## 1. Life and Works



Samuel Clarke was born on October 11, 1675, in Norwich, England to
Edward Clarke (a cloth merchant, alderman, and representative in
Parliament) and Hannah, daughter of Samuel Parmenter, a merchant
(Hoadly 1730, i). He took his B.A. degree at Cambridge in 1695 by
defending Newton's views, which were not yet widely accepted.
His oral defense "suprized the Whole Audience, both for the
Accuracy of Knowledge, and Clearness of Expression, that appeared
through the Whole" (Hoadly 1730, iii-iv).



His tutor, Sir John Ellis, a Cartesian, apparently encouraged Clarke
to provide a new annotated Latin translation of
Rohault's *Treatise of Physics*. The 1697 translation
included Clarke's Newtonian notes that criticized
Rohault's Cartesian text. The edition's success rapidly
expanded the understanding of Newtonian physics, and later editions
became the standard physics textbook in England. In that same year,
Clarke befriended William Whiston, who probably introduced Clarke into
the Newtonian circle. These early years show Clarke's interest in
theology as well; he published *Three practical essays on baptism,
confirmation, and repentance* (1699), *A Paraphrase on the Four
Evangelists* (1701-1702), and *Some Reflections on that
Part of a Book called Amyntor* (1699), a response to John
Toland's critique of the New Testament canon. These all
demonstrate Clarke's early interest in "primitive Christianity"
(Christianity as practiced and believed in its first two hundred
years), which would be central to his theological vision and would
lead to the confrontations over the doctrine of the trinity in the
1710s.



The middle years of his career mark his greatest philosophical
contributions, beginning with the Boyle lectures (delivered 1704 and
1705). The first, an attempt to prove the existence of God, along with
all divine attributes, was published as *A Demonstration of the
Being and Attributes of God* (1705) and the second, a continuation
intended to establish all fundamental moral truths and most religious
doctrine, as *A discourse concerning the unchangeable obligations
of natural religion, and the truth and certainty of the Christian
revelation* (1706). They both went through many editions and were
often published together. These lectures, established by Robert Boyle
to promote natural religion based on the latest scientific
developments, were closely watched, and Clarke instantly became one of
the most well known philosophers in England. Also in 1706, his
association with Newton became official when he translated the
*Opticks* into Latin. In the meantime, he had been introduced
to Queen Anne, who made him one of her chaplains in 1706, and three
years later he was elevated to the rectory of St. James's,
Westminster. After the Hanoverian accession, Clarke developed a close
relationship with Caroline of Ansbach, the Princess of Wales and
future queen. His prominence as a philosopher drew him into a series
of very public exchanges of letters. The most notable of these were
the letters to Anthony Collins (1707-1708) and the letters to
Leibniz (1715-1716) (see below).



In the later years of his life, Clarke published popular works of
theology, notable translations of Caesar, and a royally appointed
translation of the *Iliad*. Each of his major publications went
through multiple editions, often with substantial revision. He died in
1729 after a very short illness, consistent with a stroke (Sykes 1729,
10). He was survived by his wife Katherine and five of his seven
children. Clarke was a polite and courtly man, vivacious with his
friends, and reportedly fond of playing cards.


### 1.1 Authorship in the Correspondence with Leibniz



Before Caroline of Ansbach became the Princess of Wales, she was
tutored by Leibniz. Leibniz did not join her in England, and they
corresponded across the channel. In one of these letters he attacked
prominent views in England that Leibniz considered dangerous to
natural religion. After mentioning materialism and Lockean doubts
about the soul, Leibniz chastises Newton twice. (Newton and Leibniz
had sparred earlier over the priority of discovery of the calculus.)
Clarke, who with Newton was attending Caroline's court, came to
Newton's defense. A series of five letters passed through
Caroline between Leibniz and Clarke over a wide range of issues.
Caroline is significant not only for her contributions to framing the
debate for each correspondent but also as an important context for
understanding the letters (Meli 1999). Leibniz is trying to maintain
Caroline's commitment to his system, while Newton and especially the
more sociable Clarke are working to convert her with arguments and
experimental demonstrations in person. She continued to challenge
Clarke and pledge loyalty to Leibniz until his death, but starting
around the time of the third letter, it seems that Clarke had won her
over at least to the existence of the vacuum, which would be difficult
to maintain without going for the rest of the Clarkean-Newtonian
picture (Brown 2004, 93-98).



Today the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence is easily Clarke's most
often read work, which is unfortunately usually published without the
cover letters to and from Caroline. However, there has long been a
dispute over Newton's role in the authorship of the letters.
Leibniz suspected and Caroline confirmed that Newton at least read
Clarke's letters before sending them and provided
"advice" (Alexander 1956, 189 and 193; Brewster 1855,
287-288). Since then, scholarly opinion has ranged from
Newton's ghostwriting all the letters himself (Koyre and
Cohen 1961, 560ff) to Clarke writing the letters and merely showing
them to Newton to make sure there was no disagreement over the
scientific information (Vailati 1997, 4-5). This point is not
easily decidable, in part because Newton and Clarke were neighbors and
thus almost no correspondence survives between them, presumably since
they would meet in person. Current opinion has shifted toward
attributing most of the philosophical arguments to Clarke, with the
blessing of Newton, a move sparked in part by a reappraisal in recent
years of Clarke's status as an original philosopher.



In reading the letters to Leibniz, it is helpful to remember that the
views being defended might not belong only to Clarke or only to
Newton, so attribution to a single figure might be misguided. What we
have might be the intersection of their views, or they might be views
that Newton held privately but did not yet want to avow publicly, or
they might be a mixture of some of Clarke's views and some of
Newton's views. In some cases, we can see links to other
publications by Newton and Clarke. For instance, space as a
*sensorium* (organ of sensation) of God, which Leibniz
ridiculed in his first letter to Caroline, appeared first in
Newton's *Principia* and *Opticks* and not in
Clarke's other works. (Clarke tries to argue that Newton does
not believe that space is the *sensorium* of God, but
Koyre and Cohen [1961, 563-566] argue that Newton did
believe it and tried to disguise or soften the view in publication.)
Also, there are arguments based on the principle of sufficient reason,
which Clarke employed in his Boyle lectures twelve years earlier, but
do not play a role in Newton's publications. Other cases are
more difficult to connect to Newton's and Clarke's other
works, such as the famous passage in which space is called "an
immediate and necessary consequence of the existence of God,"
since "consequence" is not a term usually used by either
Clarke or Newton on this issue.


## 2. Major Themes in Clarke



Three major themes run through all of Clarke's philosophical
works: Newtonianism, anti-naturalism, and rationalism.


### 2.1 Newtonianism and Anti-Naturalism



There is a widespread agreement that Newton influenced Clarke. Newton
was thirty years Clarke's senior, and their relationship (post-1704)
might best be thought of as a mentorship. Newton and Clarke likely
held similar views about God's role in the world, but Newton was
hesitant to state these positions publicly, and he may have used the
Boyle lectures to promote these views (Force 1984; 522-526).
Many have thought he supported Clarke's interpretations and
defenses on matters scientific and also theological (Jacob 1976; 242).
In private correspondence, such as the letters to Bentley of December
10, 1692, and January 17, 1693, he entertains views similar to those
that Clarke would later proclaim. Whiston (1728) reports that when
asked why he did not publicly announce them, Newton said, "He
saw those Consequences; but thought it better to let his Readers draw
them first of themselves," at least until the "General
Scholium" was published in later editions of the
*Principia*. However, it is also possible that Clarke
influenced Newton. Newton, at least, endorsed publicly views that had
been previously published by Clarke, especially in the "General
Scholium" of 1713, which was seen to endorse Clarkean arguments
about the nature of God (Stewart 1996; Snobelen 2001, 14-18).



