18 May
1692 A.D. Mr. (Bp. Durham)
Joseph Butler Born—Bishop of Bistol and Durham
Two sources: (1) James Kiefer and (2) Wiki.
Kiefer, James. “Joseph
Butler.” Biographical Sketches. N.d. http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/187.html .
Accessed Apr 22, 2014.
Butler
was born in 1692 and ordained in 1718. In 1726 he published Fifteen Sermons,
preached at the Rolls Chapel in London, and chiefly dealing with human nature
and its implications for ethics and practical Christian life. He maintained
that it is normal for a man to have an instinct of self-interest, which leads
him to seek his own good, and equally normal for him to have an instinct of
benevolence, which leads him to seek the good of others individually and
generally, and that the two aims do not in fact conflict.
He
served as parish priest in several parishes, and in 1736 was appointed chaplain
to Queen Caroline, wife of King George II. In the same year he published his
masterpiece, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, To the
Constitution and Course of Nature (often cited simply as "Butler's
Analogy"), a work chiefly directed against Deism, of which more will be
said below. Appended to the main work was a treatise, Of the Nature of
Virtue, which establishes him as one of the foremost British writers on
ethics, or moral philosophy.
When
the Queen died in 1737, Butler was made Bishop of Bristol. (In England at that
time, bishoprics and parish churches were supported each by a separate source
of income that had been established for it perhaps centuries earlier, and in
consequence the funding was very unequal. Bristol, being the lowest paid of all
bishoprics, was where a new bishop usually started. Later, he might be promoted
to another diocese. The Reform movement of the 1830's and its aftermath have
remedied this situation.) However, George II had been impressed with him
earlier, and in 1746 he was called back to court and the next year offered the
post of Archbishop of Canterbury. He refused the post, but in 1750 he became
Bishop of Durham (in the north of England, near the Scottish border, and well
known even then as having a tradition of bishops whose speeches and writings
attract public attention). He died there on 16 June 1752.
And
now to return to the subject of Butler and Deism.
In
the early 1700's, Deism was a religion rapidly gaining ground in intellectual
circles in England and France. Not all who called themselves Deists were agreed
on the tenets of the system, but in general it may be said that a Deist
believed in God, and believed that God had revealed himself in two ways:
"the starry heavens above us, and the moral law within us," as Kant
put it. An examination of the physical world made it clear that it had been
designed by some great intelligence. Our conscience, or moral faculty, made it
clear that certain actions are wrong, and will surely be punished, here or
hereafter. Thus, Deists believed in God the Creator and Judge, in the Moral
Law, and in immortality, with rewards and punishments to come.
What
a Deist emphatically did not believe was that God had revealed himself through
prophets, visions, angels, miracles, inspired writings, and the like. Thus, a
Deist was not a Christian, or a Jew, or a Moslem, or a Zoroastrian, or.... In
the historical context, what chiefly mattered was that he was not a Christian.
In speaking of Christianity, some Deists used conciliatory language, saying
that the essence of Christianity was Christ's ethical teaching, which confirmed
the teachings of the moral faculty, and so there was no real disagreement.
Others were more assertive, and spoke at length of all the harm that had been
done by false prophets (on their view the only kind). The second half of Thomas
Paine's The Age of Reason is an example of this. In particular, he
complained that the Old Testament often represents God as approving or
commanding harsh, cruel, unjust, or murderous conduct; and that the New
Testament claim that salvation comes only through Jesus is inconsistent with
the idea of a just God, since justice means rewarding good deeds and punishing
wicked ones. Paine believed that he had found many contradictions in the Bible,
as well as historical inaccuracies and morally unacceptable teachings, and he
did not hesitate to say so. (I am guilty of an anachronism here, in that Paine
wrote in the 1790's, long after Butler was dead. I simply refer to him because
he is the example that most readers of this list will find most familiar and
most accessible. He represents in extreme form a point of view that had existed
long before him, and which by his own time was in retreat, thanks in large
measure to Butler.)
