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Samuel Clarke

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Samuel ClarkeFirst published Sat Apr 5, 2003; substantive revision Tue Jun 9, 2009

Samuel Clarke (16751729) was the most important British philosopherin the generation between Locke and Berkeley, at least in terms ofinfluence on his contemporaries, and was a leading figure in Newton'scircle. His philosophical interests were mostly in metaphysics, theology,and ethics; epistemology seems to have held little attraction for him.Although his philosophical vocabulary and some of his metaphysicalideas were influenced by Descartes, Clarke's overall judgment ofDescartes was quite critical. He shared the view expressed by More,Pascal, Bayle, and Leibniz that Descartes' system could be, and had been,used to further irreligion and had naturally developed into Spinozism. Inparticular, he believed that Descartes' identification of matter withextension, and therefore space, entails making it eternal and infinite.Furthermore, he sided with Malebranche and Locke in denying thatintrospection lets us reach the substance of the soul. Indeed, like Lockeand Newton he held that we just don't know the nature of substances,even though we can be sure that there are at least two substances (mentaland material) because their properties (thinking and divisibility) areincompatible. He defended natural religion against naturalism (the viewthat nature constitutes a self-sufficient system of which we are but a part)and revealed religion against deism in two sets of Boyle Lectures and inexchanges with Anthony Collins and Leibniz. Clarke singled out Hobbesand Spinoza for criticism in metaphysics and ethics. His most notableinfluence is Isaac Newton, whose scientific views Clarke adopted veryearly. Through his association with Newton, Clarke became in the firsthalf the eighteenth century the de facto spokesperson not only forexplaining Newtonian natural science but also for the theologicalinterpretation and metaphysical support of that philosophy.

1

In what follows, we use W as an abbreviation to cite passages from thefour-volume The Works, and D as an abbreviation to cite passages in ADemonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and Other Writings.References to the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence include the letter andsection number preceded by an L for Leibniz and C for Clarke (e.g.,L1.4). For the full references, see the Bibliography.

1. Life and Work1.1 Correspondence with Leibniz

2. Major Themes in Clarke2.1 Newtonianism and Anti-Naturalism2.2 Rationalism

3. Metaphysics3.1 Space and Time3.2 Free Will3.3 Matter and the Laws of Nature3.4 The Soul

4. Philosophical Theology4.1 Arguments for the Existence of God4.2 God, Space, and Time4.3 Trinitarian Views4.4 Miracles4.5 Revelation and the Four Categories of Deism

5. Ethics6. InfluenceBibliographyOther Internet ResourcesRelated Entries

1. Life and Works

Samuel Clarke

2 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Samuel Clarke was born at Norwich on October 11, 1675. He took hisB.A. degree at Cambridge in 1695 by defending Newton's views, whichthen were still far from uncontroversial. His tutor apparently convincedhim to provide a new annotated Latin translation of Rohault's Treatise ofPhysics. The translation was published in 1697 and Clarke's notes ineffect criticized Cartesian physics in favor of Newton's. In that same year,Clarke befriended Whiston, who probably introduced him into theNewtonian circle, of which he soon became a leading figure. In theseearly years he also began a concentrated study of theology, leading to thepublication of Three practical essays on baptism, confirmation, andrepentance (1699), A Paraphrase on the Four Evangelists (17011702),and Amyntor (1699), a response to John Toland's critique of the NewTestament canon.

The middle years of his career mark his greatest philosophicalcontributions, beginning with the Boyle lectures (delivered 1704 and1705). The first, an attempt to prove the existence of God, along with alldivine attributes, was published as A Demonstration of the Being andAttributes of God (1705) and the second, a continuation to establish allmoral truths and most religious doctrine, A discourse concerning theunchangeable obligations of natural religion, and the truth and certaintyof the Christian revelation (1706). They both went through many editionsand were often published together. These lectures, established by RobertBoyle to promote natural religion based on the latest scientificdevelopments, were closely watched, and Clarke instantly became one ofthe most well known philosophers in England. Also in 1706, hisassociation with Newton became official when he translated the Opticksinto Latin. In the meantime, he had been introduced to Queen Anne, whomade him one of her chaplains in 1706, and three years later he waselevated to the rectory of St. James's, Westminster. After the Hanoverianaccession, Clarke developed a close relationship with the Caroline ofAnspach, the Princess of Wales and future queen. His prominence as aphilosopher drew him into a series of very public exchanges of letters.

Ezio Vailati and Timothy Yenter

Summer 2009 Edition 3

philosopher drew him into a series of very public exchanges of letters.The most notable of these were the letters to Anthony Collins regardingpersonal identity, immortality, and the soul and the letters to G.W.Leibniz (see below).

In the later years of his life, Clarke continued to write on theologicalmatters, and also published a royally appointed translation of the Iliad,having already published notable translations of Caesar. Each of his majorpublications went through multiple editions, often with substantialrevision. He died in 1729 after a very short illness, survived by his wifeKatherine and five of his seven children. Clarke was a polite and courtlyman, vivacious with his friends, and reportedly fond of playing cards.

1.1 Correspondence with Leibniz

Before Caroline of Anspach became the Princess of Wales, she wastutored by Leibniz. After Leibniz was not asked to join her in England,Leibniz corresponded with her. In one of these letters he attackedprominent views in England that Leibniz considered dangerous to naturalreligion. After mentioning materialism and Lockean skepticism about thesoul, Leibniz chastises Newton twice. (Newton and Leibniz had sparredearlier over the priority of discovery of the calculus.) Clarke, who wasingratiating himself with Princess Caroline, came to Newton's defense. Aseries of five letters passed through Caroline between Leibniz and Clarkeover a wide range of issues.

Today it is easily Clarke's most often read work. However, there has longbeen a dispute over Newton's role in the authorship of the letters. Leibnizsuspected and Caroline confirmed that Newton at least read Clarke'sletters before sending them. Since then, scholarly opinion has rangedfrom Newton's ghostwriting all the letters himself to Clarke writing theletters and merely showing them to Newton to make sure there was nodisagreement over the scientific information. This point is not easily

Samuel Clarke


disagreement over the scientific information. This point is not easilydecidable, in part because Newton and Clarke were neighbors and thusalmost no correspondence survives between them, presumably since theywould more often meet in person. Current opinion has shifted towardattributing most of the writing to Clarke, a move sparked in part bygreater appreciation in recent years of Clarke's status as an originalphilosopher.

In reading the letters to Leibniz, it is helpful to remember that the viewsbeing defended might not belong only to Clarke or only to Newton, soattribution to a single figure might be misguided. What we have might bethe intersection of their views, or they might be views that Newton heldprivately but did not want to avow publicly, or they might be a mixture ofsome of Clarke's views and some of Newton's views. In some cases, wecan see links to other publications by Newton and Clarke. For instance,space as a sensorium (organ of sensation) of God, which Leibnizridiculed in his first letter to Caroline, appeared first in Newton'sPrincipia and Opticks. Also, there are arguments based on the principle ofsufficient reason, which Clarke employed in his Boyle lectures twelveyears earlier. Other cases are more difficult to connect to Newton's andClarke's other publications, such as the famous passage in which space iscalled an immediate and necessary consequence of the existence ofGod, since consequence is not a term usually used by either Clarke orNewton.

2. Major Themes in ClarkeThree major themes run through all of Clarke's works: Newtonianism,anti-naturalism, and rationalism.

2.1 Newtonianism and Anti-Naturalism



Clarke's thought was deeply indebted to Newtonian natural philosophy.His first notable publication was a translation of the Cartesian physics ofRohault, to which he appended notes describing the problems in theCartesian physics and the superiority of the Newtonian. The book wassoon adopted as the standard physics textbook in England, and wentthrough multiple editions in Clarke's lifetime. His first Boyle lecture of1704 relied on Newtonian ideas about space and matter to establish theexistence of a God with a radically free will who is continually involvedin the world, against both deists and atheists.