On scientific, philosophical, and especially theological grounds,
Clarke believed Newtonian natural philosophy to be superior to all
alternatives. Clarke saw in Newtonianism a world that could only exist
by a free act of God. Matter is dispersed sparingly throughout empty
space, gravity is universal to matter but not inherent in it, and the
universe is ordered according to rules that are neither absolutely
necessary nor chaotic. Clarke concluded that the laws of nature do not
describe the powers of matter, which is just dead mass constantly
pushed around, but modalities of operation of the divine power.
Clarke's position is similar to that of the occasionalists, who
also denied that matter had the power to move itself and that the only
thing with such power is God. Matter has no power of self-motion, so
to explain motion, one must appeal to immaterial souls (divine and
human). Thus, nature is not a self-sufficient system; without direct
and constant divine physical intervention planets would fly away from
their orbits and atoms would break into their components. Thus, the
naturalist attempt to describe the world solely by the arrangement and
matter in motion is doomed to failure on scientific and metaphysical
grounds and must give way to a world with an active God. This is why
"the foundations of natural religion had never been so deeply
and firmly laid, as in the mathematical and experimental philosophy of
that great man" (W4.582). Newton's natural philosophy could
thus be the argumentative basis for Clarke's preferred religious and
social views (Stewart 1981).



For three decades, Clarke was the leading voice on the metaphysical
and theological implications of Newtonianism, confirmed when Newton
himself seemed to endorsed publicly the fundamentals of Clarke's
interpretation in the revisions to the *Principia*.


### 2.2 Rationalism



Clarke adopted some form of rationalism in metaphysics, ethics, and
theology, as exhibited in his methodology, his account of ethical
truths, and in his acceptance of a fundamental rationalist principle,
the principle of sufficient reason. The principle of sufficient reason
was used both in Clarke's positive metaphysical arguments and was
assumed in his arguments against other philosophers, especially
Spinoza, whom he chastises for failing to explain the diversity of
things that exist (Yenter 2014).



Clarke is also an ethical rationalist. Ethical truths are discoverable
through reason and correspond to necessary and eternal relations among
things in the world. He also calls ethical truths "truths of
reason." His theology is also rationalist, in that through
reason one can discover the many truths contained in natural religion.
Furthermore, true Christian doctrines are neither mysterious nor
self-contradictory, and nearly all can be comprehended by human
beings.



Most importantly, the *Demonstration* makes great use of the
principle of sufficient reason, which motivates the cosmological
argument, and he explicitly and repeatedly avows it in the
correspondence with Leibniz (C 3.2, W 4.606). It is not mentioned in
the correspondence with Collins, but he there adopts principles that
can be derived from it. Clarke's understanding of the principle
of sufficient reason differs notably from Leibniz's formulation,
with whom it is more frequently associated. This was a major source of
contention in their correspondence. Clarke asserts that the sufficient
reason why something exists as it does may be due to the "mere
Will" of God and nothing more (C 3.2, W 4.606-607; C
5.124-130, W 4.700). This involves two claims. First, in cases
of complete indifference (such as God choosing where to place the
world in the infinite expanse of absolute space), God is capable of
acting even if there is no reason to prefer one option over another.
Second, a free will is able to refrain from acting on what reason
presents to it as best to do. As a consequence of these, Clarke denies
the identity of indiscernibles. This is significant for Clarke's
Newtonianism, because if space is real and absolute, then the identity
of indiscernibles must be false because regions of space are
indiscernible with respect to their intrinsic and (prior to the
creation of the world) their extrinsic properties. Clarke may also
have felt the need to accommodate indiscernible atoms, which Newton
seemed to allow. (Clarke defends atomism in the letters to Leibniz,
but in his other works he claims that all matter is infinitely
divisible.) Because Clarke denies the identity of indiscernibles and
affirms libertarianism, Leibniz claims that Clarke grants the
principle of sufficient reason "only in Words, and in reality
denies it. Which shews that he does not fully perceive the Strength of
it" (L 3.2, W 4.601). In response, Clarke argues that if Leibniz
is right then a free agent would be merely passive because determined
to do what reason presents, but a "passive agent" is a
contradiction since the concept of agency includes the concept of
activity. Leibniz was never satisfied with Clarke's position and by
the fifth letter he was more explicit than previously that the
principle of sufficient reason and the principle of the identity of
indiscernibles are not independent but the latter is derived from the
former (L 5.21), and in the fifth letter's cover letter, sent to
Princess Caroline, Leibniz asserts, "If [Clarke] does not entirely
accept the received great principle that nothing happens without there
being a sufficient reason why it happens thus rather than otherwise, I
could not help doubting his sincerity, and if he grants it then
farewell to the philosophy of Monsieur Newton" (quoted in Khamara
2006, 4).



Clarke's rationalism is tempered by his discussions of faith in
reason, especially in his writings against the Deists. Against the
Deists, who generally expected all necessary moral and religious
truths to be discoverable by reason, Clarke asserted that revealed
religion (also called special revelation) provided information
necessary for salvation (W 2.666-667). While special revelation
involved "supplying the deficiencies" of "right reason," it
could not contradict reason (W 2.669).


## 3. Metaphysics


### 3.1 Absolute and Infinite Space and Time



According to Clarke, the ideas of space and time are the two
"first and most obvious simple Ideas, that every man has in his
mind" (D 114, W 2.752), anticipating the first step in an
argument made famous by Kant. Drawing on an argument from Newton
(1726, 410), he argued that while matter can be thought of as
non-existing, space exists necessarily because "to suppose any
part of space removed, is to suppose it removed from and out of
itself: and to suppose the 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 in terms" (D 13, W 2.528).
Space is also not an aggregate of its parts but an essential whole
preceding all it parts.



Absolute space was allegedly demanded by Newtonian physics. Space is
an entity in which things are, and not the mere absence of matter. All
finite beings occupy an absolute position in space and time that we
may or may not be able to establish because we have no direct access
to absolute space and time. Although space is not sensible, Clarke
rejected its identification with nothingness, since space has
properties: quantity and dimension, and perhaps homogeneity,
immutability, continuity, and the ability to contain matter. Law
(1758, 10) objects that this makes no more sense than saying that
darkness has qualities because it has the property of receiving
light.



Clarke believed that space is necessarily infinite because "to
set bounds to space, is to suppose it bounded by something which
itself takes up space" or else that "it is bounded by
nothing, and then the idea of that nothing will still be space,"
and both suppositions are contradictory (D 115, W 2.753). Clarke
apparently thought that what has a boundary must be bounded by
something 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 the presence of something external bounding it (Vailati 2006,
111). One possible solution is to appeal to space's peculiar
nature as a property of an infinite God, which would require that it
be boundless in virtue of God's possible activity being
boundless (W 1.47), but this might reverse the proper order of
explanation or beg the question. (For more on the relationship of God
to space, see Section 4.2 below.) He also argues that because
existence or being is a perfection, existing in more places is a
greater perfection, so God (as the most perfect being) must exist in
all places (W 1.46-47). Another possible solution is to appeal
to the principle of sufficient reason: any finite limit would be
arbitrary, and thus in violation of the principle. Establishing the
infinity of space is important to Clarke's argument that space
exists outside of us, because our ideas are always finite (Watts 1733,
4).