Butler's
reply to the Deist objections to Christianity could be summarized in a single
quote from Origen. "Those who believe the Author of Nature to be also the
Author of Scripture must expect to find in Scripture the same sorts of
difficulties that they find in Nature." Thus, for example, the Deists
would say:
The Bible says that God visits
the iniquities of the fathers Upon the children to the third and fourth
generation. In view of that teaching, can any decent man be a Christian?
Butler's reply would be:
According to Deists, we have a
sufficient revelation of God in Nature, which he created. But in Nature, we
find that a sexually promiscuous father may give syphilis to his children and
grandchildren. If a pregnant woman abuses her body in various ways, her child
is likely to have a low birth weight, lowered intelligence, and other problems.
If we consult the Book of Nature to learn about God, we conclude that he visits
the iniquities of the fathers on the children. In view of that teaching, can
any decent man be a Deist?
He
would then add that it is not a simple matter of finding that both Bible and
Nature portray God as wicked, in which case it is better to repudiate both
Christianity and Deism and adopt atheism as the only moral position. Rather, we
find that God has so made the world that our actions affect others as well as
ourselves. A world in which no one could hurt anyone would also be a world in
which no one could help anyone. Now a world in which every thinking being had a
planet all to himself would be a world without the possibility of injustice
between man and man, but it would also be a world without the possibility of
gratitude between man and man (do I really have to explain that Butler normally
uses the word "man" in a gender-inclusive sense?), and it is not
clear that it would be a better world than the one we have.
Again,
the Deist complains bitterly against the doctrine that salvation is ours only
through the action of Christ, and that the normal way, at least, of being saved
is through faith in Christ. This seems unfair to the virtuous pagan, not to
mention the virtuous atheist. The gist of Butler's reply is the same. He would
say:
Consider
the following speech:
I am an atheist, and I figure that I am great shape. I have
all my bets covered. I can do anything I want, while my
Christian friends are hemmed in by all kinds of silly
restrictions. Sometimes they say to me: "But suppose that
there is a God after all. Then your choice doesn't make sense
in the long run." I reply that it makes perfect sense. If there
is a God, he is not going to blame me for acting on my sincere
convictions. He is supposed to be fair, and it is not fair to
penalize someone for an honest mistake. Therefore, if there is
a God, I am going to be right up there in heaven along with the
Christians, so I haven't lost anything. And if, as I suppose,
there is no God, then I am certainly better off not spending
all that time and money on religion, and being otherwise hemmed
in. So, as aforesaid, I have all the possibilities covered.
Now, some of my friends have said that I ought not to be so
sure that I have nothing to worry about if there is a God. But
I say that if the Universe is ruled by a Being who is so unfair
that he would punish someone for an honest mistake, then I want
nothing to do with such a being. He is mean, and nasty, and
unjust, and I defy him. So there!
Compare it with another speech:
Here I sit in my chemistry
lab, with a nice cup of coffee in Front of me, to which I have just added a
spoonful of sugar, and which I am now about to drink. My lab partner has just
said, "Stop! Don't drink that coffee. I was watching, and instead of
adding sugar from the sugar jar, you added cyanide from the cyanide jar which
is just next to it. If you drink it, it will surely kill you." But I shall
pay no attention to this warning. I do not think that I am likely to make that
sort of stupid mistake. Besides, if by any chance I am wrong, and this really
is cyanide, I am in no danger, because I truly and sincerely believe that this
is sugar. I am a chemist, and I have great faith in the Laws of Chemistry. I
know that it is the Laws of Chemistry that enabled life to originate and evolve
in the first place. (Some chemists have given reasons for supposing that, given
the Laws of Chemistry, the development of life on any planet at a suitable
distance from its sun is inevitable.) I owe my life to the Laws of Chemistry. I
know that those laws are pro-life, that they are on my side. The suggestion
that those laws would penalize me for an honest mistake, for acting on a
sincerely held belief, is ridiculous and blasphemous. If the Laws of Chemistry
are really as unjust as that, then I defy the Laws of Chemistry. So there!