In Newtonianism, Clarke saw a world that could only exist by a free actof God. Matter is dispersed sparingly throughout empty space, gravity isuniversal to matter but not inherent in it, and the universe is orderedaccording to rules that are neither absolutely necessary nor chaotic.Strictly speaking the laws of nature do not describe the powers of matter,which is just dead mass constantly pushed around, but modalities ofoperation of the divine power; as in the case of occasionalism (the viewthat only God is the real cause of all events), the laws of nature describethe actions of the divine will, and only mediately describe the activities ofbodies. Matter has no power of self-motion. To explain motion, one mustappeal to immaterial souls (human and divine). Thus, nature is not a self-sufficient system, so much so that without direct and constant divinephysical intervention planets would fly away from their orbits, atomswould break into their components and the machinery of the worldliterally grind to a halt.[1]

2.2 Rationalism

Clarke adopted some form of rationalism in metaphysics, ethics andtheology, as exhibited in his methodology, his account of ethical truths,and in his acceptance of a fundamental rationalist principle, the principleof sufficient reason.

Samuel Clarke


The Demonstration makes great use of the principle of sufficient reason,which motivates the cosmological argument. Were that the onlyappearance of the principle, it would be easy to conclude that Clarke sawthe principle as having a limited application, perhaps the explanation of acontingently existing universe. However, Clarke explicitly avows theprinciple of sufficient reason in the correspondence with Leibniz andreturns to it frequently (C3.2, W IV.606). It is not mentioned in thecorrespondence with Collins, but he there adopts principles which can bederived from it.

Clarke's understanding of the principle of sufficient reason differs notablyfrom Leibniz's formulation, with whom it is more frequently associated.This was a major source of contention in their correspondence. Clarkeasserts that the sufficient reason why something exists as it does may bedue to the mere Will of God and nothing more (C3.2, W IV.606607;C5.124130, W IV.700). This involves two claims. First, in cases ofcomplete indifference (such as God choosing where to place the world inthe infinite expanse of absolute space), God is capable of acting even ifthere is no reason to prefer one option over another. Second, a free will isable to refrain from acting on what reason presents to it as best to do. Asa consequence of this (and also as a result of his unusual treatment of themetaphysics of space), Clarke is forced to deny the identity ofindiscernibles, a principle that Leibniz argued is entailed by the principleof sufficient reason. This is significant for Clarke's Newtonianism,because if space is real and absolute, then the identity of indiscerniblesmust be false because regions of space are indiscernible with respect totheir intrinsic and (prior to the creation of the world) their extrinsicproperties. Clarke may also have felt the need to accommodateindiscernible atoms, which Newton seemed to allow. (Clarke defendsatomism in the letters to Leibniz, but in his other works he claims that allmatter is infinitely divisible.) Because Clarke denies the identity ofindiscernibles and affirms libertarianism, Leibniz claims that Clarkegrants the principle of sufficient reason only in Words, and in reality



grants the principle of sufficient reason only in Words, and in realitydenies it. Which shews that he does not fully perceive the Strength of it(L3.2, W IV.601). In response, Clarke argues that if Leibniz is right thenan agent would be merely passive since determined to do what reasonpresents, but a passive agent is a contradiction since the concept ofagency includes the concept of activity.

Clarke is an ethical rationalist. Ethical truths are discoverable throughreason and correspond to necessary and eternal relations among things inthe world. He also sometimes treats ethical truths as truths of reason. Histheology is also rationalist. Through reason one can discover the manytruths contained in natural religion. Furthermore, true Christian doctrinesare neither mysterious nor self-contradictory, and nearly all can becomprehended by human beings.

3. Metaphysics3.1 Space and Time

According to Clarke, the ideas of space and time are the two first andmost obvious simple Ideas, that every man has in his mind (D 114; WII.752). Like many of the philosophers who investigated the nature ofspace and time, he tended to produce arguments with regard to space,leaving the reader to infer that parallel arguments could be drawn withrespect to time. He argued that while matter can be thought of as non-existing, space exists necessarily because to suppose any part of spaceremoved, is to suppose it removed from and out of itself: and to supposethe whole to be taken away, is supposing it to be taken away from itself,that is, to be taken away while it still remains: which is a contradiction interms (D 13; W II.528).

Although space is not sensible, Clarke rejected its identification withnothingness, since space has some properties, for example, quantity and

Samuel Clarke


nothingness, since space has some properties, for example, quantity anddimensions. One might add other properties he accepted, such ashomogeneity, immutability, and continuity. Space, then, is an entity inwhich things are, and not mere absence of matter. Space is also not anaggregate of its parts but presumably an essential whole preceding all itparts, a view motivated at least in part by theological considerations.

Like Newton, Clarke adopted the view that space is necessarily infinitebecause to set bounds to space, is to suppose it bounded by somethingwhich itself takes up space or else that it is bounded by nothing, andthen the idea of that nothing will still be space, and both suppositions arecontradictory (D 115; W II.753). What Clarke had in mind here is ratherunclear. He seemed to think that what has a boundary must be bounded bysomething else. If so, the argument was not well taken because a sphere,for example, has a boundary which stems from its own nature, not by thepresence of something external bounding it. If he had a reason forthinking that nothing in the nature of space sets its limits, he does notprovide it. One possible solution is to appeal to the principle of sufficientreason: any finite limit would be arbitrary, and thus in violation of theprinciple.

Since absolute space has an essential and invariable structure which isindependent of the bodies in it and which is not altered by their presence,any possible world must conform to it, as creatures must be in space andGod cannot alter essences because his power is limited to themetaphysically possible. The same is true of time, which flowsindependently of anything in it. Creatures occupy an absolute position inspace and time that we may or may not be able to establish because wehave no direct access to absolute space and time.

The introduction of absolute space, allegedly demanded by Newtonianphysics, offered Clarke an immediate philosophical advantage in the fightagainst Spinoza. For it showed that the Cartesian identification of



against Spinoza. For it showed that the Cartesian identification ofextension with matter, which had made possible Spinoza's excesses (suchas the eternality of matter), was wrong, a consequence that Bayle andColin McLaurin also decried. The existence of absolute space didintroduce a new difficulty, that of its relation to God, which is addressedbelow.

3.2 Free Will

Clarke attached great importance to the issue of free will. Like manyphilosophers, he held that the highest form of freedom involves willing asone should, namely, having one's will in step with one's right values. Healso believed that freedom of the will, or liberty, involves a libertarianpower of self-determination and that it is a necessary condition both forthat higher form of freedom and for religion. Hobbes' and Spinoza's viewsthat everything happens deterministically or necessarily, he thought,destroys this power of self-determination. In what follows, we willexamine Clarke's analysis of freedom, his argument that God has freewill, and his reasons for thinking that humans have free will.

Clarke was committed to the existence of a self-determining will thatcould freely assent or refrain from assenting to the mind's judgments. Thisis a freedom of choosing, and not a freedom of acting, for a prisoner inchains who chooses or endeavors to move out of his place is therein asmuch a free agent as he that actually moves out of his place (D 75; WII.566). In order to will, one must have a judgment about what to do andthe power to choose in accordance with that judgment. This power tochoose is provided by the will; Clarke sometimes calls the will the causeof the choice because its power of activity provides the active componentof the choice. At times, Clarke also identifies the power of the will withthe ability to produce motion in the world.

Samuel Clarke


The will is not to be identified with the last judgment of theunderstanding nor is it determined by that judgment. Those (like Hobbes)who thought so were guilty of basic philosophical errors. If theymaintained that the content of the evaluation, the evaluative proposition,is identical with the volition or causes it, then they were confusing themoral motive with the physical efficient, the physical efficient beingthe element of the cause that provides the active power (D 73; W II.565).The understanding presents the agent with a value judgment, e.g., doingX is better than doing Y, which the agent has the power to follow or not.Since, as Clarke explained to Collins, the motive is simply an abstractobject (a proposition), it cannot cause anything because abstract objectsare causally inert. Holding the contrary is taking an abstract object for asubstance.

