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Bishop Berkeley on Religion and the Church
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 June 2011
Extract
The traditional account of Berkeley's philosophy recognizes that his philosophical activity was an attempt to refound science and philosophy on a religiously acceptable basis. But it is not clear, from this account, just how he proposed to do it. The traditional opinion emphasizes the apparent claim of the esse est percipi principle to provide at one stroke a conclusive proof of the existence of God and a definitive account of the character of physical objects; according to that account, however, both of these claims are practically absurd. It is not altogether clear why Berkeley thought that such a weak proof and such a bad explanation could help the cause of religion.
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- Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1973
References
1 Alciphron, VII, 1, in The Works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, edited by Luce, A. A. and Jessop, T. E. (Edinburgh: Nelson, 1949–1957), III, 287.Google Scholar
2 The Principles of Human Knowledge, Introduction, 20; Works, II, 37.
3 Ibid., 19; Works, II, 37.
4 Alciphron, VII, 6–7; Works, III, 295–96.
5 De Motu, 6; Works, IV, 32.
6 Alciphron, VII, 6; Works, III, 294.
7 Alciphron, VII, 7; Works, III, 296. I. T. Ramsey writes, “‘Grace’ is not logically like ‘number’ but rather like ‘numbering.’ ‘Grace,’ being a construct from activity, involving activity, is notionally given. The word ‘grace,’ like ‘God,’ is significant though its distinctive reference extends beyond ideas.” Berkeley and the possibility of an empirical metaphysics, in Steinkraus, W. E., ed., New Studies in Berkeley's Philosophy (New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1966), 29.Google Scholar I agree with most of this analysis, but I have not followed Ramsey's account of the metaphysical consequences which are due to the grammar of notions.
8 Alciphron, V, 19; Works, III, 195: “Should any man rake together all the mischiefs that have been committed in all ages and nations by soldiers and lawyers, you would, I suppose, conclude from thence, not that the State should be deprived of those useful professions, but only that their exorbitances should be guarded against and punished.”
9 Principles, 105; Works, II, 87.
10 Alciphron, VII, 30; Works, III, 327; VI, 15; Works, III, 249; VI, 30; Works, III, 279.
11 A comment by Yeats seems to bear upon this problem: “Berkeley deliberately refused to define personality and dared not say that man in so far as he is himself, in so far as he is a personality, reflects the whole act of God; his God and Man seem cut off from one another,” W. B. Yeats, Introduction, in Hone, J. M. and Rossi, M. M., Bishop Berkeley: his life, writings, and philosophy (New York: Macmillan, 1931), xxvi.Google Scholar Yeats recognizes that there is a grammatical and metaphysical problem here. What I have identified as notional language is the appropriate kind of discourse for talking about humanity and (to some extent) deity; this is the language in which we talk about mental concepts, which Yeats calls “personality.” Berkeley's suggestion that there is more that could be said about God (though not by us) need not be due (as Yeats suggests) to a failure of nerve. The category of mystery is perplexing, but it is not incompatible with other elements of Berkeley's philosophy.
12 Principles, 117; Works, II, 94: “That dangerous dilemma to which several … imagine themselves reduced, to wit, of thinking either that real space is God, or else that there is something besides God which is eternal, uncreated, infinite, indivisible, immutable. Both which may justly be thought pernicious and absurd notions.”
13 Alciphron, IV, 21; Works, III, 170.
14 Alciphron, VI, 15–16; Works, III, 248–49.
15 Alciphron, VI, 29; Works, III, 276.
16 Ibid., 30; Works, III, 278–79.
17 Ibid., V, 20; Works, III, 194; “I acknowledge you may often see hotheaded bigots engage themselves in religious as well as civil parties, without being of credit or service to either.”
18 Kierkegaard, S., Training in Christianity, in Bretall, R. W., ed., A Kierkegaard Anthology (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1946), 287.Google Scholar
19 I am indebted to Professor David Tracy for this suggestion.
20 Alciphron, VI, 4; Works, III, 223–24.
21 Sermon on religious zeal, Works, VII, 20. For this reason I am unable to endorse the interpretation of Berkeley in Downey's, JamesThe Eighteenth Century Pulpit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969)Google Scholar, a work which must nevertheless be commended for uncovering Berkeley's sermons. Downey writes, “His greatest contribution to Anglican worship and theology was his attempt to accommodate both reason and emotion within the framework of a genuine religious experience.” (p. 87) Yet it seems to me that the place of emotion in Berkeley's theology is rigorously limited, and that he is deeply suspicious of appeals to religious experience, for religious experience often conflicts with accepted, authoritative beliefs. His sermons must be read in their philosophical context.
22 Alciphron, VI, 4; Works, III, 204. Cp. this passage from the Discourse addressed to magistrates: “The differences between prejudices and other opinions doth not consist in this: that the former are false, and the latter true; but in this, that the former are taken upon trust, and the latter acquired by reasoning … It will then by no means follow, that because this or that notion is a prejudice, it must be therefore false” (Works, VI, 205).
23 In this respect Berkeley is much closer to the Augustans than Downey allows: “The Augustans tended to view the church as the temporal custodian of virtue and a bulwark for morality. To Berkeley, however, it was … the mystical body of Christ.” (Downey, p. 62). But Berkeley saw no conflict between these roles; he writes in the Discourse, “An inward sense of the supreme majesty of the King of Kings, is the only thing that can beget and preserve a true respect for subordinate majesty in all the degrees of power, the first link of authority being fixed at the throne of God” (Works, VI, 209). This pamphlet argues for the suppression of blasphemy; of it, James Fitzjames Stephen has written, “It is the voice of a man who still thinks it just possible to keep up a system which is true in the sense of being generally useful by a vigorous use of the civil power, and who has a genuine intellectual contempt for those who are trying to overthrow it, without seeing that in so doing they are overthrowing themselves” (Horae Sabbaticae, Third Series [London: Macmillan, 1892], 46).Google Scholar We can agree with Stephen's account of this pamphlet without endorsing his conviction that secularism is a natural state of affairs.
24 Works, VI, 205; and Alciphron, V, 31; Works, III, 211. Compare Swift, An argument against abolishing Christianity, in Davis, Herbert, ed., The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift (Oxford: Blackwell, 1957), II, 30Google Scholar: “There are, by Computation, in this Kingdom, above Ten Thousand Parsons; whose Revenues added to those of my Lords the Bishops, would suffice to maintain, at least, two Hundred young Gentlemen of Wit and Pleasure, and Free-thinking; Enemies to Priest-craft, narrow Principles, Pedantry, and Prejudices; who might be an Ornament to the Court and Town.”
25 Works, VII, 204.
26 Alciphron, V, 24; Works, III, 202.
27 Ibid., I, 11; Works, III, 48.
28 Sermon on the Will of God, Works, VII, 131.
29 Alciphron, I, 11; Works, II, 49.
30 Ibid., 48.
31 Ibid., 50.
32 Ibid.
33 Ibid.