Having mentioned the two speakers, Butler makes his point:
It is most perverse of a Deist
to complain that Christians do Not believe in a God who forgives honest error.
If a Deist really got his views of God from a study of Nature, as he claims, he
would find no reason to suppose that God makes any distinction whatever, as to
consequences, between an act committed in honest error and the same act
committed in wilful cussedness. The Laws of Chemistry, which God created, make
no such distinction. Why should the Deist believe that God does? And why should
he demand that the Christian believe that God does? In fact, we do have some
grounds for supposing that God is gracious to those who do wrong out of honest
error or ignorance (see Luke 23:34 and 1 Timothy
1:13), but we find these grounds in the study of Scripture, not in the study of
Nature.
Again, the Deist objects:
We are agreed that God is
Love, and that he cares for all those Whom he has made. But the Bible describes
him as slaying the first-born of Egypt, and commanding the Israelites to slay
everyone in the city of Jericho, right down to the new-born babe. Does the
Bible reveal a God of Love?
Butler replies:
Nature shows us entire towns
destroyed by earthquakes or Volcanos, or plague. Worse, every human eventually
dies. Why is it consistent with the goodness of God to decide that everyone in
Pompeii is to die now, and cause a volcano to kill them, but not consistent
with the goodness of God to decide that everyone in Jericho is to die now, and
order Joshua to kill them? We are agreed that there is a life after death, and
that makes it easier to see that ending Jones's life on Tuesday is not
necessarily inconsistent with Jones's longterm best interest. It may seem
implausible that everyone in Pompeii, or everyone in Jericho, or everyone on
the 747 that crashed, was at precisely that stage in his life where it was best
for him to move on, but as long as we do not claim to be omniscient, we can
hardly say that we know that it would have been better for some of them to live
longer. What is certainly true is that this is no more a problem for the
Christian than for the Deist.
It
may seem that Butler, by proving that Deism has as many problems as
Christianity, is simply encouraging Deists to become Atheists. He would say:
Deists and Christians both
have reason to believe in God. Both Have seen that without God the world simply
does not make sense. Both see many things, in Nature or the Scriptures or both,
that are not what we would expect from a good and powerful God. We wonder about
the reasons for them. Sometimes we can make a plausible guess at the reasons.
Sometimes we cannot begin to guess at why God caused or permitted some event,
and yet we continue to believe that there is a good reason. Is this irrational?
Why should it be thought so? I believe in what we may conveniently refer to as
the laws of physics. When I see a good stage magician at work, he does things
that I cannot explain in terms of the laws of physics. Nevertheless, I remain
convinced that there is a perfectly good natural explanation for them. Faced
with a choice between believing that Nature is in fact lawless and supposing
that that there is some way that I have overlooked of sneaking the rabbit into
the hat, even though I cannot begin to guess what it is, I opt for the latter
every time. Likewise, faced with a death (for example) that seems to serve no
purpose, and forced to choose between supposing that there is no God and
supposing that God knows more than I do, I opt for the latter every time,
because the latter gives me a universe with a few unsolved (by me) puzzles in
it, but the former gives me a universe fundamentally without meaning.
Incidentally,
the above are Not quotations from Butler. They are my attempts to express the
gist of Butler's arguments. One of the frustrating things about reading Butler,
for me, is that he almost never uses examples or illustrations to bring an
argument to life. Everything is stated in terms of general principles, and left
there. This, plus the total lack of any devotional atmosphere, can make the
book, in one sense, very dry reading. On the other hand, many of his sayings
are perceptive, insightful, and memorable. I suspect that most readers of
Butler will find themselves often pausing to make a check-mark in the margin
(not, of course, if reading a borrowed copy) or reading a remark several times
so as to remember it and quote it when appropriate.