On the other hand, if Clarke's opponents maintained that, not theevaluative proposition, but one's perceiving, judging or otherwisebelieving it is identical with or a partial cause of volition, then they werefalling foul of a basic causal principle. Against Descartes, Clarke insistedthat judging, i.e., assenting to what appears true and dissenting from whatappears false, is not an action but a passion. But what is passive cannotcause anything active. So, there is no causal link between evaluation andvolition, or as Clarke put it approbation and action (D 126; W IV.714).Nor is there any causal link between previous non-volitional mental statesand any volition, all of which are passive.

Another objection Clarke considered is that a free agent cannot choosewhether to have a will or not; ...but (the two contradictories of acting ornot acting being always necessarily before him) he must of necessity, andessentially to his being a free agent, perpetually will one of these twothings, either to act or to forbear acting, a view that induced even someconsiderate persons to entertain great doubts concerning the possibilityof liberty (D 74). Clarke did not identify the philosophers he had inmind, but probably one of his targets was Locke, who at Essay II.21.234



mind, but probably one of his targets was Locke, who at Essay II.21.234seemed to move from the claim that an action can take place or not only ifthe agent wills it or not and the claim that necessarily an action must takeplace or not, to the conclusion that the will of the agent is determined.Clarke pointed out that the argument was guilty of an ambiguity. It mightbe true that if I think about doing A, then it is necessary that either I willto do A or will not to do A. However, from this it does not follow that if Ithink about doing A, necessarily I will to do A. Nor does it follow that ifI think about doing A, then necessarily I will not to do A. Clarke wascareful to avoid this error, which seems to have ensnared Locke.

Clarke's view was criticized by Jonathan Edwards, who thought thatClarke was committed to an infinite regress of volitions. Since eachvolition is active, it must be caused by something active; but since everyother purported motivation is passive, each volition is caused by aprevious volition, and so on ad infinitum. However, Clarke did not believethat each volition was caused by a previous volition, but rather by the willitself. As Leibniz realized, this position leads to the denial of the principleof sufficient reason, which Clarke claimed to accept. Since the conditionsfor the will choosing in accordance with the judgment are exactly thesame as when it refrains from choosing, there is no explanation for why itdoes one rather than the other. Clarke never provided a satisfactoryresponse to this charge, but he thought that to deny it would lead to worseconsequences.

Clarke tried to turn the tables on his opponents by using the principle ofsufficient reason against necessitarians like Spinoza. He does this byemploying the causal version of the principle of sufficient reason in thecosmological argument to show that the necessary being on which thecontingent world depends must have in itself a principle of acting, orpower of beginning motion, which is the idea of liberty (D 54; WII.553). Otherwise, the world would be necessary and not contingent,which is (Clarke thinks) obviously false. If God operated necessarily,

Samuel Clarke


which is (Clarke thinks) obviously false. If God operated necessarily,things could not be different from how they are. But the number ofplanets, their orbits, indeed, the law of gravitation itself could have beendifferent, as any reasonable person (except Spinoza) could plainly see.Further, the obvious presence of final causes indicates that divine activityfollows not necessary but architectonic patterns. Additionally, if Godacted necessarily, there could be no diversity of finite things in the world,because one who acts necessarily acts the same way at all times and in allplaces; if this were not so, then the principle of sufficient reason wouldnot be satisfied. But the world does contain many finite and contingentthings, so God does not act necessarily.

The issue of divine freedom raises a couple of problems for Clarke. Forone, it is in tension with God's knowledge of future events. Against theclaim that divine foreknowledge is incompatible with free will, Clarkeobjected that since knowledge does not affect the thing known, our freechoices are unaffected by divine omniscience, a move that has been usedat least since Augustine. Furthermore, God always does what is best. Itseems, then that God cannot refrain from acting on his judgment of whatis best, and thus acts necessarily. Clarke can rely, again, on the passivityof judgment to block the move that God's judgment determines God'schoice. Thus, even though we have complete certainty that God alwaysdoes what is best, it does not follow that God doing the best is necessary.Furthermore, when God created the world, he did what was best to do, buthad a choice among an infinite number of equally good ways of creatingthe world, since he could place the world anywhere in space and couldcreate it at any time. Thus, it does not follow from God's perfect judgmentcombined with his infinite power to create that God must necessarilycreate a particular world in a particular place or at a particular time.

Having shown that God is endowed with liberty, Clarke tried to show thatwe are as well. His argument was based both on metaphysics andexperience. It is clear that liberty is a communicable power because it



experience. It is clear that liberty is a communicable power because itdoes not entail such incommunicable qualities as total causalindependence and self-existence. We do not know how the power ofaction can be transmitted, but considerations drawn from experienceassure us that is has been, since our actions seem to us to be free, exactlyas they would do on the supposition that we are really free agents. Ofcourse this does not amount to a strict demonstration; but denying that wehave free will is on a par with denying the existence of the externalworld, a coherent but unreasonable option. The burden of proof is not onthe supporter of liberty, but on its denier.

3.3 Matter and the Laws of Nature

According to Clarke, Modern Deists, noticing that nature is regular andconstant and that certain causes produce certain effects according to fixedlaws, have come to the conclusion that there are in matter certain laws orpowers the result of which is...the course of nature; which they think isimpossible to be changed or altered, and consequently that there can be nosuch things as miracles (D 150; W II.698). The deistic view, Clarkeargued, is completely wrong because all things done in the world, aredone either immediately by God himself, or by created intelligent beings:matter being evidently not at all capable of any laws or powerswhatsoever except for the negative power of inertia. Consequently, theso called effects of the natural powers of matter, and laws of motion; ofgravitation, attraction, or the like properly speaking are but the effectsof God's acting upon matter continually and every moment, eitherimmediately by himself, or mediately by some created intelligent beings.The course of nature is nothing else but the will of God producingcertain effects in a continued, regular, constant and uniform mannerwhichbeing in every moment perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be alteredat any time, as to be preserved (D 149; W II.698). So, the possibility ofmiracles for Clarke depends upon a form of theological voluntarism andthe denial of the activity of matter.

Samuel Clarke


the denial of the activity of matter.

Clarke's theological voluntarism was limited, since moral laws areindependent of the divine will and even the absolute power of God islimited to what is logically possible. Furthermore, the divine will is notinscrutable, if that entails that divine attributes and powers are absolutelydifferent from the human ones, since they have the same nature and differonly in degree. Moreover, the arbitrariness of God's will is not to beconstrued as irrationality; rather, the divine will infallibly follows hisnecessarily correct judgment, and consequently God always acts on thebasis of rules of uniformity and proportion. However, true to hislibertarian position, Clarke held that the will, in God as in us, is notcausally determined by the understanding, and therefore the rulesgoverning the ordinary power of God, a subset of which are the laws ofnature, are freely self-imposed, and not the result of the necessarilycorrect divine understanding: they are a manifestation of God's moral, andtherefore free, attributes, not of God's metaphysical, and thereforenecessary, ones.

Clarke steadfastly maintained that matter has neither an essential nor anaccidental power of self-motion. The first claim was very common amongearly modern philosophers, and held not only a fortiori by anoccasionalist like Malebranche, but also by thinkers of differentpersuasions like Descartes, Locke and Boyle. In fact, even Gassendi, whohad upheld the notion of an active matter by claiming that atoms have aninternal corporeal principle of action, had fallen short of claiming thatthey possess it essentially.