### 3.2 Free Will



Clarke attached great importance to the issue of free will, and he may
have introduced the modern philosophical meaning of the term
"agency" (Schneewind 1997, 313). In his philosophical
writings, he argues that freedom of the will involves a libertarian
power of self-determination. However, in the sermon "Of the
Liberty of Moral Agents," he claims that the "True liberty
of a Rational and Moral Agent" is "being able to follow
*right Reason only*, without Hindrance or Restraint" (W
1.219). Similarly, in that sermon Clarke calls acting as one pleases
"mere *physical* or
*natural* liberty" (which humans and non-human animals
have), so he seems to accept a definition of liberty that is
compatibilist (W 1.218). Elsewhere he argues that human freedom
requires a self-determining will that could freely assent or refrain
from assenting to the mind's judgments; this is a freedom of
choosing and not a freedom of acting, such that a prisoner in chains
"who chooses or endeavors to move out of his place is therein as
much a free agent as he that actually moves out of his place" (D
75, W 2.566). Clarke does not explicitly reconcile these
incompatibilist and compatibilist approaches. One way to do so is to
make the libertarian power of self-determination a necessary condition
for the compatibilist understanding of freedom as following reason
without restraint. Clarke also entertains a third notion of freedom:
freedom is "a principle of acting, or power of beginning motion,
which is the idea of liberty" (D 54, W 2.553). The ability to
begin motion marks freedom as a power only held by non-material
agents, because matter has no power of self-motion. This third
definition is libertarian and is probably the most important of the
three to Clarke's project (Harris 2005, 46-61; Greenberg 2013,
249-251).



Clarke's primary defense of libertarian freedom involves
clarifying the relationship between the will and the judgment. In
order to will, one must have a judgment about what to do and the power
to choose in accordance with that judgment. This power to choose is
provided by the will. The will is not to be identified with the last
judgment of the understanding nor is it a volition caused by a judgment.
Those (like Hobbes) who thought so were guilty of basic philosophical
errors. If they maintained that the content of the evaluative
proposition is either identical with the volition or causes it, then
they were confusing the "moral motive" with the
"physical efficient," the physical efficient being the
element of the cause that provides the active power (D 73, W 2.565).
Because the moral motive is simply an abstract object (a proposition)
and abstract objects are causally inert, the moral motive cannot cause
anything. On the other hand, if Clarke's opponents maintained
that, not the evaluative proposition, but one's perceiving,
judging or otherwise believing it is the cause (or a partial cause) of
volition, then they were falling foul of a basic causal principle.
Against Descartes, Clarke insisted that judging, i.e., assenting to
what appears true and dissenting from what appears false, is not an
action but a passion. But what is passive cannot cause anything
active. So, there is no causal link between evaluation and volition,
or, as Clarke put it, between "approbation and action" (D
126, W 4.714). In general, there is no causal link between previous
non-volitional mental states, all of which are passive, and any
volition (Vailati 1997, 82-84).



Jonathan Edwards (1754, 222-223) argued that Clarke was
committed to an infinite regress of volitions. Because each volition
is active, it must be caused by something active; but every other
purported motivation is passive, so each volition is caused by a
previous volition, and so on *ad infinitum*. However, Clarke
did not believe that each volition was caused by a previous volition,
but rather each volition is caused by the will itself. This raises a
different problem, noticed by Leibniz: because the conditions for the
will choosing in accordance with the judgment are exactly the same as
when it refrains from choosing, there is no explanation for why it
does one rather than the other, in violation of the principle of
sufficient reason (L 4.1, W 4.612; L 5.14, W4.634). Clarke never
provided a satisfactory response to this charge; his best attempt is
his claim that to deny this account would lead to accepting passive
agency, which is a contradiction.



Divine freedom raises new problems for Clarke. For one, human and
divine freedom are perhaps in tension with God's knowledge of
future events. Against the claim that divine foreknowledge is
incompatible with free will, Clarke objected that because knowledge
does not affect the thing known, our free choices are unaffected by
divine omniscience (D 75-78, W 2.566-568). A second
problem is that God always does what is best, so God cannot refrain
from acting on his judgment of what is best, and thus acts
necessarily, which Clarke claims is a contradiction (D 83-86, W
571-573). Clarke could rely, again, on the passivity of judgment
(or the difference between physical causes and moral reasons) to block
the move that God's judgment determines God's choice.
Thus, even though we have complete certainty that God always does what
is best, it does not follow that God doing the best is necessitated by
God's judgment of what is right to do. This response is nested
in Clarke's official response, which is to distinguish
God's metaphysical attributes from his moral attributes. Because
God's will is not determined by God's knowing that an
action is the best, our certainty that God will do what is best is due
to our confidence in "the unalterable *Rectitude of his
Will*" and not a necessity of his nature (D 86-87, W
573). In other words, it is a moral necessity and not a metaphysical
necessity. A third and related problem is that when God created the
world, he did what was best to do, but had a choice among an infinite
number of equally best ways of creating the world because he could
place the world anywhere in space and could create it at any time.
Thus, it does not follow from God's perfect judgment combined
with his infinite power to create that God should create the world in
a particular way. Although this bothered Leibniz because it conflicts
with his account of the principle of sufficient reason, Clarke fails
to see any problem (C 4.18-20, W 4.626).


### 3.3 Matter and the Laws of Nature



Clarke steadfastly maintained that matter does not have an essential,
accidental, or super-added power of self-motion. "All things
done in the world, are done either immediately by God himself, or by
created intelligent beings: matter being evidently not at all capable
of any laws or powers whatsoever." Consequently, the so called
"effects of the natural powers of matter, and laws of motion; of
gravitation, attraction, or the like" properly speaking are but
the "effects of God's acting upon matter continually and
every moment, either immediately by himself, or mediately by some
created intelligent beings." Thus, the course of nature is
"nothing else but the will of God producing certain effects in a
continued, regular, constant and uniform manner which...being in
every moment perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be altered at any
time, as to be preserved" (D 149, W 2.698). The laws of nature
are thus not absolutely necessary but only morally necessary,
continuing as they do only because of the unchanging will of God. (For
more on Clarke's theory of necessity see Yenter 2014, 265-266).



With regard to the much contested interpretation of Newton on gravity,
he declares that Newton "does not mean to say that attraction is the
cause of bodies coming together; but by attraction he means to express
the effect" (Kassler 2014; 145-146). Leibniz, in his correspondence
with Clarke, denies this reading of Newton that makes no metaphysical
commitment to gravity as force, suggesting two importantly different
readings of Newton (Janiak 2007). While Newton would not speculate
publicly on metaphysical matters, Clarke argued that this effect could
not be the work of body. Rather, God and designated (subordinate,
intelligent, immaterial) agents, act throughout the world by being
present where they act, which is the explanation for gravity and all
other movements of matter (Brown 2016, 42ff; but see Schliesser 2013,
44 & 48 for a more modest reading).



