Abstract

'Where Christian apologetics are concerned, is Locke to be endorsed, modified or forsaken?' The diverse answers given to this question by the eighteenth-century divines form the complex subject of this book, which offers the first detailed account of his influence upon the religious thinkers of the eighteenth century. The work is based upon a thorough search of relevant materials, many of them scarce and widely dispersed. But the question is still relevant three centuries after Locke's death, and Professor Sell's objective in this volume is not only historical. From this study of the reception of Locke by the divines there emerge pressing questions about method, reason, faith, revelation and authority which need to be addressed by those who would attempt Christian apologetics as Christianity's third millennium approaches.