Clarke's second claim, however, was more controversial. For althoughmost early modern mechanists programmatically tried to substitute anature made of inert particles for the living nature of Renaissancephilosophy, the attempt soon ran into great difficulties. Strict mechanismproved inadequate to explain phenomena like exothermic reactions (where



proved inadequate to explain phenomena like exothermic reactions (wheredoes the explosive motion of gunpowder come from?) or the spring of theair (why does a deflated closed balloon expand in a vacuum tube?). Inorder to explain such phenomena, mechanism was altered by philosopher-scientists like Boyle, Charleton, Petty, and Newton to include particlesvariously endowed with powers of motion, attraction and repulsion.Clarke's position on the issue was radical: the various non-mechanicalpowers of particles are the result of direct divine or spiritual activity. Hecould not bring himself to accept active matter because he thought of it asa prelude to atheism for, as we noticed above, Clarke believed thatdenying God's continuous direct intervention in nature in effect amountsto eliminating him, as John Toland had done by endowing matter withessential autokynesis.

Although at war with mechanists and any philosopher who acceptedactive matter, Clarke was not a full-blown occasionalist. Unlike theoccasionalists, Clarke did not think that God was the real cause ofinteractions between finite minds and matter. Unlike Malebranche, Clarkedid not think that the God's sustaining the world in existence is equivalentto God's recreating it at each moment, which was one argumentMalebranche used to motivate occasionalism. Malebranche's other notableargument for occasionalism, that causation requires a necessaryconnection between the cause and the effect, is also not found in Clarke.Rather, Clarke argued for God's constant activity in the world frommatter's passivity and from the contingency (arbitrariness) of the lawsof nature.

Clarke's views, however, had their own problems. A God who is actuallyextended and constantly operates physically on matter lookedsuspiciously like the soul of the world, as Leibniz charged using Newton'sidentification (in the Opticks) of space as the sensorium of God.Similarly, the placement of gravitational forces within the purview ofordinary divine activity drew from Leibniz the accusation of

Samuel Clarke


ordinary divine activity drew from Leibniz the accusation ofobscurantism.

3.4 Soul

In 1706, Henry Dodwell published a book in which he defendedconditional immortality: our souls are naturally mortal and upon the deathof the body can be kept in existence only by divine supernaturalintervention. Clarke wrote an open letter to Dodwell complaining that hehad opened wide the floodgates to libertinism by providing an excuse forthe wicked not to fear eternal punishment. He then argued that the soul,being immaterial, is naturally immortal and gave his own version of thetraditional argument for the immateriality of the soul from the allegedunity of consciousness, insisting that not even God could endow matterwith consciousness.

Clarke's argument failed to convince Anthony Collins, who made nobones about his materialist leanings and intervened in defense ofDodwell. Clarke told Collins that if thinking in humans were a mode ofmatter, then it [would] be but too natural a consequence, to conceive thatit may be only the same thing in all other rational beings likewise; andeven in God himself. And what a notion of God this would give us, is notdifficult to imagine. For then, Clarke continued, every thinking being,including God, would be governed by absolute necessity, such as themotion of a clock or a watch is determined by (W III.851). The resultwould be the destruction of every possibility of self-determination and theundermining of the very foundations of religion.

The exchange with Collins makes clear that Clarke's argument for theimmateriality of the soul revolved around three basic claims, namely:

1. Necessarily consciousness is an individual power.2. An individual power cannot result from or inhere in a divisible

substance; or, alternatively, an individual power can only be



substance; or, alternatively, an individual power can only beproduced by or inhere in an individual being.

3. Matter is not, and cannot possibly be, an individual being.

The conclusion is that consciousness cannot possibly be the product of orinhere in matter (D 153; W III.795).

The first premise, Clarke explained, must be understood as expressing theobvious truth that consciousness is truly one undivided consciousness,and not a multitude of distinct consciousnesses added together (WIII.784). Collins accepted Clarke's first premise and was also ready toaccept the third premise, not with respect to matter per se, but withrespect to systems of matter such as the brain. However, he disagreedwith Clarke's claim that an individual power such as consciousness caninhere only in an individual subject, namely a being which, as Clarke putit, is perfectly and essentially one so that to suppose any division of itshall necessarily infer a destruction of the essence of that substance (D152; W III.795). Consequently, he disagreed with Clarke's contention thatonly an individual substance like an immaterial soul can be the subject ofconsciousness. Clarke's attempts to meet Collins' objections generated aninteresting and protracted controversy.

For Clarke, although the soul is necessarily immaterial, it can causallyaffect the body because material qualities such as figure and mobility arenegative qualities, deficiencies or imperfections which can be broughtabout by consciousness, which is a positive quality (D 41; W II.545). Onecan appreciate the theological, moral, and broadly philosophicalmotivations for such a position. He clearly wanted to leave the door openfor arguing that God, the maker of matter, is immaterial, and the claimthat a thinking immaterial substance can produce material modifications isan essential component of his argument. Moreover, for Clarke thecapacity of the soul to affect the body causally is a consequence of ourbeing endowed with liberty. In addition, Clarke was convinced that we

Samuel Clarke


being endowed with liberty. In addition, Clarke was convinced that weexperience the causal power by which we move our body. However, hisposition on whether the body causally affects the soul was less than clear.At times, he leaned towards the view that it does, and at others that it doesnot.

Collins not only rejected Clarke's argument from the unitary nature ofconsciousness to the immateriality of its subject, but also wondered howan immaterial substance like the soul can be indivisible if one assumes, asClarke had obliquely intimated, that it is extended. To Collins' apparentsurprise, instead of rejecting the view that the soul is extended, Clarkereplied that whether the soul is extended was immaterial to the issue athand. Moreover, as the parts of space or expansion itself candemonstrably be proved to be absolutely indiscerpible [indivisible], so itought not to be reckoned an insuperable difficulty to imagine that allimmaterial thinking substances (upon supposition that expansion is notexcluded out of their idea) may be so likewise (W III.763). The point isthat for Clarke space is extended and yet indivisible because of theinterdependence of its parts. All one has to do is to think of the soul as asubstance whose parts depend on each other, like those of space.

Clarke's reply to Collins is guarded, as he tries to separate the issue ofimmateriality from that of extension. He elsewhere is a bit moreforthcoming about the existence of extended, immaterial souls. As heeventually told Leibniz, the soul is in a particular place. This is becausehe was committed to two independent premises: first, that something canact only where it is substantially, and second, that the soul interacts withthe body. The conclusion is that the soul is substantially present where (atleast) a part of the body is.

Saying that the soul must be substantially present where a part of thebrain is does not fully determine how the soul is present. It certainly rulesout mere Cartesian operational presence, but it fails to determine whether



out mere Cartesian operational presence, but it fails to determine whetherthe soul's presence is to be understood in terms of holenmerism or interms of mere extension. (Holenmerism, coined by Henry More, is theview that the divine substance is wholly in the whole of space and whollyin each and every place, in a way analogous to the presence in space of aninstant of time.) However, there is cumulative evidence that for Clarkethe soul is merely coextended with a part of the brain. Clarke used ananalogy with space, which he took to be both extended and indivisible, toexplain how the soul could be extended and indivisible; but certainlyholenmerism does not apply to space. He did not address More's critiqueof holenmerism, as one would expect him to do had he adopted it. He didnot address Leibniz's accusation that the extension of the soul destroys itsunity by appealing to holenmerism; rather, he defended the claim that, ashe put is, the soul fills the sensorium. In sum, Clarke's views onfreedom, with their ties to morality and religion, together with his viewson causality, pushed him towards the thesis that the soul is extended.

4. Philosophical TheologyThis section reviews Clarke's key arguments in philosophy of religion andphilosophical theology. The topic of divine freedom was covered in theearlier section on free will, as well as in another entry in thisencyclopedia.