The claim that matter has not even an accidental power of self-motion
was central to Clarke's attempt to exhibit the manifest activity
of God in the Newtonian world and refute Spinozism (Schliesser 2012,
443-449). The claim was radical for the time and elicited many
responses. Collins, in a letter to John Trenchard, was angered and
unimpressed by Clarke's arguments, which was a common reaction for
the growing number of freethinkers (Jacob 1977; 20). Andrew Baxter
(1733, with an important appendix added in 1750) would later extend
Clarke's arguments against self-motion, showing that they apply to
ether as well as matter, at a time when ether theories had gained
popularity as interpretations of Newton and as hypotheses for
explaining gravity.



Despite his insistence on God's continual activity in the world,
Clarke was not, strictly, an occasionalist. Unlike the occasionalists,
Clarke does not claim that God is the real cause of interactions
between finite minds and matter. Furthermore, matter has a single
"*Negative Power*" of staying at rest or continuing
in motion (W 2.697; Winkler 1989).


### 3.4 The Soul



In response to Henry Dodwell's argument that the soul is
naturally mortal but is made immortal by God only at a baptism
performed by someone properly ordained, Clarke wrote an open letter
defending the soul's "natural" immortality on the
basis that the soul cannot be material, because what is material is
divisible, and what is divisible cannot be the source of the unity of
consciousness. (He assumes throughout that if the soul is immaterial
then it is immortal.) In response, the freethinker Anthony Collins
defended the position that consciousness can be an emergent property
of matter, opening the door for a materialist theory of mind. Although
he opposed the natural mortality of the soul, Clarke thinks that God
destroys the souls of all the persons that are not admitted to heaven,
so there is no hell of eternal suffering, perhaps justifying calling
him a "mortalist" (Wigelsworth 2009; 58ff). Clarke clearly
endorsed the following: all souls survive bodily death; the soul
remains in a state of (literal or metaphorical) sleep until the final
judgment; the souls of sinners are destroyed at the final judgment.
(See especially Obligations 179-180 of 1706 edition; sermon preached
Oct 11 1709; Whiston 1730, 146; Sermon CXXI, 2.38-39; Snobelen 2004,
275-284).



Loosely following Locke's distinctions, Clarke argues that there
are three kinds of properties: those that inhere in the substance
(real properties), those that are commonly but improperly believed to
reside in the substance (secondary qualities), and "*merely
abstract names* to express the *effects*" of material
substances or systems (CC 56-58). The third category includes
magnetism and gravity, which are properly descriptions of a different
substance (in this case, divine activity and not matter). The second
category are the traditional secondary qualities; the discussed
example is the smell of a rose. Consciousness falls in the first
category, but, unlike the other members of that category such as
magnitude and figure, it does not divide or sum.



Employing what Kant (1781, A351) famously dubbed the "Achilles
argument," Clarke claims that the essential unity of
consciousness is incompatible with the divisibility and composability
of matter, because the consciousness must be distributed among the
various component parts, rendering each part conscious. Clarke is not
clear on what exactly it is about consciousness that requires this
unity (Rozemond 2003, 175-177). Officially, consciousness is a
reflexive act in which I recognize my thoughts as my own and is
therefore prior to memory, although Clarke sometimes writes
"consciousness" when he seems to mean "memory"
(Thiel 2011, 231).



Clarke's version of the Achilles argument rests on two
principles. The Homogeneity Principle says that "a power can
really inhere in a composite only if it is of the same kind as the
powers of the parts" (Vailati 1993, 395). Strictly, the
Homogeneity Principle only applies to the first category of qualities
(Rozemond 2009, 180). The Composition Principle says that "the
properties of the parts will sum to the same properties of the whole
(and that the properties of the whole can be divided into the
parts)" (Uzgalis 2011, 23). William Uzgalis finds versions of
the Homogeneity Principle in Cudworth and Bayle, and in all three
cases it is used to argue that thought or consciousness cannot arise
from motion or figure because they are not of the same kind. A less
often discussed variation on Clarke's core argument (but see
Rozemond 2003, 182ff) is that "figure, divisibility, mobility
and other such like qualities of matter" cannot produce
conscious thought (a real power) because they are "not real,
proper, distinct, and positive powers, but only negative qualities,
deficiencies, and imperfections," which appeals to the principle
that there can be no perfection or power in the effect that is not in
the cause (D 41, W 2.545).



The enduring soul serves as Clarke's explanation for personal
identity. Collins, following Locke, argued for a memory theory of
personal identity. Clarke's original attack on Collins claims
that God could put one person's memories into multiple people;
they would be distinct people but each would be identical to the
original person, so identity is not transitive. Although
Clarke's argument became popular in the eighteenth century
(Barresi and Martin 2004, 33-49), it seems to have been
forgotten then reintroduced in the 1950s (Uzgalis 33, citing Flew
1951, Prior 1957, and Williams 1957). Collins pointed out that
Clarke's theory faces an unpleasant dilemma, in that either animals
(who do exhibit self-motion) do not think or have experiences
(implausible) or God has to deal with an animal's soul (animal
heaven? annihilation?) (Garrett 2013, 181).



Clarke's claim that the unity of consciousness is incompatible
with divisible matter is complicated by his apparent belief that souls
are extended. At least, he refused to rule out the possibility that
souls are extended because "as the parts of space or expansion
itself can demonstrably be proved to be *absolutely
indiscerptible* [indivisible], so it ought not to be reckoned an
insuperable difficulty to imagine that all *immaterial thinking
substances* (upon supposition that expansion is not excluded out
of their idea) may be so likewise" (CC 62, W 3.763). The issue,
as Clarke tries to frame it, is not that consciousness is incompatible
with extension but that it is incompatible with anything divisible
into parts. Because, following Newton, Clarke denies that space is
actually divisible into parts, it cannot be ruled out that the soul is
extended. His acceptance of the principle that there is no action at a
distance and of the claim that immaterial beings (both finite and God)
act in space perhaps push him to accept that the soul is extended. If
so, he does not provide details, for instance, whether the soul
occupies the same space as the whole body, the brain, or some part of
the brain, or how souls move from place to place if not affected by
bodies. Richard Price, defending Clarke, and Joseph Priestley both
read Clarke as accepting extended souls. Priestley objects that souls
must therefore have shape (which he takes to be implausible) and must
interpenetrate God's spiritual substance (which he takes to be
impossible, as in the case of physical substances) (Price and
Priestley 1777, 58-62).


## 4. Philosophical Theology



This section reviews Clarke's key arguments in philosophy of
religion and philosophical theology. The topic of divine freedom was
covered in the earlier section on free will, as well as in 
the entry on 
 divine freedom. 
Clarke also wrote on topics such as divine attributes, baptism, the
historicity of disputed New Testament writings, and the veracity of
various Christian doctrines, which are not discussed here.


### 4.1 Argument *A Priori*



Clarke thought highly of the argument from design, largely because it
is widely accessible and easily grasped. However, due to the rise of
atheistic systems of philosophy, he thought it was necessary to give
an argument that would satisfy his fellow metaphysicians, such as the
following, presented in his first set of Boyle lectures. The Boyle
lectures, especially Clarke's were crucial to spreading
Newton's views. As Margaret Jacob (1977, 2) has convincingly
argued, "Without these sermons, Newton's system of the
world would have remained relatively unknown, and possibly even
feared, by an educated and literate public on both sides of the
Channel which could not have begun to understand the mathematical
intricacies of the *Principia*."



