (Boyle Lectures) use the word more exactly; and the invention of the term Deism induced, in the writers of the eighteenth century, a more limited and exact use of the former term. But in Germany, Reimannus (Historia Univ. Atheismi, 1725, p. 437 seq.) and Buddeus (De Atheismo et Superstitione, 1723, ch. iii. § 2), use it most widely, and especially make it include disbelief of immortality. Also Walch, Bibliotheca Theol. Selecta, 1757, uses it to include the Pantheism of Spinoza, (vol. i. p. 676, &c.) This transference of the term to embrace all kinds of unbelief has been well compared with the extension of the term βάρβαρος by the Greeks.[1064] The wide use of the term is partly to be attributed to the doubt which Christian men had whether any one could really disbelieve the being of a God,—an opinion increased by the Cartesian notions then common concerning innate ideas; and whether accordingly the term Atheist could mean anything different from Deist. Compare Buddeus's Isagoge, p. 1203, and the chapter “An dentur Athei” in his work De Atheismo. (ch. i.) By the time of Stapfer's work, Instit. Theol. Polem. 1744, the two terms were distinguished; see vol. ii. ch. vi. and vii. and cfr. p. 587.

The term was subsequently applied to describe the views of the French writers, such as D'Holbach, who did not see the necessity for believing in a personal first Cause. In more modern times it is frequently applied to such writers as Comte; whose view is indeed atheism, but differs from that of former times, in that it is the refusal to entertain the question of a Deity as not being discoverable by the evidence of sense and science, rather than the absolute denial of his existence. The Comtists also hold firmly the marks of order, law, mind, in nature, and not the fortuitous concurrence of atoms, as was the case with the atheists of France.

3. Pantheist.—One of the first uses of this word is by Toland in the Pantheisticon, 1720, where however it has its ancient polytheistic sense. It is a little later that it passes from the idea of the worship of the whole of the gods to the worship of the entire universe looked at as God.

This exacter application of it is more modern. It is now used to denote the disbelief of a personal first Cause: but a distinction [pg 415] ought to be made between the Pantheism like that of Averroes, which regards the world as an emanation, and sustained by an anima mundi; and that which, like the view of Spinoza, regards the sum total of all things to be Deity. This distinction was noticed and illustrated in p. [107]. The account of the word in Krug's Philosoph. Lexicon is worth consulting.

4. Deist.—One of the first instances of the use of this word occurs in Viret, Epistr. Dedicat. du 2. vol de l'Instruction Chrétienne, 1563, quoted by Bayle, Dictionnaire, (note under the word Viret.) It is appropriated in the middle of the seventeenth century by Herbert to his scheme, and afterwards by Blount (Oracles of Reason, p. 99), to distinguish themselves from Atheists. In strict truth, Herbert calls himself a Theist; which slightly differs from the subsequent term Deist, in so far as it is intended to convey the idea of that which he thought to be the true worship of God. It is theism as opposed to error, rather than natural religion as opposed to revealed: whereas deism always implies a position antagonistic to revealed religion. But the distinction is soon lost sight of; and Nichols (1696) entitles his work against the deists, Conference with a Theist. Towards the close of the seventeenth century, and in the beginning of the eighteenth, the Christian writers sometimes even use Deist as interchangeable with Atheist, as shown above. It is also used as synonymous with one of the senses of the word Naturalist. See below, under the latter word; and cfr. Stapfer, Inst. Polem. vol. ii. p. 742, with p. 883.

5. Naturalist.—This word is used in two senses; an objective and a subjective. Naturalism, in the former, is the belief which identifies God with nature; in the latter, the belief in the sufficiency of natural as distinct from revealed religion. The former is Pantheism, the latter Deism. In the former sense it is applied to Spinoza and others; e.g. in Walch's Biblioth. Theol. Select. i. 745 seq. In the latter sense it occurs as early as 1588 in France, in the writings of J. Bodin (Colloq. Heptapl. 31. Rem. 2); and towards the end of the seventeenth century both in Germany and England, e.g. in Kortholt's De Trib. Impost. 1680; and the Quaker, Barclay's Apologia, 1679, p. 28. At the end of the seventeenth century, and in the eighteenth, the name was applied in England to deists, (e.g. in Nichols's Conference with a Theist, pref. § 15); and in Germany it became a commonly known word, owing to the spread of the Wolffian philosophy. Stapfer (Instit. Theol. Polem. 1744, vol. ii. p. 881), using Wolffian phraseology, divides this latter kind of naturalism into two kinds, viz. philosophical and theological. The philosophical kind maintains the sufficiency of natural religion, and disbelieves revealed; the theological kind holds the truth of revelation, but regards it as unnecessary, as being only a republication of natural religion. The [pg 416] adherent of the former is the “Naturalist” of Kant; the latter his “pure Rationalist” (Verg. Religion Innerhalb, &c.); the former the Deist, the latter the Rationalist, of a school like that of Wegscheider, &c. (See Lect. [VI].)

Cfr. Bretschneider's Handbuch der Dogmatik; i. 72. note. Hahn, De Rationalismi Indole (quoted by Rose on Rationalism, 2d ed. Introd. p. 20) names writers who make a third kind of naturalism, viz. Pelagianism; but this is rare.