Best known to posterity as the founder of Scottish common sense philosophy, Thomas Reid (1710–96) was ordained by the Church of Scotland in 1731 and served as parish minister in New Machar from 1737 until his appointment as Regent at King's College in 1751. He left Aberdeen for Glasgow in 1764 (the year in which his first book, An Inquiry Into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense, was published) to occupy the Chair of Moral Philosophy which Adam Smith, weary of academic life, had recently vacated. The lectures Reid delivered ex cathedra at Glasgow over the next decade and a half formed the basis for two influential later works, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) and Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788).
A self-consciously Christian philosopher, Reid embedded his common-sensism in a theocentric framework known as ‘providential naturalism’. According to this way of thinking, our most basic natural convictions (e.g. that I exist, that my cognitive faculties are trustworthy, that nature is uniform, that I am a free and morally responsible agent, that there is a real difference between right and wrong) are the gifts of a wise and benevolent deity who has implanted certain fixed principles of belief-formation in our constitution. Since such unreasoned and irresistible dispositions are both God-given and practically indispensable, we should accept them with gratitude and humility - attitudes which contrast sharply with the ironic detachment evinced by Hume and his sceptical brethren.
Given Reid's espousal of providential naturalism as well as his personal piety and professional history, one might expect that his three books would contain a summary of their author's views on our knowledge of God. Surprisingly, this is not the case. Hence the need for the present volume, which reproduces the extremely detailed notes (‘Lectures on Natural Theology’) taken by George Baird, one of Reid's students, during the latter's final year of teaching at Glasgow (1779–80). What do we learn about Reid's philosophy of religion from Baird's transcription of the lectures? Here are a few highlights.
(1) Unlike Reformed epistemologists influenced by him, Reid is no anti-evidentialist with misgivings about natural theology. Quite the opposite, in fact: he defends belief in God with versions of the cosmological and teleological arguments, both of which depend upon first principles of common sense scouted by Hume.
(2) In a move that dimly prefigures part of Alvin Plantinga's God and Other Minds (1967), Reid argues that denying the first principle of common sense which underpins his teleological argument (i.e. that we may infer an intelligent cause from marks of wisdom in effects) leaves us with no reason to believe in the existence of any mind or intelligence other than one's own. Hence Reid's case for theism rests partly on a metaphysical axiom which he thinks all candid inquirers should admit they rightly and implicitly rely upon.
(3) As befits an Enlightenment thinker who admired Newton, Reid draws heavily on his broad and deep knowledge of various sciences (physics, astronomy, botany, zoology, anatomy, physiology, anthropology) to substantiate the a posteriori premise of his teleological argument: that ‘marks of wisdom and design’ can indeed be found throughout Nature.
(4) Finally, Reid distinguishes the natural attributes he thinks we are entitled to ascribe to God (eternity, necessary existence, immensity, omnipotence, unlimited perfection, omniscience and perfect wisdom, spirituality, unity, immutable happiness) from God's moral attributes (goodness and mercy, truth and veracity, love of virtue and hatred of vice, justice), adding that a Being who lacks the latter traits is not a fit object of religious attitudes or practices (such as worship or prayer).
In addition to transcribing and annotating the text of Baird's notes, editor James J. S. Foster has written a brilliantly clear introduction which puts the contents of said notes in historical context. He has also commissioned a substantial essay by Nicholas Wolterstorff, who expertly sifts and weighs many of the claims and arguments which appear in Baird's account of Reid's lectures. Finally, Foster has included selections from Reid's own writings (published and unpublished, professional and private) which shed light on the place which God occupied in his philosophy and his life.
There may not be anything in Thomas Reid on Religion which will radically alter anyone's view of Reid or of the philosophy of religion. Nevertheless, most serious students of his work and of the Scottish Enlightenment will find this volume a most valuable resource.
