 Welcome to George H. Schmitz's Excursions into Libertarian Thought, a production of Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute. John Toland and the Nature of Reason The Irishman John Toland, 1670-1722, journeyed from Catholicism to Presbyterianism to Latitudinarianism, a liberal form of Protestantism to Deism to Pantheism, the latter being a word that Toland, under the influence of Spinoza's ideas, apparently coined. Having studied at the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Leiden, Toland set out to earn his way as a freelance writer and publicist for Libertarian causes. Nearly 200 works and translations have been attributed to Toland, and as the historian David Berman remarked, he was perhaps the first professional free thinker. Modern scholars have probably devoted more attention to Toland than to any other 18th century British free thinker. As we see in books like John Toland and the Deist Controversy, A Study in Adaptations, 1982, by Robert E. Sullivan, and Republican Learning, John Toland and the Crisis of Christian Culture, 1696-1722, 2003, by Justin Champion, an excellent account of Toland's political life and relationships. Toland is a major character in Margaret C. Jacobs' Pathbreaking Study, The Radical Alignment, Pantheists, Freemasons, and Republicans, 1981, Second Revised Edition, 2006, and he is discussed by Jonathan Isreal in his massive erudite volumes on the Enlightenment, including Radical Enlightenment, 2001, and Enlightenment Contested, 2006. In the 18th century Commonwealthmen, 1959, Caroline Robbins said of Toland that his significance for the student of libertarian thought is not inconsiderable, but neither is it easy to define. Always in search of wealthy patrons who would finance his writings, Toland sometimes wrote pieces about particular political controversies that are difficult to reconcile with his basic political principles. He formed friendships with important contemporary liberals such as John Locke, who eventually severed their relationship owing to Toland's overt religious radicalism, and Lord Shaftesbury, who financed some of Toland's projects and remained friends with him throughout his life. Toland associated with various free thinkers and libertarians in Holland, which at the time was a haven for radical thinkers and printers, and those connections enabled him to reprint important 17th-century libertarian works by Milton, Harrington, Sidney, and others. In brief, to trace the life of John Toland is to undertake a fascinating tour of the leading libertarians of his day, their relationships, and clandestine literary productions. This web of relationships and underground projects largely accounts for the interest in Toland shown by modern scholars. Toland's most important contribution to free thought and philosophy was Christianity Not Mysterious, published in 1696 when Toland was 26. The 19th-century historian of deism, Leslie Stephen, called Toland's book The Signal Gun of the Deistic Controversy that would dominate English theology for several decades. Things got off to a fiery start when the Irish parliament ordered the book to be publicly burnt by the hands of the common hangman and further declared that Toland be taken into the custody of the sergeant at arms and be prosecuted by Mr. Attorney General for writing and publishing said book. In addition, an address should be made to the Lord's justices to give directions that no more copies of that book be brought into the kingdom and to prevent the selling of those already imported. Toland, having no desire to play the martyr, fled Ireland to England, which was somewhat more tolerant than his native country. The reaction by one of Toland's major critics, Peter Brown, a fellow of Trinity College in Dublin, nicely illustrates the connection that the establishment drew between criticisms of Orthodox Christianity and political radicalism. Employing the standard analogy between heresy and an infectious disease, Brown wrote, I have no more to do here than to deliver Toland up into the hands of our governors. We may confute his errors, but tis they only can suppress his insolence. We only can endeavor to heal those already infected. Tis they alone can hinder the infection from spreading further. Although Christianity not mysterious did not address political issues, Brown proceeded to warn against the dangerous and seditious political beliefs typically held by Dias. How far men in power, according to their several stations, are obliged to enter metal in point of conscience, I shall not now inquire. But sure I am in point of policy, it has become no less than necessary for writers of his strain, i.e. Dias, have given broad hints that they are as little friends to our government as our religion. This man can say that magistrates are made for the people and everyone knows what doctrines of rebellion men are want to insinuate by this saying. In an apology for Mr. Toland, which was appended to later printings of his book, Toland related some options considered by members of the Irish Parliament while they were deliberating his fate. It was moved by one that Mr. Toland himself should be burnt and by another that he should be made to burn his book with his own hands and a third desired it should be done before the door of the house that he might have the pleasure of treading the ashes under his feet. Toland, while