ABSTRACT
A radical shift in thinking took place in the seventeenth century, giving rise to skepticism about the foundations of theology. This chapter considers a variety of themes related to atheism in diverse ways: socinianism, theological disputes, idolatry, the secularization of ethics, the scientific revolution, skepticism, and biblical criticism. Berkeley's efforts to establish idealism and thwart religious skepticism failed miserably. He was led to another attempt with his Theory of Vision Vindicated, which is of interest in this chapter because of its assessment of what he was trying to refute and the causes of his failure, all of which he traced to the seventeenth century. The issue of idolatry furnishes how the logic of theistic internecine dispute paved the way to religious skepticism. Popkin's thesis is that theological disputes in the time of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation centered on a religious variation of an issue at the heart of skepticism, namely the criterion of truth.
