RT Article
T1 Responses to Hume on Religion by Anglicans and Dissenters
JF The journal of ecclesiastical history
VO 52
IS 4
SP 675
OP 695
A1 Rivers, Isabel
LA English
YR 2001
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1784763101
AB David Hume's attacks on religion posed particular problems of method and approach for those who undertook to reply to them. This article is concerned with the responses of two main groups from the mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth: a number of Anglicans and Episcopalians, and a smaller group of rational Dissenters. The responses of some of these are well known, but those of others have not hitherto been investigated. The essay charts a definite shift from wit and ridicule to reasoned and mannerly response as the appropriate way to deal with infidelity. Most respondents assumed that Hume could be adequately refuted by rehearsing old arguments; however, a small but significant number maintained that his infidelity was of positive value for the future of Christianity.
DO 10.1017/S0022046901008648