4.1 Arguments for the Existence of God

Clarke was interested in two general forms of argument for the existenceof God. He thought highly of the argument from design, largely becauseit is widely accessible and easily grasped. However, due to the rise ofatheistic systems of philosophy (which Clarke attributed to the materialisttendency in philosophy and physics that Descartes had helped to create,and which he most closely identified with Hobbes and Spinoza), it wasnecessary to give an argument that would satisfy his fellow

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necessary to give an argument that would satisfy his fellowmetaphysicians. This argument, which was known in Clarke's time as theargument a priori, occupies most of A Demonstration of the Being andAttributes of God, Clarke's first set of Boyle Lectures. It is often classifiedtoday as a cosmological argument, but it should not be confused with thekalam cosmological argument (which takes as a premise that the worldhas a finite history). Clarke's version belongs to another tradition ofcosmological argument that employs the principle of sufficient reason.The main lines of Clarke's argument a priori are as follows. (Note thatClarke's use of the term a priori is not that which has been standard sinceKant. Clarke considers his argument a priori not primarily because it isavailable independent of experience, but because it argues from the natureof the cause to the nature of the effect; this is in contrast with theargument a posteriori which works from the effects e.g., the design ofthe world to the cause e.g., the designer.)

Since something now exists, something always was. Otherwise nothingwould exist now because it is impossible for something to be produced bynothing. (Clarke does not explicitly acknowledge that something alwayswas is ambiguous between a stronger, de re reading and a weaker, dedicto reading. Since the stronger, de re claim seems unwarranted by theargument thus far and the next step of the argument is to establish thatthere is a single independent being, the more plausible and weaker dedicto claim can be assumed.) What has existed from eternity can only beeither an independent being, that is, one having in itself the reason of itsexistence, or an infinite series of dependent beings. However, such aseries cannot be the being that has existed from eternity because byhypothesis it can have no external cause, and no internal cause (nodependent being in it) can cause the whole series. Hence, an independentbeing exists. (As a side argument in the Demonstration, Clarke alsoargued that since space and time cannot be conceived not to exist andthey are obviously not self-subsistent, the substance on which theydepend, God, must exist necessarily as well.)



depend, God, must exist necessarily as well.)

This is as far as the argument can go by examining the nature of necessityand positing the contingency of the world. To reach the personal andmoral attributes of God, it is necessary to draw upon further features ofthe world. One real feature of the world is that there are intelligent beingsin it. But intelligence, being a perfection, must exist to at least as great adegree in the cause as in the effect. So God must be intelligent (D3839;W IV.543). This intelligence can also be established from the order andbeauty of the world, so a teleological argument can reach this conclusionas well.

Clarke attempted a variety of arguments to establish that God is an agent(that is, that God is not only intelligent but has a will that is free in alibertarian sense). First, Clarke claimed that intelligence without liberty is really (in respect of any power, excellence, or perfection) nointelligence at all, so therefore God must be an agent. Second, if Goddoes not have a free will then God is a necessary agent, which is acontradiction (an argument examined in our section on free will). Theperson positing a God without freedom (Clarke specifically mentionsSpinoza) is positing a contradiction and has failed to explain the source ofactivity in the world (D4647; W IV.548549). Furthermore, thenecessitarian (like Spinoza) is forced to deny a number of (to Clarke)obvious points, including that things could be different than they are, thatthere are final causes in the universe, and that there is any variety of finitethings in the universe (because an infinite, unfree cause can produce onlyinfinite effects).

Clarke offered arguments both a priori (e.g., God comprehends allnecessary relations between possible beings, and ethical truths arenecessary relations between beings) and a posteriori (e.g., the body iswonderfully made) to establish the wisdom of God. Since God knowswhat is best and can do what is best, it follows that God is good and just

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what is best and can do what is best, it follows that God is good and justand has all the other moral perfections, which again can be establishedboth a priori (by considering what a wise, omnipotent being would do)and a posteriori (by consulting our experience of the world).

Ultimately, Clarke rejected both the view that a word can refer both tohuman and divine properties only equivocally, and also the position that itcan do so only analogically. Instead, he adopted the Latitudinarian viewthat human and divine attributes, especially the moral ones, have the samenature, although God's are infinite.

4.2 God, Space, and Time

Clarke's most characteristic and controversial views about God concerneddivine eternity and immensity. According to traditional Christiantheology, God is eternal and immense (omnipresent). The claim that Godis eternal can be taken to mean two different things. In one sense, itmeans that God is a timeless being whose duration is not successive, withno before or after. In another sense, it means that God is sempiternal,namely, a being existing throughout time but whose duration is successiveand for whom there is a before and an after. Similarly, divine immensityor omnipresence can be understood in different ways. God can be taken tobe present everywhere by operation but not by situation; in other words,God is present by being in a place not as a human would be, but by actingthere: God fills a room by being the cause of the room and its contents ina way remotely analogous to that in which I can fill a glass by pouringwater in it. By contrast, one could claim that divine operational presencerequires situational presence and hold that the divine substance is, in somesense to be specified, coextended with what it fills. However, divineextension can itself be taken in two ways. It can be understood in terms oflocal extension; God, then, would be extended like, say, a stone orperhaps space are, with the proviso that God, unlike a stone, couldpenetrate all other extended things. Or, it can be understood in non-local



penetrate all other extended things. Or, it can be understood in non-localterms, in accordance with what More dubbed holenmerism.

Clarke was clear in making a few claims regarding God's relation to spaceand time, but less clear in explaining what those basic claims amountedto. Clarke's four central tenets are: (1) God is substantially present inspace and time. Therefore, the Scholastic view of divine eternity andimmensity is false. (2) By being substantially present, God is able to actat all times and in all places. (3) God is not identical to space or time;although necessary, they depend for their existence upon God. (4) God'simmensity and sempiternality are consistent with God's unity. We willunpack these ideas below.

God is substantially present in space and time. Therefore, the Scholasticview of divine eternity and immensity is false. Clarke rejected the view ofGod as substantially removed from space and time. Divine eternityinvolves both necessary existence and infinite duration which, however,could not be identified with the traditional notion of the eternal present(nunc stans) according to which God exists in an unchanging permanentpresent without any successive duration since, like Newton, he consideredsuch a view unintelligible at best and contradictory at worst. Theattribution of successive duration to God might suggest that God, like us,is in time but, unlike us, does not change. However, this was not Clarke'sview. For he made clear in his exchanges with Butler that God is nottechnically in space and time (because God is prior to time whereas thingsin time are metaphysically subsequent to the existence of time).Moreover, he attributed distinct and successive thoughts to God,otherwise God could not vary his will, nor diversify his works, nor actsuccessively, nor govern the world, nor indeed have any power to will ordo anything at all (W III.897). Hence, God is immutable with respect tohis will and his general and particular decrees only in the sense that hedoes not change his mind.

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Clarke's criticism of the Scholastic view of divine immensity oromnipresence was analogous to that of eternity: the claim that theimmensity of God is a point, as his eternity is an instant is, he held,unintelligible. However, while for Clarke God's temporal presence isanalogous to ours by involving temporal succession, his views aboutGod's spatial presence were somewhat less clear because he did notexplicitly state whether he adopted holenmerism or not. Nevertheless,there are good reasons for holding he did not. Clarke, without making anyreference to holenmerism, vigorously denied Leibniz's charge thatextension is incompatible with divine simplicity because it introducesparts in God, and this intimates that he thought of divine omnipresence interms of local extension and dimensionality. Nor did he attempt anydefense of holenmerism from More's famous critique, and in additionthere is some indirect contemporary evidence that Clarke took God to beliterally dimensional.[2]

By being substantially present, God is able to act at all times and in allplaces. To deny this would entail accepting action at a distance, whichClarke, like most of his contemporaries, found mysterious or impossible.

God is not identical to space or time; although necessary, they depend fortheir existence upon God. A common worry about absolute space in theeighteenth century was that if space is an infinite, necessary being theneither God is not the only infinite, necessary, and independent being orGod is identical to space, both of which were theologically unacceptable.Clarke rejected both of these implications. Clarke's position in theDemonstration and the letters to Butler is that space and time are divineproperties or modes. Since they depend on the only self-subsisting being,they are not independent beings. In the letter to an anonymous author(almost certainly Daniel Waterland) and in the Avertissement to PierreDes Maizeaux (the latter of which Newton had more than a hand in), heheld that they are not, strictly speaking, attributes but they are modes, tobe identified with God's immensity and eternality (D 122123, W



be identified with God's immensity and eternality (D 122123, WIV.758).[3] (Clarke is not clear on the difference between attributes andmodes, but he seems to reserve the term attribute for that which picksout the essential nature of a thing.) He told Leibniz that immensity andeternality are necessary effects of God's existence, without supplying anyargument to show that being an effect is equivalent to or compatible withbeing a mode.

