Tindal's Concept Of God

English deism was the subject of a theological dispute started in England in the end of the 17^th century and early 18^th century and spread to France, Germany and the United States of America. One between revealed and rational religion in nature, the dispute developed around competing perspectives of Christian revelations and miracles and sought to locate the correct position of reason in the ratification of religious truths. The striking characters of deism are its negative attitude toward special revelations and miracles and its positive proposition of the existence of God through universal natural order found by human reason and the sense of morality and religiousness felt in every human being, believing that the will of this rational God is the health and maintenance of human being and the pursuit of happiness, that the sufficient means of achieving such goals have been given justly and universally to all human beings from the beginning of their creation, and therefore that true religion is the rational natural religion: love your neighbors as you love God.Honored as the textbook of English deism, Matthew Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation represents most of the deist ideas and is therefore the key to the understanding of English deism in its securing the authority of reason by demeaning that of the Roman Catholic and the Bible, leading to the separation of religion and state and religious toleration.Formerly translated into another term relating to a somewhat different concept in Chinese philosophy, deism is likewise introduced into Chinese academic world as merely a new version of the design argument for the existence of God (the analogy of a clock) just as it has been treated insufficiently in the west. In recent years, however, the significance of deism becomes more and more obvious in the research for the revolutionary factors of the transition of Europe from the 16th century to 18th century and more scholars have began to realize its leading importance in the European Enlightenment. Apart from numerous articles, Wuhan University Press has launched and nearly completed a project of publishing a series of 10 translated books on deism, which will hopefully speed up research work in this area. Nevertheless, much more has to be done to turn over the simplification of deism and this work is therefore an initial attempt to call attention to and deepen the related research work.This dissertation means to analyze and summarize major ideas and propositions of deism by focusing on the new paradigm of Tindal's rational concept of God, evaluating the importance of his natural theology, moral theology and the concept of natural law in promoting the paradigm shift of the concept of God and the contribution of natural religion based on the universal, natural and human religiousness to making religious study a humanity science open to natural science and to European Enlightenment.After defining deism as the combination of natural theology, moral theology and the idea of natural law and after introducing the framing ideas and historical background, this paper seeks to point out that Tindal's natural theology makes use of reason as embodied in nature (natural order, laws of nature) and human morality (reason as embodied by natural law) to propose the existence of a God of the highest rationality and the content of the will of God by his leading attributes (wisdom, justice and benevolence), setting up his moral theology and the ideas of natural law, interpreting the will of God as promoting the maintenance of human beings and their pursuit of happiness, and thus restoring natural religion to its simplest creed: love your neighbors as you love God. Such a natural religion lays aside the concept of a personal God based on special revelation and miracles, proposes the existence of a rational God from empirical evidences of effects manifested in both nature and human consciousness, abandons original sin and those other traditional doctrines and defines the nature of God as reason in the rational relationship between God and man, man and other man as man and natural things.The dissertation distinguishes universal revelation from special revelation, and the natural law as one for personal moral autonomy from the natural law as the correct guide for the maintenance of the relationship among human beings. Universal revelation makes the existence of God and the doctrine of creation possible while maintaining the attributes of God's justice and benevolence. Likewise, the natural law for personal moral autonomy is the moral law for the self government of the sense of right and wrong through sharing of God's rationality and the natural law for the maintenance of inter-personal relationship is the social assistance necessary for the maintenance and the pursuit of happiness of all human beings and a guarantee of the basic human rights in a society.The paper also introduces leading indispensable Christian doctrines such as the original sin, special revelation and miracles and Tindal's criticism of them. After this, the writer introduces criticism of contemporary and later writers such as Hume and Kant toward Tindal's natural theology and natural religion, laying bare of the absurdity of the doctrines on the one hand and suggesting the possibility of universal revelation on the other hand. With analysis of the design argument and moral argument for the existence of God, the writer points out that though the two arguments are far from convincing as scientific evidences, they are enough for emphasizing the utilitarianism of natural religion, i.e., supposing the existence of God is better for promoting the happiness of human beings than the non-existence of God.In the concluding paragraphs, the writer points out that deism aims at making religion a subject of study in the sense of modern humanity science, serving human beings for their benefits and happiness in this rather than other world by targeting all scientific explorations on this life, including all religious truths of God. At the same time, the writer makes obvious that due to the limitedness of humanity, we could not hope to understand everything about God who is infinitely superior to us. What is more, as religious experience is an indispensable part of human life, we have to tolerate various religious experience as well as claims to ensure a healthy relationship between fellow human beings. The writer also calls attention to Tindal's emphasis of natural religion as a necessary turn of mind to truths found in the natural world to serve our purpose of living a moral and healthy life by keeping our mind open to such scientific discoveries as a rule of ratification in adjusting our way of life and religious obligations, so that while admiring the greatness of God, we will love our neighbors more because they are creatures of God just like ourselves.