Jesus in an Age of Enlightenment: Radical Gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson

Birch, J. C.P. (2019) Jesus in an Age of Enlightenment: Radical Gospels from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. Series: Christianities in the Trans-Atlantic World. Palgrave Macmillan: London. ISBN 9781137512758 (doi: 10.1057/978-1-137-51276-5)

Full text not currently available from Enlighten.

Publisher's URL: https://www.palgrave.com/gb/book/9781137512758

Abstract

This book explores the religious concerns of Enlightenment thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. Using an innovative method, the study illuminates the intellectual history of the age through interpretations of Jesus between c.1750 and c.1826. The book demonstrates the persistence of theology in modern philosophy and the projects of social reform and amelioration associated with the Enlightenment. At the core of many of these projects was a robust moral-theological realism, sometimes manifest in a natural law ethic, but always associated with Jesus and a commitment to the sovereign goodness of God. This ethical orientation in Enlightenment discourse is found in a range of different metaphysical and political identities (dualist and monist; progressive and radical) which intersect with earlier ‘heretical’ tendencies in Christian thought (Arianism, Pelagianism, and Marcionism). This intellectual matrix helped to produce the discourses of irenic toleration which are a legacy of the Enlightenment at its best.

Item Type:Books
Status:Published
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Birch, Dr Jonathan
Authors: Birch, J. C.P.
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > Theology and Religious Studies
Publisher:Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN:9781137512758

University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record