God's immensity and sempiternality are consistent with God's unity. AsLeibniz and Waterland readily noted, the identification of divineimmensity with space endangers the simplicity of the divine beingbecause space has parts, albeit not separable ones. The objection, thoughformidable, was not new; Bayle in the Dictionnaire (entry Leucippus,remark G) had chided the Newtonians for identifying space with divineimmensity in order to solve the ontological problem created by thepositing of an infinite space, and had compared this solution toMalebranche's placement of intelligible extension in God, a movewhich, he claimed, Arnauld had shown to lead to the destruction of divinesimplicity. As a further point, Waterland suggests that since Clarkeaccepts that nothing with parts can be the subject of consciousness, God'simmensity also undermines divine intelligence and consciousness.

Clarke offered two solutions. First, not everything extended has parts.Since space is extended, but its parts cannot be removed, they are nottruly parts. Second, Clarke claimed parity between spatial and temporalextendedness: since the former is compatible with the simplicity of whatstretches temporally, the latter is compatible with the simplicity of whatstretches spatially. But the parity between space and time, were it to begranted, rather than showing that spatial extendedness is not detrimentalto a thing's simplicity because temporal extendedness is not, could betaken to show that the latter is detrimental to a thing's simplicity becausethe former is.

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4.3 Trinitarian Views

In his lifetime, Clarke was infamous for his heterodox view of the Trinity.In Christian theology, God is represented as tripartite, three persons butone God. In the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, in use in England duringClarke's lifetime, one of the liturgies draws from the Athanasian Creed,which includes the following discussion of the Trinity: For there is onePerson of the Father, another of the Son : and another of the Holy Ghost.But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is allone So the Father is God, the Son is God : and the Holy Ghost is God.And yet they are not three Gods: but one God. In his position as a cleric,Clarke was required to subscribe to this formulation. In 1712, apparentlyagainst the advice of his friends, he published The Scripture Doctrine ofthe Trinity, in which he diverged from what his opponents considered theplain sense of this formulation. The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinitybegins by collecting all the passages of the New Testament that relate tothe Trinity. It then sets out a series of 55 propositions regarding theTrinity, each supported by references to the texts collected in the firstsection. The third section relates these propositions to the Anglicanliturgy. This approach reflects Clarke's general expectation that thecorrect theological doctrines are found in the Bible and are compatiblewith reason. Through hundreds of years of what he considered badmetaphysics, the correct and intelligible doctrine of the trinity had becomeobscured, and Clarke hoped to return to a pre-Athanasian understandingof the trinity.

Clarke's position in The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity was labeled byhis opponents as Arian, Socinian, and Sabellian. Although theywere commonly used as abusive terms for anyone holding non-traditionalor anti-trinitarian views, they also have more precise meanings. An Arianholds that the Son (the second person of the Trinity) is divine but noteternal; he was created by God the Father out of nothing before thebeginning of the world. A Socinian holds that the Son is merely human



beginning of the world. A Socinian holds that the Son is merely humanand was created at or after the conception of Jesus. A Sabellian holds thatthe Son is a mode of God. In the precise use of the terms, Clarke is noneof these. Unlike the Arians, Clarke affirmed that the Son is co-eternalwith the Father and not created (W IV.141). From this it also follows that,contra the Socinians, the Son existed before the conception of Jesus.Unlike the Sabellians, Clarke denied that the Son was a mode of theFather. (This would have been very problematic given his insistence thatspace is a mode of God.) Clarke's claimed ignorance about substancemade him reluctant to declare that the Father and the Son were the samedivine substance, but the Son is endowed by the Father with all of thepower and authority of the Father. He also called the manner of the Son'sgeneration from the father to be ineffable.[4] What Clarke affirmed wasthat each member of the trinity was a person (which for Clarke alwaysmeans intelligent agent), but that only the Father had the attribute ofbeing self-existent. His views might best be described as subordinationist.

Clarke's publication of The Scripture Doctrine produced a flood ofresponses. Clarke was not officially censured (but nearly so), and it surelyprevented his rising to higher office. (For a summary of the responses, seeFerguson 1974. For more on Clarke's trinitarian views, see Pfizenmaier1997.)

4.4 Miracles

Like Joseph Glanville, Thomas Sprat, Boyle, and Locke, he belonged tothat group of English intellectuals associated with the Royal Society whothought that miracles could be used as evidence for the claim thatChristianity is the true religion. However, given that matter is inactive,God is actively involved in all or nearly all events in the world. What thencould separate out a particular action of God as miraculous? According toClarke, a miracle is a work effected in a manner unusualby theinterposition either of God himself, or of some intelligent agent superior

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interposition either of God himself, or of some intelligent agent superiorto man, for the proof or evidence of some particular doctrine, or inattestation to the authority of some particular person (W II.701). It is theunusualness of God's acting in a certain way rather than the way Godtypically acts that separates out an event as miraculous for Clarke.

Miracles became a point of controversy in the letters that passed betweenClarke and Leibniz. (Leibniz lists it as one of their five points ofcontention in his third letter [W IV.605].) One focus of the debate iswhich would be greater: a world so perfectly crafted that God does notneed to intervene to keep it running (Leibniz), or a world so dependent onGod that one cannot understand the world without recognizing itscontinual dependence on the operations of God (Clarke). A second focusof the debate is the proper understanding of a miracle: something thatexceeds the natural power of created things (Leibniz), or something thatseems different from our human expectation of how things operate(Clarke).

What follows is a summary of the Leibniz-Clarke dialectic regardingmiracles as it transpired in their correspondence. Leibniz's first letteraccuses Newton of making an imperfect machine that requires tuning tokeep it running, like a watch that requires winding; but this is unfitting aperfect God. In Newton's world, miracles are required in order to supplythe Wants of Nature (L1.4, W IV.588). In Newton's defense, Clarkeargues there is a disanalogy between the watch and the world. The watchrequires winding because a human watchmaker can only compose partsand put them in motion, whereas God is both the creator and preserver offorces and powers. On the offensive, Clarke charges those who denyGod's constant involvement in the world to be allowing a mechanicalworld, a world of Materialism and Fate, where God is not needed at all(C1.4, W IV.590) In response, Leibniz makes the interesting objectionthat Clarke is either explaining natural things by the supernatural, whichis an absurdity, or else God is a part of nature (specifically, the soul of the



is an absurdity, or else God is a part of nature (specifically, the soul of theworld) (L2.12, W IV.596). In his second reply, Clarke argues thatmiracles are miraculous only from a human perspective. Since God'swisdom and goodness are unchanging, if God chooses to act differently inthe world at a certain time (e.g., by changing the laws of motion), it isonly because it was always good to do so and was part of God's plan frometernity. Because it requires no more power for God to do the miraculous-to-us as to do the natural-to-us, neither one is with Respect to God, moreor less Natural or Supernatural than the other. From our perspective,God is changing the order of things. From God's perspective, everythingis equally a part of God's design. A miracle, then, is only a miracle withRegard to our Conceptions (C2.612, W IV.598601). In his final letter,Clarke elaborates on this, suggesting that we only call the sun stopping inthe sky miraculous because it is unusual; if it was always at the samepoint in the sky, then that would be natural, and its motion miraculous.Similarly, raising a dead body from the ground is miraculous, but onlybecause God does not usually act that way (C5.107109, W IV.693)

