John Toland 1670 – 1722
John Toland was an Irish-born freethinker, political pamphleteer, and one of the most controversial English-language philosophers of the early Enlightenment. Educated at Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leiden, and Oxford, he wrote in support of religious tolerance, a free press, and the constitutional achievements of the Glorious Revolution. His Christianity Not Mysterious, published in 1696, argued that there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to reason or above it and provoked one of the great controversies of early Enlightenment religion. His Pantheisticon, written for an imagined philosophical society, popularized the word pantheism in something like its modern sense.
Key facts
- Nationality
- Irish
- Era
- Modern
- Movements
- Empiricism, Early Modern
Selected quotes
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Whatever is contrary to reason can be no part of true religion.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“All matter is essentially active.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Pantheism is the worship of the universe as the only divine.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“A free press is the surest defence of a free people.”
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Attributed to John Toland:
“Mystery has too often been used to disguise the absence of meaning.”