Clarke tells us that his argument for the being and attributes of God
was done "*partly by metaphysical Reasoning, and partly from
the Discoveries (principally those that have been lately made) in
Natural Philosophy*" (W 2.581). His argument, which was
known in Clarke's time as "the argument *a
priori*," occupies most of *A Demonstration of the Being
and Attributes of God*, Clarke's first set of Boyle
Lectures. (Note that Clarke's use of the term "*a
priori"* is not that which has been standard since Kant. The
argument is *a priori* not primarily because it is available
independent of experience, but because it argues from the nature of
the cause to the nature of the effect; this is in contrast with the
argument *a posteriori* which works from the effects --
e.g., the design of the world-- to the cause -- e.g., the
designer.) The argument is typically classified today as cosmological,
but it should not be confused with the *kalam* cosmological
argument (which takes as a premise that the world has a finite
history). Clarke's version belongs to the tradition of modal
cosmological arguments that employ the principle of sufficient reason
to argue from a contingent series of causes to a necessary being. The
main lines of Clarke's "argument *a priori*"
are as
 follows.[1]



Something now exists, so something always was (D 8, W 2.524).
Otherwise nothing would exist now because it is impossible for
something to be produced by nothing. Clarke does not explicitly
acknowledge that "something always was" is ambiguous
between a stronger, *de re* reading and a weaker, *de
dicto* reading. Because the stronger, *de re* claim (this
particular thing has always existed) seems unwarranted by the argument
thus far and the next step of the argument is to establish that there
is a single independent being, the more plausible and weaker *de
dicto* claim (some thing or another, perhaps a succession of
various things, has always existed) can be assumed.



What has existed from eternity can only be either an independent being
(one having in itself the reason of its existence) or an infinite
series of dependent beings. However, such an infinite series cannot be
what has existed from eternity because by hypothesis it can have no
external cause, and no internal cause (no dependent being in the
series) can cause the whole series. Hence, an independent being
exists. A frequent objection to this argument is that the demand for
an explanation is satisfied when it is conceded that each being in the
series has a cause (Rowe 1971, 56-57). The series is not a new entity
to be explained, so there is no reason to appeal to an eternal,
independent being. Furthermore, if the series is not dependent, then
it is not contingent, and if it is not contingent, then it is
necessary. Clarke finds this options unacceptable, as have many since
(including Rowe 1973, 57-59, and van Inwagen 2014, 159-182), but
Clarke's appeal to God's will to maintain the contingency of the
created world has been challenged, especially by Leibniz (see 3.2,
above).



This independent being is "self-existent, that is, necessarily
existing" (D 12, W 2.527), a conclusion he also reaches by
arguing that space and time cannot be conceived not to exist and they
are obviously not self-existent, so the substance on which they
depend, God, must exist necessarily as well (D 13, W 2.527-528).
(Clarke was criticized for assuming, rather than arguing, that space
and time are attributes of God.) It seems that for Clarke a
"necessary being" is a being whose non-existence is
impossible (either because it is an independent being or is
necessarily dependent on an independent being), and a
"self-existent being" is a being whose non-existence is
impossible because the necessity of its existence is to be found in
its own nature. Once these two are distinguished, however, Clarke is
open to the criticism that he cannot rule out the existence of two
self-existent beings (as he attempts in the seventh proposition)
because there may be two beings who are self-existent even though only
one self-existent being is required to explain the existence of the
world (Law 1758, 21). Anthony Atkey (1725, 3-14) provided a
variation on this objection in correspondence. He alleges that Clarke
illegitimately moves from the existence of at least one
"necessary being" to the existence of no more than one
"self-existent being." Clarke concludes that *there
exists* only one self-existent being, but he has at best shown
that we cannot *have the idea* of two self-existent beings.
Atkey's objection is about the relationship of the conceivable
to the possible. Clarke's response (Atkey 1725, 17-19) is
that we have clear ideas in this case, so our ideas can guide us in
the nature of things (conceivability entails possibility in the case
of clear ideas), but he does not give any reason why we should think
our ideas are clear in this case. This problem is exacerbated by his
denial that we have adequate ideas of the essences of substances,
including God. If we do not have adequate ideas of any substances
(including the divine being) then how could we have a clear idea of
God? Roger North had previously raised a similar worry about Clarke
needing to show "natural things accord with our ideas,"
but Clarke's response has not survived (NC 133).



If successful, Clarke's argument *a priori* establishes
all the metaphysical attributes of God (independence, eternality,
immutability, infinitude, omnipresence) by examining the nature of
necessity and positing the contingency of the world. To reach the
personal and moral attributes of God, it is necessary to draw upon
further features of the world and argue *a posteriori* (D 38, W
2.543). 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 a libertarian sense). First, one real feature of the
world is that there are intelligent beings in it. Intelligence, being
a perfection, must exist to at least as great a degree in the cause as
in the effect (an instance of Clarke's applying a causal version
of the principle of sufficient reason). So God must be intelligent
(D38-39, W 4.543). Second, this intelligence can be established
from the order and beauty of the world, so a teleological argument can
reach this conclusion as well. Third, Clarke claimed that
"intelligence without liberty ... is really (in respect of
any power, excellence, or perfection) no intelligence at all,"
so therefore God must be an agent. Fourth, the person positing a God
without freedom (Clarke specifically mentions Spinoza) is positing a
contradiction and has failed to explain the source of activity in the
world (D 46-47, W 4.548-549). Finally, the necessitarian
(like Spinoza) is forced to deny a number of (to Clarke) obvious
points, including that things could be different than they are, that
there are final causes in the universe, and that there is a variety of
finite things in the universe (Yenter 2014).



With God's intelligence and agency in place, he sketches how
God's wisdom, goodness, justice, and other moral perfections can
be established.


### 4.2 God, Space, and Time



According to traditional Christian theology, God is eternal and
omnipresent. Clarke accepted both, but his attempts to explain what
those claims mean are not always clear. Four central tenets of
Clarke's position are unpacked below.



**God is able to act at all times and in all places because he
is substantially present in all times and in all places*.* To
deny this would entail accepting action at a distance, which Clarke,
like most of his contemporaries, found mysterious or impossible (Brown
2016).



*God's substantial presence entails that the Scholastic view
of divine eternity and immensity is false*. Clarke rejected the
view of God as substantially removed from space and time. Divine
eternity involves 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 permanent present without any successive
duration. He considered such a view unintelligible at best and
contradictory at worst (CC 107, W 3.794). The attribution 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's
view. In his exchanges with Butler he clarifies that God is not
technically in space and time, because God is prior (in the order of
nature) to time whereas things in 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 act successively, nor govern the
world, nor indeed have any power to will or do anything at all"
(W 3.897). Hence, God is immutable with respect to his will only in
the sense that he does not change his mind.