Leibniz's unhelpful response in his third letter is that theologians will sidewith him and not Clarke. Leibniz does present his own position onmiracles; they are that which exceed all the powers of creatures or cannotbe explained by the nature of bodies (L3.17, W IV.606). In his third reply,Clarke clarifies that something's being a miracle is not connected to beingimmediately effected by God rather than through body, but that it ismerely unusual. (C3.17, W IV.611612). In his fourth reply, he clarifiesthat unusualness is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being amiracle. He does not say what else is needed to qualify something as amiracle (C4.43, W IV.629630). In his final letter, Leibniz connects twoof his criticisms of Clarke and Newton: if everything God does is equallymiraculous or natural, then God's operations on the world are like thesoul's upon the body; so God is the soul of the world (L4.11011, WIV.666). Perhaps the criticism that goes deepest in explaining whattroubles Leibniz's philosophical sensibilities in Newton and Clarke's

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troubles Leibniz's philosophical sensibilities in Newton and Clarke'sproposal is in section 121 of Leibniz's fifth letter (W IV.668669). But itis regular, (says the Author,) it is constant, and consequently natural. Ianswer; it cannot be regular, without being reasonable; nor natural, unlessit can be explained by the Natures of creatures. Regularities requireexplanations, and to be natural, these explanations must come from thenatures of the creatures. The Clarkean picture, in which matter iscompletely passive, is incapable of explaining the regularities exhibited inthe interaction of material bodies in terms of those bodies. WhereasClarke saw this as the pinnacle of what natural science contributes tonatural theology, Leibniz saw it as a failure to exhibit a fully rationalworld suited to being created by a perfectly good God.

4.5 Revelation and the Four Categories of Deism

Clarke is very confident in the prospects of general revelation; that is, hethinks that human reason (if it is not corrupted by vicious habits) iscapable of discovering the existence of God as well as the attributes ofGod from the evidence of nature and the capacity of reason. Indeed,Christianity presupposes natural religion (W IV.582). Many theologicaland ethical truths (e.g., there is a God, that God is to be worshiped, it isgood to be just and righteous) are plainly understandable to everyone, andif one is mistaken in these matters 'tis not by his Understanding, but byhis Will that he is deceived. Every person has a conscience that discernsthe truths of morality. Truths that are important are easily known, andrequire only an unprejudiced apprehension, and an uncorrupt Will. Yetit is very common to oppose these truths; the most common causes are apresumptuous Ignorance, which despises Knowledge; carelessness,which leads to blindly following local customs; prejudice, which isrelying implicitly on others and traditions rather than an examination ofthe evidence; and vice, a willful opposition to the truth due to the love ofwickedness, debauchery, and power (W II.147160). The reasoneddefense of natural religion, although perhaps unable to sway the



defense of natural religion, although perhaps unable to sway theprejudiced, was central to Clarke's project.

Clarke's goal in the Boyle lectures was to carry those who were open toreason through the process of reasoning to the proper conclusions. Ofparticular interest to him were the deists, whom he thought could beconvinced to abandon their position, because deism is unstable. InClarke's taxonomy, there are four categories of deists (W II.600ff). If theywere to follow their position to its logical conclusion, three kinds of deistsend up as atheists and the fourth end up as Christians.

The first category of deist say they believe in an Eternal, Infinite,Independent, Intelligent Being that made the world, but this God is notinvolved in the governing of the world nor does God care for whathappens in it. This falls into atheism because the best science of the dayhas shown that the nature of matter is insufficient to ground the laws bywhich matter acts and thus requires the continuous dependence upon itsCreator, and also because a God that isn't concerned for what happens inthe world must be lacking in knowledge of what is happening, power toaffect what is happening, ability to act in the world, or wisdom to knowthat intervention is needed, and thus is not the God that the deist claimedto accept. The second category accept the role of providence in the world,but deny that God has moral attributes; ethics is a matter of humanconstruction. They fail to see, thinks Clarke, that ethics is a matter ofeternal, fixed relations and that to deny the moral attributes of God entailsthe denial of either God's wisdom or power. The third category affirmGod's moral attributes but deny the immortality of the human soul anddeny that moral terms apply univocally between God and humans, whichin practice leads to the denial of a future state after death. Clarke claimsthat this explodes all the attributes of God so that we no longer knowwhat we are saying when we talk about God. Finally, some deists hold allthe right theological and ethical doctrines, but claim that they know thissolely on the basis of general revelation and thus have no need of a

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solely on the basis of general revelation and thus have no need of aspecial, Christian revelation. Clarke suspects that this fourth category ofdeists no longer exist, at least in lands where Christianity has reached, butincludes those who lived prior to Jesus and were hopeful of such arevelation.

5. EthicsAlthough some of his sermons contain interesting analyses of individualChristian virtues, the most sustained exposition of Clarke's ethics iscontained in A Discourse concerning the Unalterable Obligations ofNatural Religion and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation,his second set of Boyle Lectures. Clarke started by stating that clearlythere are different relations among persons and that from these relationsthere arise a fitness or unfitness of behavior among persons. So, forexample, given the relation of infinite disproportion between humans andGod, it is fit that we honor, worship, and imitate the Lord. In other words,from certain eternal and immutable factual relations among persons therearise certain eternal and immutable obligations, which in their broadfeatures can be rationally apprehended by anyone with a sound mind,although in some entangled cases we may be at a loss in clearlydemarcating right from wrong. Being grounded in necessary relations,morality, like geometry, is universal and necessary. As such, it isindependent of any will, be it divine or human, and of any considerationof punishment or reward. Clarke's view thus far can be characterized as avariety of rationalist deontology.

Morality has three main branches dealing with duties toward God, otherhumans, and oneself. Duties toward others are governed by equity, whichdemands that one deal with other persons as one can reasonably expectothers to deal with one, and by love, which demands that one further thehappiness of all persons. Duties towards oneself demand that one preserveone's life and spiritual well being so as to be able to perform one's duties.



one's life and spiritual well being so as to be able to perform one's duties.Since God's will is uncorrupted by self-interest or passion, divinevolitions and moral commands are extensionally equivalent. Hence, Godwants us to follow morality, and such a desire is manifested in laws Godhas set up. But since laws require sanctions, and since such sanctions arenot uniformly present in this life, moral laws are associated with rewardand punishment in the next life. Moreover, human depravity makes theprospect of future sanctions a necessary incentive for proper behavior.

However, Clarke seemed prepared to go further, claiming against theStoics and Cicero that in our present state virtue is not the highest good(this being happiness), and that consequently it would be unreasonable,not just psychologically difficult, to lay down one's life for the sake ofduty. Virtue, Clarke claimed, is not happiness but only a means to it, as ina race running is not itself the prize but the way to obtain it. The presentsorry state of mankind, beset by ignorance, prejudice, and corruptpassions renders divine revelation necessary, contrary to what deists think,and therefore the remaining lectures are mainly devoted to establishingthe reliability of the Gospels.

Clarke's theory has been criticized on several grounds. He never quiteexplained what is the nature of the relations among persons that groundmorality, leaving his followers and detractors to argue inconclusivelyabout it. Nor is it clear how moral obligation arises from such de facto,albeit eternal, relations, although Clarke is hardly alone in facing thisproblem. Hume famously charged Clarke's theory with motivationalimpotence because the intellectual perception of fitness cannot, byitself, move the will. However, as we saw, Clarke denied that evaluationis causally linked to motivation, although he clearly thought thatevaluation provides the agent, who ultimately causes the volition, withreasons for action.

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Additionally, Clarke's theory suffers from structural problems. Firstly, itis not very clear what it is in the Nature and Reason of Things that isnecessary. Is it that good is necessarily not evil? (Which seems to be ananalytic truth.) Is it that one thing cannot be both good from oneperspective and evil from another? (In which case, Clarke would beresponding to Hobbes or maybe Spinoza.) Is it that whatever is good isnecessarily good? (In which case, he is perhaps restating his opposition todivine command theory.) Is it something else? Clarke's position is notclear, but he does seem to affirm each of these interpretations at differenttimes. Secondly, Clarke moves back and forth between the claim thatethical truths are relations between mind-independent objects in theworld, and that they are grounded in the nature of rationality itself.Finally, as Tindal noted, Clarke's rationalist strand hardly fits with hisinsistence on the need for Christian revelation, since his argumentsestablishing the reliability of scripture seem to require much moreintellectual effort than the apprehension of our moral duties. Indeed, asTindal reasonably claimed by approvingly quoting Leibniz's claim thatthe Chinese should send us missionaries in natural theology and itssubsequent morality, revelation is neither necessary nor sufficient forproper moral behavior even for common people. Hence, how theobligations stemming from natural religion prepare the way for revelationis, to put it mildly, unclear.