declining to comment in detail on the practice of burning books, noted how fruitless this sort of proceeding has proved in all ages since the custom was first introduced by the Popish inquisitors who performed that execution on the book when they could not seize the author whom they had destined to the flames. One vocation of Popery became a standard talking point for Protestant defenders of the Free Press after 1644 when John Milton linked censorship to Catholicism in Areopagitica and Toland, like Milton, called attention to the great stop and discouragement which this practice brings to all learning and discoveries. So what did Toland say in his book that so alarmed the religious and political establishment? A clue may be found in the complete title, or a triatus shooing that there is nothing in the gospel contrary to reason nor above it and that no Christian doctrine can be properly called a mystery. The title page also bears a quotation from Archbishop John Tillitson, a liberal rationalistic Anglican who is much admired by deus. We need not desire a better evidence that any man is in the wrong than to hear him declare against reason and thereby acknowledge that reason is against him. In the fashion of many deus, Toland insisted that he was a sincere Christian who wished only to purge Christianity of its irrational accretions, mysteries, and restore it to its pure, undefiled, rational condition. Despite his protestations, Toland was widely accused of attacking Christianity, not defending it. It is difficult to say whether or not Toland was sincere, but he may have let the cat out of the bag when, in the preface, he lamented the deplorable condition of our age that a man dares not openly and directly own what he thinks of divine matters. One was forced to remain silent or to propose his sentiments to the world by way of paradox under a borrowed or fictitious name. Toland's name did not appear in the first printing of Christianity not mysterious. Those who had the courage to say what they really thought risked serious legal penalties. As these remarks suggest, Toland's profession of Christianity may have been a ruse to protect himself. If so, he was neither the first nor the last free thinker to employ this dodge. Toland was firm in his commitment to reason. I hold nothing as an article of my religion, but what the highest evidence forced me to embrace. He refused to captivate his understanding to any man or society whatsoever. Religion, as Toland saw the matter, should be reasonable, and he provided this classic statement of the free thinking deistic ideal. Since religion is calculated for reasonable creatures, his conviction and not authority that should bear weight with them, a wise and good man will judge you the merits of a cause considered only in itself without any regard to times, places, and persons. Toland was unimpressed with religious scholars who flaunted their knowledge of ancient languages and declared themselves authorities to whom less educated people should defer. The vulgar, Toland maintained, were able to access the Bible critically and make up their own minds about its veracity, regardless of what supposed authorities told them they should believe. Truth is always and everywhere the same, and an unintelligible or absurd proposition is never the more respected for being ancient or strange, for being originally written in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. Contrary to some theologians who gravely tell us that we must adore what we do not comprehend, Toland insisted that everything, even revelation, must pass the test of reason or be rejected. Why? Because humans are fallible and easily deceived. Reason enables us to distinguish between fact and fancy, certainty and probability. If we abandon or ignore the dictates of reason, then we will be cast adrift in a sea of conflicting opinions, including conflicting religious opinions, with no rudder to steer our course. Questionable propositions will be accepted as axioms, old wise fables will be mistaken for knowledge, and human imposters will be accepted as divine revelations. Essential to Toland's case was his conception of reason, which he defined as that faculty of the soul which discovers the certainty of anything dubious or obscure by comparing it with something evidently known. Following John Locke, Toland argued that sensory perception provides us with simple and distinct ideas, which we then compound into complex ideas. Reason is the faculty by which we perceive the agreement or disagreement of our ideas. Like Locke, Toland said that some knowledge is self-evidently true, as we find with axioms. Strictly speaking, reason is not used in those cases because we perceive the truth of self-evident propositions immediately and without the aid of intervening ideas. But when the agreement between ideas cannot be immediately perceived, then intermediate ideas, connecting links so to speak, are required. In those situations, reason plays an indispensable role. Reason compares a new untested idea with an idea that is already known, thereby determining whether the new idea is consistent with our store of knowledge. Although Toland relied heavily on Locke's epistemology, he pushed his conception of reason farther than Locke was willing to go. According to Toland, if we wish to compare ideas for their compatibility, then those ideas must be