*God is not identical to space or time; although necessary, they
depend for their existence upon God*. Clarke's earliest
reported philosophical idea, years before he read Newton, is that God
cannot destroy space (Whiston 1730, 22-23). A common worry about
absolute space in the eighteenth century was that if space is
infinite, necessary, and indestructible then either God is not the
only infinite, necessary, and independent being or God is identical to
space, both of which were theologically unorthodox. Clarke's
position in the *Demonstration*, the letters to Butler, and the
letter to an anonymous author (almost certainly Daniel Waterland) is
that space and time are divine attributes or properties, a view he may
have found in Henry More (Thomas 2015, 18). Because they depend on the
only self-subsisting being, they are not independent beings (D
122-123, W 4.758). He told Leibniz that immensity and eternality
are "an immediate and necessary consequence" of
God's existence, without supplying any further argument or
explaining the relationship between "consequence,"
"mode," "attribute," and
"property." Many have understood Clarke to mean that God
is literally dimensional. Clarke's early critic Anthony Collins
(1713, 47-48) read him this way. Emily Thomas (2018, 172-176)
has recently provided strong evidence that Clarke's views undergo a
change after 1719; from this point on Clarke is careful to say that
immensity and eternality are "modes of existence" rather
than attributes, where modes of existence can be ascribed to God
*and* to God's attributes, whereas an attribute cannot be
ascribed to any other attribute. For example, God is eternal and
God's intelligence is eternal, but God's will is not
intelligent, so intelligence is an attribute but eternality is a mode
of existence.



*God's immensity and eternality are consistent with
God's unity*. As Leibniz and Waterland noted, the
identification of divine immensity with space endangers the simplicity
of the divine being because space has parts, albeit not separable
ones. The objection, though formidable, was not new; Bayle in the
*Dictionnaire* (entry "Leucippus," remark G) had
chided the Newtonians for identifying space with divine immensity in
order to solve the ontological problem created by the positing of an
infinite space because it leads to the destruction of divine
simplicity and to various absurdities. As a further point, Waterland
suggests that since Clarke accepts that nothing with parts can be the
subject of consciousness, God's immensity also undermines divine
intelligence and consciousness. Clarke offered two responses. Firstly,
not everything extended has parts. Space is extended, but (as Newton
had claimed) its "parts" cannot be moved, so they are not
truly parts. Secondly, Clarke claimed parity between spatial and
temporal extendedness: because the former is compatible with the
simplicity of what "stretches" temporally, the latter is
compatible with the simplicity of what stretches spatially. But the
parity between space and time, were it to be granted, rather than
showing that spatial extendedness is not detrimental to a
thing's simplicity because temporal extendedness is not, could
be taken to show that the latter is detrimental to a thing's
simplicity because the former is.


### 4.3 Trinitarian Views



In his lifetime, Clarke was infamous for his view of the trinity, and
he sparked a vociferous debate (Ferguson 1974, 59-149;
Pfizenmaier 1997, 179-216). Clarke was not officially censured
(but nearly so), but it surely prevented his rising to higher office.
Clarke's writing on the trinity are relevant for understanding
his other metaphysical positions, especially his identification of
"person" with intelligent, acting agent rather than with a
particular substance, which has not been sufficiently reconciled with
his account of personal identity as wrapped up with an immaterial
soul.



In Christian theology, God is represented as tripartite--three
persons but one God. In the 1662 *Book of Common Prayer*, in
use in England during Clarke's lifetime, one of the liturgies
draws from the Athanasian Creed, which includes the following
discussion of the Trinity: "For there is one Person 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 all
one... 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, against the advice of his friends, he published
*The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity*, in which he diverged
from what his opponents considered the plain sense of this
formulation. *The Scripture-Doctrine of the Trinity* begins by
collecting all the passages of the New Testament that relate to the
Trinity. It then sets out a series of 55 propositions regarding the
Trinity, each supported by references to the texts collected in the
first section and writings from the early Christian church. However,
the biblical texts do not primarily discuss God's metaphysical
attributes, according to Clarke, but ascribe dominion to God (W 4.150;
Snobelen 2004, 265-275). The third section relates these propositions
to the Anglican liturgy. This approach reflects Clarke's general
expectation that the correct theological doctrines are found in the
Bible, are endorsed by the early church, and are compatible with
reason. Through hundreds of years of what he considered bad
metaphysics, the correct and intelligible doctrine of the trinity had
become obscured, and Clarke hoped to return to a pre-Athanasian
understanding of the trinity.



Clarke's position in *The Scripture-Doctrine of the
Trinity* was labeled by his opponents as "Arian,"
"Socinian," and "Sabellian." Although they
were commonly used as abusive terms for anyone holding non-traditional
or anti-trinitarian views, they also have more precise meanings. An
Arian holds that the Son (the second person of the Trinity) is divine
but not eternal; he was created by God the Father out of nothing
before the beginning of the world. A Socinian holds that the Son is
merely human and was created at or after the conception of Jesus. A
Sabellian holds that the Son is a mode of God. In the precise use of
the terms, Clarke is none of these. Unlike the Arians, Clarke affirmed
that the Son is co-eternal with the Father and not created (W 4.141).
(Pfizenmaier 1997 provides further textual and historical arguments
that Clarke should not be classified as an Arian.) 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 the Father. (This would have been very problematic
given that he sometimes claimed that space is a mode of God.)
Clarke's claimed ignorance about substance made him reluctant to
declare that the Father and the Son were the same divine substance,
but the Son is endowed by the Father with all of the power and
authority of the Father. He also called the manner of the Son's
generation from the father "ineffable." So while Clarke
denied that the trinity was a "mystery," he did believe
that the manner in which the Father's power is communicated to the
Son is "after a manner to us unknown" (Proposition 35;
4.159).



Clarke affirms that each member of the trinity is a person, but only
the Father is self-existent, which means that the Father by essence
(rather than by "office") has a property that the Son does
not. His views are best described as subordinationist but he could
also be called a unitarian, in at least some senses of the term (Tuggy
2014; 204-205). See especially Prop. 25 (W 4.150); Prop. 27 (W 4.151);
and Prop. 34 ("The Son, whatever his metaphysical essence of
substance be, and whatever divine greatness and dignity is ascribed to
him in scripture; yet in this he is evidently subordinate to the
Father, that he derives his being, attributes, and powers, from the
Father, and the Father nothing from him"; 4.155). To the Father
alone are ascribed "independence and supreme authority"
(Proposition 27; 4.151). Every other attribute and power that can be
ascribed to the Father can also be ascribed to the Son, "but the
titles ascribed to the Son, must always carry along with them the idea
of being communicated or derived" (4.153).


### 4.4 Miracles



Like many associated with the Royal Society, Clarke thought that
miracles could be used as evidence for the claim that Christianity is
the true religion. However, given that matter is inactive, God is
actively involved in all or nearly all events in the world. What then
could separate out a particular action of God as miraculous? According
to Clarke, a miracle is a "work effected in a manner
*unusual*, or different from the common and regular Method of
Providence, by the interposition either of God himself, or of some
Intelligent Agent superior to Man, for the Proof or Evidence of some
particular Doctrine, or in attestation to the Authority of some
particular Person" (W 2.701).



Miracles became a point of controversy in the letters that passed
between Clarke and Leibniz (W 4.605). One focus of the debate is which
would be greater: a world so perfectly crafted that God does not need
to intervene to keep it running (Leibniz), or a world so dependent on
God that one cannot understand the world without recognizing its
continual dependence on the operations of God (Clarke). A second focus
of the debate is the proper understanding of a miracle: something that
exceeds the natural power of created things (Leibniz), or something
that seems different from our human expectation of how things operate
(Clarke).



