17th Century - First Appearance of Atheism (circa 1650-)

17th Century History

The first undoubted documents of philosophical atheism (following the narrower, modern definition) appear at the earliest in the mid to late seventeenth century. At some time around 1650 an anonymous manuscript appeared (probably in France) entitled Theophrastus redivivus which appears to be the oldest extant atheistic document; in the last quarter of the same century another anonymous manuscript, the Symbolum sapientiae was in circulation.

These clandestine manuscripts were for the most part written by hand or sometimes printed illegally.[1] Some of them - such as the Symbolum sapientiae - are solidly argued and often had an important influence on later public atheists. However, these documents at first remained unknown to the broader public. At the time of their first appearance they were read by a very small number of people. In general, there was a great deal of talk about atheism on the part of religious apologists, but no genuine atheists were known to them.[2]

In the middle of the seventeenth century it was still assumed that it was impossible not to believe in God. The evidence for God from design and from the ubiquity of belief seemed so clear it was thought atheists were necessarily atheist against the evidence. At this stage atheism - if it were even admitted to exist - was still seen as an illness or a result of a perverse will, since it was not apparent how such a view could be held rationally.[3] Such early modern apologists had nothing to do with atheism in the strict sense.

By the end of the century, however, the situation had dramatically changed. Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) - though he did not describe himself as an atheist - had raised the possibility of a virtuous society of atheists, and for the first time real atheists could be named; the appearance of the avowed atheist Matthias Knutzen (1646-?) in Europe, for example, provided the first inklings of what was to come.[4]

References

Berman, David. A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell. London: Croom Helm, 1988.
Schroeder, Winfried. Ursprunge des Atheismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Tubingen: Frommann- Holzboog, 1998.
Smith, Nigel. "The Charge of Atheism and the Language of Radical Speculation, 1640-1660." In Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, edited by Michael Hunter and David Wootton. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Bibliography

Footnotes

[1]↑ Winfried Schroeder, Ursprunge des Atheismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik- und Religionskritik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Tubingen: Frommann-Holzboog, 1998), 19.
[2]↑ On this shadow boxing, see for example David Berman, A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell (London: Croom Helm, 1988). See also Nigel Smith, "The Charge of Atheism and the Language of Radical Speculation, 1640-1660," in Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, ed. Michael Hunter and David Wootton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
[3]↑ Schroeder, Atheismus, 71.
[4]↑ See for example Ibid., 76-77.

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