William Warburton and The Eighteenth Century English Enlightenment

Abstract

English Enlightenment was a form of enlightenment in the eighteenth century Europe and it has a peculiar character like other forms. It was trying to preserve the existing order and at the same time it was to support rationalism, individual free will and the advance of natural science by means of its attitude toward religion. However, 18th century Britain was a period in which religious controversies were regarded as direct perils both to the authority of church and state. Although English Enlightenment was emerged as a movement against the sole authority of religion like other places in Europe, it also witnessed the attempts of reconciling the civil authority and the ecclesiastical authority and the re-establishment of the Anglican Church as the established church by means of the influential Anglicans. English Enlightenment that gained a character under these conditions was affected by the intellectuals’ attempts to make an alliance between rationalism and religious enthusiasm and state and church. In this paper, these attempts are investigated through the works of one of the most influential character of the period; William Warburton. I aim to explore the reasons why an alliance between church and state emerged for maintaining the political and social order in the long eighteenth century. For this end, Warburton’s Christian interpretation of the English Enlightenment was examined and finally his reformation plan, which was introduced to support Enlightenment ideas and to preserve the power of the church and the state all at once were studied.