Clarke maintains that miracles are miraculous only from a human
perspective and that God actively and continuously works in the
physical world because matter is completely passive. Since God's
wisdom and goodness are unchanging, if God chooses to act differently
in the world at a certain time (e.g., by changing the laws of motion),
it is only because it was always good to do so and was part of
God's plan from eternity. 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*, more or less *Natural*
or *Supernatural* than the other." From our perspective,
God is changing the order of things; from God's perspective,
everything is equally a part of God's design. A miracle, then,
is only a miracle "with Regard to *our
Conceptions*" (C2.6-12, W 4.598-601). In his
final letter Clarke elaborates on this, suggesting that we call
the sun stopping in the sky miraculous only because it is unusual; if it
was always at the same point in the sky, then that would be natural,
and its motion miraculous. Similarly, raising a dead body from the
ground is miraculous, but only because God does not usually act that
way (C5.107-109, W 4.693; C3.17, W 4.611-612). Unusualness
is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a miracle
(C4.43, W 4.629-630), but Clarke nowhere says what else is
required.



Leibniz attacks Clarke's position from multiple angles.
Leibniz's first letter accuses Newton of making an imperfect
machine that requires tuning to keep it running, like a watch that
requires winding, but this is unfitting a perfect God. In
Newton's world, miracles are required "in order to supply
the Wants of Nature" (L1.4, W 4.588). Clarke responds that there
is a disanalogy between the watch and the world. The watch requires
winding because a human watchmaker can only compose parts and put them
in motion, whereas God is both the creator and preserver of forces and
powers. On the offensive, Clarke charges those who deny God's
constant involvement in the world to be allowing a mechanical world, a
world of "*Materialism* and *Fate*," where
God is not needed at all (C1.4, W 4.590). In response, Leibniz makes
the interesting objection that either Clarke is explaining natural
things by the supernatural, which is absurd, or else God is a part of
nature (specifically, the soul of the world) (L2.12, W 4.596;
L4.110-11, W 4.666). Leibniz also charges that Clarke cannot
explain the difference between natural and supernatural action.
"But it is *regular*, (says the Author,) it is
*constant*, and consequently *natural*. I answer; it
cannot be regular, without being reasonable; nor natural, unless it
can be explained by the Natures of creatures" (L5.121, W
4.668-669). Regularities require explanations, and to be natural
these explanations must come from the natures of the creatures. The
Clarkean picture, in which matter is completely passive, is incapable
of explaining the regularities exhibited in the interaction of
material bodies in terms of those bodies. Whereas Clarke saw this as
the pinnacle of what natural philosophy contributes to natural
theology, Leibniz saw it as a failure to exhibit a fully rational
world 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, he thinks that human reason is capable of discovering the
existence and attributes of God by reasoning from the evidence of
nature. Indeed, Clarke believes that Christianity presupposes natural
religion (W 4.582). Many theological and ethical truths (e.g., there
is a God, God is to be worshiped, it is good to be just and righteous)
are plainly understandable to everyone, and if one is mistaken in
these matters "'tis not by his *Understanding*, but
by his *Will* that he is deceived." Yet it is very common
to oppose these truths; the most common causes are "a
*presumptuous* Ignorance, which *despises*
Knowledge"; carelessness, which leads to blindly following local
customs; prejudice, which is relying implicitly on others and
traditions rather than an examination of the evidence; and vice, a
willful opposition to the truth due to the love of wickedness,
debauchery, and power (W 2.147-160). The reasoned defense of
natural religion, although perhaps unable to sway the prejudiced, was
central to Clarke's project.



Clarke thought deists could be convinced to abandon their position
because deism is unstable. In Clarke's taxonomy, there are four
categories of deists (W 2.600ff). The first category of deist say they
believe in "an Eternal, Infinite, Independent, Intelligent
Being" that made the world, but this God is not involved in the
governing of the world nor does God care for what happens in it. In
response, Clarke argues (1) that the best science of the day has shown
that the nature of matter is insufficient to ground the laws by which
matter acts and thus requires the continuous dependence upon its
Creator, and (2) a God that isn't concerned for what happens in
the world must be lacking in knowledge of what is happening, power to
affect what is happening, ability to act in the world, or wisdom to
know that intervention is needed, and thus is not the God that the
deist claimed to accept. The second category accept providential
action in the world, but deny that God has moral attributes; ethics is
a matter of human construction. They fail to see, thinks Clarke, (1)
that ethics is a matter of eternal, fixed relations and (2) that to
deny the moral attributes of God entails the denial of either
God's wisdom or power. The third group of deists affirm
God's moral attributes, but they deny the immortality of the
human soul and that moral terms apply univocally between God and
humans, which in practice leads to the denial of a future state after
death. Clarke claims that this explodes all the attributes of God so
that we no longer know what we are saying when we talk about God.
Finally, some deists hold all the right theological and ethical
doctrines, but claim that they know this solely on the basis of
general revelation and thus have no need of a special, Christian
revelation. Clarke suspects that this fourth category of deists no
longer exist in lands where Christianity has reached.


## 5. Ethics



Although some of his sermons contain interesting analyses of
individual Christian virtues, the most sustained exposition of
Clarke's deontological, rationalist ethics is contained in his
second set of Boyle Lectures, *A Discourse Concerning the
Unalterable Obligations of Natural Religion*. Clarke begins by
stating that clearly there are different relations among persons and
that from these relations there arise a "fitness" or
"unfitness" of behavior among persons. So, for example,
given the relation of infinite disproportion between humans and God,
it is fit that we honor, worship, and imitate God. These facts can be
rationally apprehended by anyone with a sound mind, although in some
cases we may be at a loss in clearly demarcating right from wrong.
Being grounded in necessary relations, ethical truths, like
geometrical truths, are universal and necessary. As such, they are
independent of any will, divine or human, and of any consideration of
punishment or reward.



In somewhat more detail, the central tenets of Clarke's ethics
are elucidated in the subordinate components of the first proposition
of *A Discourse*.


1. There are eternal and necessary differences (or
"reasons") of things, from which "necessarily arises
an *agreement* or *disagreement* of some things with
others, or a *fitness* or *unfitness* of the application
of different things or different relations one to another" (W
2.608).
2. God wills to act according to these eternal reasons of things (W
2.612).
3. All rational creatures should choose to act according to the
eternal rule of reason (by which Clarke seems to mean these eternal
relations) (W 2.612), and the human mind "naturally and
necessarily Assents to the eternal Law of Righteousness" (W
2.616).
4. This eternal law is classified into piety (duty toward God),
righteousness (duty to other human persons), and sobriety (duty to
oneself) (W 2.618).
5. This law of nature is (temporally and logically) prior to and
independent of human interaction (W 2.624).
6. It is also (logically) prior to and independent of the will of God
(W 2.626).
7. The obligation to follow this law is "antecedent to all
Consideration of any particular private and personal Reward or
Punishment" (W 2.627).



From (3) and in clarification of sobriety and piety in (4), Clarke
argues the ideal (created) moral agent is one who acts within the
scope of what God, with full authority and compatibly with reason, has
commanded. For instance, we ought to preserve our own being because
God has created us and sustains us and only God ought to remove us
from the world (Heydt 2018, 135). Regarding (4), Clarke argues that
duties toward others are governed by equity, which demands that one
deal with other persons as one can reasonably expect others to deal
with one (W 2.619), and by love, which demands that one further the
well-being happiness of all persons (W 2.621). Duties towards oneself
demand that one preserve one's physical health, mental
faculties, and spiritual well-being so as to be able to perform
one's duties (W 2.623). Clarke uses (5) as an opportunity to
develop a series of interesting attacks on Hobbes' account of
political and moral obligation. Among his many criticisms, he argues
that a social contract cannot be obligatory unless there were already
an obligation to obey contracts; if a contract benefits the community
then there are real benefits prior to the contract so the contract
does not generate benefits and harms; it is a contradiction for
everyone to have a right to the same thing in the state of nature; and
if power is to be obeyed then an all-powerful devil should be obeyed,
which is absurd (W 2.609-616, 631-638).