clear and distinct to begin with. Otherwise, no comparison is possible because when we have no notions or ideas of a thing, we cannot reason about it at all. Toland's theory of reason was a serious threat to venerable Christian mysteries such as the Trinity because it was intrinsically hostile to truce that supposedly transcend reason. Thus, by using Locke's theory of knowledge, Toland dragged an unwilling Locke into the deistic controversy. In 1696, Edward Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, published a discourse in vindication of the Trinity. He argued that Locke's epistemology, as adapted by Toland to attack religious mysteries and transcend reason, promotes infidelity and skepticism, especially in regard to the Trinity, which was the classic example in Christianity of a doctrine that we cannot understand but must believe nonetheless. Locke, however, maintained that Toland misunderstood his theory of knowledge. Toland made or supposed clear and distinct ideas necessary to certainty, but that is not my notion. Locke, it should be noted, nowhere affirmed his belief in the Trinity and it is highly unlikely that he endorsed it. But he was a cautious man who tried to avoid public controversies over religion, so he maintained that his theory of knowledge was irrelevant to belief in the Trinity one way or the other. But as Toland saw the matter, he was simply extending Locke's conception of reason to its logical conclusion. For how can reason compare ideas unless those ideas are clear and distinct to begin with? Indeed, Toland maintained that the nature of the human intellect is such that we cannot truly assent to a proposition unless we clearly understand its meaning. A man may give his verbal assent to he knows not what out of fear, superstition, indifference, interest, and the like feeble and unfair motives. But as long as he conceives not what he believes, he cannot sincerely acquiesce in it and remains deprived of all solid satisfaction. Faith is no help here for we must at least understand the meaning of a proposition before we can accept it on faith. The Christian may claim to believe in the unintelligible, but such a claim is meaningless verbal assent, rash presumption, and an obstinate prejudice. The Christian may just as well claim to believe in a blick tree, a traditional nonsense word. Could that person justly value himself upon being wiser than his neighbors, who having infallible assurance that something called blick tree had a being in nature, not what blick tree was? Where does revelation fit into this approach? Revelation, according to Toland, is a means of acquiring information, not a motive of assent. We should carefully distinguish the method by which we acquire knowledge from the justification we have to believe claims of knowledge. If a person tells us something and expects us to believe it, then his communication must be intelligible or it signifies nothing. Suppose this person claims without two ends. We cannot believe his statement, even if we want to, because we don't know what it means. But what if this person, claiming divine inspiration, calls a peculiar cane a mystery that transcends reason? That would be no help, Toland argued. We still wouldn't know what it is he's talking about and neither would he. Hence, whoever reveals anything, that is, whoever tells us something we do not know before, the words must be intelligible and the matter possible. This rule holds good. Let God or man be the revealer. According to Toland, if we are to rescue the Bible from the depths of absurdity, then we must interpret much of it figuratively. Otherwise, the highest follies and blasphemies may be deduced from the letter of Scripture. What of those theologians who claim that a literal reading only seems to conflict with reason? A seeming contradiction is to us as good as a real one. We cannot make sense of a contradiction real or apparent, so it is certainly not lost labor for us to trouble ourselves about it. Indeed, it is impious to suggest that God, after endowing humans with the faculty of reason, would require belief in the irrational as a condition of salvation. This supposition would also breed skepticism. For if reason demands one thing while God demands another, then we will never be certain which to follow. Toland concluded with a spirited statement of the deistic credo. I acknowledge no orthodoxy but the truth, and I'm sure wherever the truth is, there must also be the church of God. I have taken the time to explain Toland's basic ideas because, in addition to their inherent interest, they typify what the deists generally believed. Notably, those ideas are much less controversial today than they were in Toland's day. Toland risked his freedom and possibly his life in expressing them publicly. Today, many Christians would have no serious problems with Toland's approach, even if they disagreed with his conclusions. And it is easy to see how Toland's call for conceptual clarity could be applied to the political realm, especially during an age when political authority and the demand for unconditional obedience were grounded in religious claims that were highly vulnerable to critical scrutiny. This has been Excursions into Libertarian Thought, a production of Libertarianism.org and the Cato Institute. To learn more about Libertarian philosophy and history, visit www.libertarianism.org