Clarke's negative assessment of Hobbes' account of political and moralobligation is more promising. Among his many criticisms, he argues thata contract cannot be obligatory unless there were already an obligation toobey contracts; if a contract benefits the community then there are realbenefits prior to the contract so the contract does not generate benefitsand harms; it is a contradiction for everyone to have a right to the samething in the state of nature; and if power is to be obeyed then an all-powerful devil should be obeyed, which is absurd (W II.609-616, 631638).



6. InfluenceClarke's influence on his contemporaries and the generation that followedwas immense, but it had diminished significantly by the dawn of thenineteenth century. One important aspect of his immediate influence wasthat as the translator of the standard textbook in physics in England in theearly eighteenth century, as the defender of absolute space and atomism inthe correspondence with Leibniz, as the translator of Newton's Opticksinto Latin, and as a recognized close friend of Newton, Clarke wasperhaps the most significant spokesperson for the Newtonian naturalphilosophy, and a primary interpreter of its implications for metaphysics,philosophy of science, and theology. In particular, his use of the passivityand scarcity of matter in his argument for the existence of God was notedby his contemporaries internationally. Voltaire declared, Among thesephilosophers [the last generation of British philosophers], Clarke isperhaps altogether the clearest, the most profound, the most methodical,and the strongest of all those who have spoken of the Supreme Being(Philosophical Dictionary, Plato, Sect. 17]. Voltaire as a young manseems to have been particularly impressed with Clarke. Later in life,Voltaire seems to have been less convinced by Clarke's argument for theexistence of God on the basis of Newton's philosophy. This same pathseems to have been followed by Rousseau.

Clarke's influence was greatest in England and Scotland, where all of hisworks were widely read and propagated by many writers and universityinstructors. Among those who approved of Clarke's methodology andadopted many of his positions, Joseph Butler and Thomas Reid are themost well known today. Clarke's ethics were defended by CatharineTrotter Cockburn and attacked by Hutcheson and Hume. Hume clearlyhas Clarke in mind in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, whereDemea recites the argument a priori and both Cleanthes and Philo offercritiques. It has also been proposed that Clarke is a major target of Book I

Samuel Clarke


critiques. It has also been proposed that Clarke is a major target of Book Iof Hume's Treatise, but this is less widely held.

Clarke continued to influence philosophers in the eighteenth andnineteenth century that had interests in the intersection of theology andphilosophy, particularly in the issue of the freedom of the will. JonathanEdwards singled out Clarke as a major opponent in his Freedom of theWill, where Edwards runs together libertarianism with Arminian theology.This same libertarianism made Clarke popular among the GermanPietists. Among them, Crusius is the most notable, both for his work andfor his importance to Kant.

BibliographyPrimary Literature

W Clarke, S., 1738, The Works, London 1738; reprint New York:Garland Publishing Co.

D Vailati, E., (ed.), 1998, Samuel Clarke. A Demonstration of theBeing and Attributes of God And Other Writings, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

See also:

Ariew, R., (ed.), 2000, G. W. Leibniz and Samuel Clarke.Correspondence, Indianapolis: Hackett.

Secondary Literature

Attfield, R., 1977, Clarke, Collins and Compounds, Journal of theHistory of Philosophy, 15: 4554., 1993, Clarke, Independence and Necessity, British Journalfor the History of Philosophy, 1: 6782.



for the History of Philosophy, 1: 6782.Ducharme, H., 1986, Personal Identity in Samuel Clarke, Journalof the History of Philosophy, 24: 35983.Ferguson, J.P., 1976, An Eighteenth Century Heretic: Dr. SamuelClarke, Kineton, UK: Roundwood Press., 1974, The Philosophy of Dr Samuel Clarke and its Critics, NewYork: Vantage Press.Force, J., 1996, Samuel Clarke's Four Categories of Deism, IsaacNewton, and the Bible, in R. Popkin (ed.), Scepticism in the Historyof Philosophy, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 5374.Gay, J., 1963, Matter and Freedom in the Thought of SamuelClarke, Journal of the History of Ideas, 24: 85105.Harris, J., 2005, Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate inEighteenth-Century British Philosophy, Oxford: Clarendon Press.Khamara, E. J., 1992, Hume Versus Clarke on the CosmologicalArgument, The Philosophical Quarterly, 42(166): 3455.Le Rossignol, J.E., 1892, The Ethical Philosophy of Samuel Clarke,Leipzig.Mijuskovic, B.L., 1974, The Achilles of Rationalist Arguments, TheHague: M. Nijhoff.O'Higgins, J., (ed.), 1976, Determinism and Freewill: AnthonyCollins' A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty, TheHague: M. Nijhoff.Pfizenmaier, T. C., 1997, The Trinitarian Theology of Dr. SamuelClarke (16751729): Context, Sources, and Controversy, New York:Brill.Rowe, W.R., 1975, The Cosmological Argument, Princeton:Princeton University Press., 1987, Causality and Free Will in the Controversy BetweenCollins and Clarke, The Journal of the History of Philosophy, 25:5167.

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Russell, P., 2008, The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism,Naturalism, and Irreligion, New York: Oxford University Press.Stephen, L., and Lee, S., (eds.), 1882, Dictionary of NationalBiography London; reprint London: Oxford University Press, 194950, sub voce.Stewart, L., 1981, Samuel Clarke, Newtonianism and the Factionsof Post-revolutionary England, Journal of the History of Ideas 42:5371.Vailati, E., 1990, Clarke's Extended Soul, Journal of the History ofPhilosophy, 28: 21328., 1997, Leibniz and Clarke: A Study of their Correspondence,New York: Oxford University Press.Whiston, W., 1730, Historical Memoirs of the Life of Dr. SamuelClarke, London; scanned version available online.Yolton, J.W., 1983, Thinking Matter: Materialism in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Other Internet ResourcesSamuel Clarke, catalog of the Galileo Project, maintained by AlbertVan Helden, Rice University.

Related EntriesCollins, Anthony | cosmological argument | deism | divine freedom |eternity | free will | God: concepts of | Hobbes, Thomas | Hume, David:on religion | Hume, David: on free will | Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm |Locke, John | miracles | naturalism | Newton, Isaac | Newton's philosophy| Spinoza, Baruch | trinity

Notes to Samuel Clarke



1. As with other theological matters, Newton may have held similar viewsto Clarke about the nature of matter, space, and Gods role in the world,but he was hesitant to draw these conclusions publicly. Similar views doappear in Newtons private correspondence (e.g., letters to Bentley onDecember 10, 1692 & January 17, 1693).

2. Collins mentions More, Turner, and Clarke among the supporters of thedimensional extension of God: A. Collins, A Discourse of Free Thinking(London, 1713), pp. 47-8.

3. P. Des Maizeaux, Recueil de diverses picespar Mrs. Leibniz,Clarke, Newton, & autre autheurs celbres (Amsterdam, 1720), tome 1, p.v. Koyr and Cohen have shown that the Avertissement was written byNewton by publishing the several drafts by his own hand. However, asthey themselves point out, there is no reason to doubt that Clarkecontributed to it. See their Newton & the Leibniz-ClarkeCorrespondence, Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences 15(1962), 63-126, especially 95.

4. See especially Prop. XXV (W IV.150); Prop. XXVII (W IV.151); Prop.XXXIV (W IV.155).

Copyright 2009 by the authors Ezio Vailati and Timothy Yenter

Samuel Clarke


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