In
its own day, the book had a tremendous influence. David Hume, a radically
skeptical philosopher, who did not admire most Christian apologists, admired
Butler, and unsuccessfully sought permission to dedicate his own work to
Butler.
PRAYER (traditional language)
O God, who by thy Holy Spirit
dost give to some the word of Wisdom, to others the word of knowledge, and to
others the word of faith: We praise thy Name for the gifts of grace manifested
in thy servant Joseph Butler, and we pray that thy Church may never be
destitute of such gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with thee and the
same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever.
Wikipedia
Joseph Butler (18 May 1692 – 16 June 1752) was an English bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher. He was born in Wantage in the English county of Berkshire (now Oxfordshire). He is known,
among other things, for his critique of Thomas
Hobbes's egoism and John Locke's theory of personal
identity.[1] During his life
and after his death, Butler influenced many philosophers, including David
Hume, Thomas
Reid, and Adam
Smith.[2]
Contents
- 1 Life
- 2 Works
- 3 Criticism of Locke
- 4 Publications
- 5 See also
- 6 Notes
- 7 References and further reading
- 8 External links
Life
The son of a Presbyterian linen-draper, he was destined for the ministry of that church, and—along
with future archbishop Thomas
Secker—entered Samuel Jones's dissenting academy at Gloucester (later Tewkesbury) for that purpose.
Whilst there, he entered into a secret correspondence with the conformist
controversialist Samuel Clarke; his letters were
taken to Gloucester post office by Secker, who also collected Clarke's
responses from there. Clarke later published this correspondence. In 1714,
decided to enter the Church
of England, and went to Oriel
College, Oxford. After holding various
other high positions, he became rector of the rich living of Stanhope, County
Durham.
In 1736 he was made the head chaplain
of King George II's wife Caroline,
on the advice of Lancelot Blackburne. In 1738 he was appointed bishop
of Bristol. He is said (apocryphally) to have declined an offer to
become the archbishop of
Canterbury in 1747. He became Bishop
of Durham in 1750.
Works
He is most famous for his Fifteen
Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1726) and Analogy of Religion, Natural
and Revealed (1736). The Analogy is an important work of Christian apologetics in the history of the controversies over deism's apologetic concentrated on "the general analogy between the
principles of divine government, as set forth by the biblical revelation, and
those observable in the course of nature, [an analogy which] leads us to the
warrantable conclusion that there is one Author of both."[3] Butler's arguments
combined a cumulative case for faith using probabilistic reasoning to persuade
deists and others to reconsider orthodox faith. Overall, his two books are
remarkable and original contributions to ethics and theology. They depend for their effect entirely upon the force of their reasoning,
for they have no graces of style.
The "Sermons on Human
Nature" is commonly studied as an answer to Hobbes' philosophy of psychological egoism. These two books are considered by his followers to be among the most
powerful and original contributions to ethics, apologetics and theology which
have ever been made.
Today, he is commonly cited for the
blunt epigram, "Every thing is what it is, and not another thing."
Design argument
In 1736, he inferred a from the
evidence of design: As the manifold Appearances of Design and of final
Causes, in the Constitution of the World, prove it to be the Work of an Mind .
. . The appearances of design and of final causes in the constitution of nature
as really prove this acting agent to be an . . . ten thousand thousand
Instances of Design, cannot but prove a ..[4] William
Paley taught his works and built on his design argument using
the Watchmaker analogy.
Butler died in 1752 at Rosewell House,
Kingsmead Square in Bath, Somerset.[5] His admirers
praise him as an excellent man, and a diligent and conscientious churchman.
Though indifferent to general literature, he had some taste in the fine arts,
especially architecture.