In clarification of (6), Clarke adds that because God always does what
is just and good, God's commands align with the eternal law (W
2.637), and that because God wants to make us happy and good, God
promotes the goodness and welfare of the whole of creation, including
us (W 2.640). While the law is antecedent to considerations of reward
and punishment (7), God's justice ensures the proper rewards and
punishments for following the law (W 2.641). These sanctions are not
uniformly present in this life, so the reward and punishment must (at
least partly) occur in the next life. Moreover, human depravity makes
the prospect of future sanctions a necessary incentive for proper
behavior. God might also ensure that our acting from the best reasons
does not have overall much worse consequences (Schneewind 1997,
317).



Clarke's theory has been roundly criticized on several grounds,
especially on the meaning and sufficiency of (1). He never adequately
explained the nature of the relations among persons that ground
morality. For instance, his explanation for why it is
"fit" to honor, worship, obey, and imitate God is that
"*God* is infinitely superior to *Men*" (W
2.608). If the infinite superiority is in reference to power or being,
it is not obviously to the point; if it is an expression of an ethical
relation, the argument is circular. Additionally, it is unclear what
in the "Nature and Reason of Things" is necessary. Is it
that good is necessarily not evil? (This is trivial and unhelpful.) Is
it that one thing cannot be both good from one perspective and evil
from another? (In which case, Clarke is offering a response to Hobbes
or maybe Spinoza, but he doesn't provide a substantial
alternative.) Is it that whatever is good is necessarily good? (In
which case, he is perhaps restating his opposition to divine command
theory, but again not in a way that makes clear his alternative.) Is
it something else? Clarke's position is not clear, but he does
seem to affirm each of these interpretations at different times. A
further structural problem is that Clarke slides between the claim
that ethical truths are relations between mind-independent objects in
the world, and that they are grounded in the nature of rationality
itself, apparently without distinguishing the two positions.
Relatedly, there is an interpretive question about whether Clarke is
ontologically committed to the existence of mind-independent values
that are not reducible to anything in the world (Kelly 2002). Finally,
even if these relations exist, it is not clear how moral obligation
arises from such relations. Hume (1739, 3.1.1.3-7) famously
charged theories like Clarke's with motivational impotence
because the perception of "fitness" cannot, by itself,
move the will. However, as we saw, Clarke denied that evaluation
causes motivation, although he clearly thought that evaluation
provides the agent, who ultimately causes the volition, with reasons
for action.


## 6. Influence and Reception



Clarke's influence on his contemporaries and the generation that
followed was immense. One important aspect of his immediate influence
was that as the translator of the standard textbook in physics in
England in the early eighteenth century, as the defender of absolute
space and atomism in the correspondence with Leibniz, as the
translator of Newton's *Opticks* into Latin, and as a
recognized close friend of Newton, Clarke was perhaps the most
significant spokesperson for the Newtonian natural philosophy, and a
primary interpreter of its implications for metaphysics, philosophy of
science, and theology. In particular, his use of the passivity and
scarcity of matter in his argument for the existence of God was noted
by his contemporaries internationally.



Clarke's influence was greatest in England and Scotland, where
all of his works were widely read. (Although his Boyle lectures went
through ten editions in thirty years, Dahm [1970, 176] finds only one
translation during that time, into French.) Daniel Waterland was his
sharpest contemporary critic, but the two remained friendly throughout
(Ferguson 1976, 217). A. A. Sykes and John Jackson were Clarke's
most forceful defenders in the 1710s and 1720s. Clarke often made
suggestions to Jackson about how best to defend his views (Ferguson
1976, 218-219). Among those sympathetic to Clarke's methodology
and positions in the next two generations, Andrew Baxter was the most
polemical, John Stewart the most irritating to Hume, Richard Price the
most similar, and Thomas Reid the most well known today.
Clarke's ethics (with some metaphysical support) were defended
by William Wollaston and Catharine Trotter Cockburn (see Thomas 2017,
210ff), supplemented by Joseph Butler, and attacked by David Hume (see
Greenberg 2013, 251ff).



Hume clearly has Clarke in mind in his *Dialogues Concerning
Natural Religion*, where Demea recites the argument *a
priori* and both Cleanthes and Philo offer critiques. Furthermore,
Clarke is cited by name in *Treatise* 1.3.3 and is a likely
object of the arguments against ethical rationalism in
*Treatise* 3.1. In *A Letter from a Gentleman* (1745),
Hume admits that Clarke's argument *a priori* is
undermined by the claims of the *Treatise*. Russell (1997 and
2008) has proposed that Clarke is a major target of Hume's
*Treatise*, and that Hume's opposition to natural
theology as defended by Clarke is a uniting theme of the
*Treatise*.



Clarke profoundly influenced philosophers in the eighteenth century
that had interests in the intersection of theology and philosophy,
particularly on the freedom of the will and the relationship between
God, space, and matter. Jonathan Edwards singled out Clarke as a major
opponent in his *Freedom of the Will*, where Edwards runs
together libertarianism with Arminian theology. That same
libertarianism made Clarke popular among the German Pietists. Among
them, Crusius is the most notable, both for his work and for his
importance to Kant, and the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence is a likely
source for Kant's discussions of space and time. Voltaire (1752)
declared, "Among these philosophers [the last generation of
British philosophers], Clarke is perhaps altogether the clearest, the
most profound, the most methodical, and the strongest of all those who
have spoken of the Supreme Being." Voltaire as a young man was
particularly impressed with Clarke; later in life, he seems to have
been less convinced by Clarke's argument for the existence of
God. In *Emile*, Rousseau refers to "the illustrious
Clarke enlightening the world, proclaiming at last the Being of beings
and the Dispenser of things," but whether Rousseau was
steadfastly sympathetic to Clarke's system is in doubt (Attfield
2004, 433-434).



Clarke's influence waned late in the eighteenth century. In
1778, Richard Price could still write on behalf of many that
"Dr. Clarke is, without all doubt, the best and ablest of all
writers, on the subjects of the Immateriality and Natural Immortality
of the Soul, and also on Liberty and Necessity," but by the
nineteenth century interest in and appreciation of Clarke had
dwindled. Samuel Coleridge (1854, 405) considered him
"over-rated," and Leslie Stephen (1881, 119) claimed that
to nineteenth-century eyes, Clarke "appears to be a second-rate
advocate of opinions interesting only in the mouths of greater men who
were their first and ablest advocates." Henry Sidgwick (1886,
175-180), despite his criticisms, is a nineteenth-century exception in
holding Clarke in high regard.



In the last few decades, a renewed interest in Clarke's argument
*a priori*, a rediscovery of Newton's unpublished writings
and subsequent study of his associates, and a greater appreciation for
Clarke's historical importance to ethics, metaphysics, and more have
philosophers reading Clarke again, and the estimation of his
philosophical acuity has increased.