Criticism of Locke
That Personality is not a permanent,
but a transient thing: That it lives and dies, begins and ends, continually:
That no one can any more remain one and the same person two Moments together,
than two successive Moments can be one and the same Moment: that our Substance
is indeed continually changing; but whether this be so or not, is, it seems,
nothing to the purpose; since it is not Substance, but Consciousness alone,
which constitutes Personality; which Consciousness, being successive, cannot be
the same in any two Moments, nor consequently the personality constituted by
it." And from hence it must follow, that it is a Fallacy upon Ourselves,
to charge our present Selves with any thing we did, or to imagine our present
Selves interested in any thing which befell us, yesterday, or that our present
Self will be interested in what will befall us to morrow; since our present
Self is not, in Reality, the same with the Self of Yesterday, but another like
Self or Person coming in its Room, and mistaken for it; to which another Self
will succeed to morrow.[6]
Publications
- Several letters to the Reverend Dr. Clarke, 1716, 1719, 1725 - reprinted in Volume 1 of Gladstone's edition of Butler's works
- Fifteen sermons preached at the Rolls Chapel, 1726, 1729, 1736, 1749, 1759, 1765, 1769, 1774, 1792
- The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, 1736, 1740, 1750, 1754, 1764, 1765, 1771, 1775, 1785, 1788, 1791, 1793, 1796, 1798
- A sermon preached before the Incorporated Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1739
- A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord-Mayor, 1740
- A sermon preached before the House of Lords, 1741, 1747
- A sermon preached in the parish-church of Christ-Church, London, 1745
- A sermon, preached before His Grace Charles Duke of Richmond, Lenox, and Aubigny, president, 1748, 1751
- Six sermons preached upon publick occasions, 1749
- A catalogue of the libraries [...], 1753
- A charge delivered to the clergy at the primary visitation of the diocese of Durham, 1751, 1786 - reprinted in Volume 2 of Gladstone's edition of Butler's works
Notes
4.
Jump up ^ John , The Analogy of Religion, Natural and
Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, London, John and Paul
Knapton, 1st Ed. 1736,3rd
Ed. MDCCXL (1740)pp 65, 158, 424
6.
Jump up ^ "The
Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed". Anglicanhistory.org.
Retrieved 2012-08-06.
References and further reading
This article incorporates text from a
publication now in the public domain: Cousin,
John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of
English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons. Wikisource
- William Lucas Collins Butler Philosophical Classics for English Readers, Blackwood 1881
- "Butler, Joseph." Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 edition
- Austin Duncan-Jones Butler's Moral Philosophy Penguin 1952
- Ramm, Bernard "Joseph Butler," Varieties of Christian Apologetics: An Introduction to the Christian Philosophy of Religion, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1962 pp. 107–124.
- Rurak, James "Butler's Analogy: A Still Interesting Synthesis of Reason and Revelation," Anglican Theological Review 62 (October) 1980 pp. 365–381.
- Brown, Colin Miracles and the Critical Mind, Paternoster, Exeter UK/William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids 1984
- Craig, William Lane The Historical Argument for the Resurrection of Jesus During the Deist Controversy, Texts and Studies in Religion, Volume 23. Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston, New York & Queenston, Ontario 1985
- Ensink, Bernhard Ethik und Theologie bei Joseph Butler (1692-1752), Uitgeverij Kok, Kampen 1995
- Dulles, Avery A History of Apologetics, Wipf & Stock, Eugene, Oregon 1999
- White, David E. "Joseph Butler," Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, J. Fieser & B. Dowden (eds.) 2006
- Garrett, Aaron Joseph Butler's Moral Philosophy, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2012
External links
 |
- Contains Correspondence with Clarke, three episodes from Analogy of Religion, and five of the Fifteen Sermons, all lightly edited for easier reading
- Joseph Butler entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Works by Joseph Butler at Project Gutenberg
|
Preceded by
Thomas Gooch |
Bishop
of Bristol
1738–1750 |
Succeeded by
John Conybeare |
|
Preceded by
Edward Chandler |
Bishop of Durham
1750–1752 |
Succeeded by
Richard Trevor |
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