Seventeenth Century Skepticism
Pierre Bayle and the renewal of ancient skeptical arguments as a challenge to both rationalism and revealed religion in the late seventeenth century.
Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) revived ancient sceptical arguments in his Dictionary (Dictionnaire historique et critique, 1697) with devastating effect on the rational credentials of both metaphysics and theology. His scepticism was directed especially against the traditional demonstrations for God's existence and against rational theodicy: he argued that the existence of evil in the world makes it impossible to reconcile divine omnipotence, omniscience, and goodness with rational consistency. His fideism — accepting Christianity on pure faith, without rational justification and even against the conclusions of reason — paradoxically served both religious tolerance (no rational proof can compel religious conviction) and the Enlightenment critique of religion (no rational proof can support it either). Bayle's scepticism is the intellectual bridge between 17th-century rationalism and 18th-century Enlightenment.
Article 3. Seventeenth Century Skepticism The idealistic spirit of the philosophy current in continental Europe during the 17 century very naturally led to skepticism. Descartes’ Methodic Doubt was quickly changed to actual doubt, and many philosophers denied the possibility of achieving certitude by the unaided powers of nature. Even the dogmatic philosophers showed something of the skeptical spirit, inasmuch as they quite generally admitted the possibility of error in the use of natural faculties upon their proper objects. The more important skeptics of the time did not, however, despair of attaining certitude; they merely declared that this was not to be had by natural powers. They turned to the supernatural, to Faith and Revelation, as the ultimate and only reliable criterion of certainty. This spirit of looking to God and to His Word for intellectual illumination was “in the air.” It found expression in the Ontologism and Occasionalism of Malebranche and his followers. It even appears in the Pantheism of Spinoza. Notable among the skeptics of this time were : i. Joseph Glanville (1636-1680), an Englishman, chaplain of Charles II. He wrote a book called Scientific Skepticism, in which he shows the influence of the English Sensists. He allows some validity to sense knowledge, but denies that the in-tellect can achieve truth and certainty by its own powers. The truths of Christian Revelation, however, are most certain; ii. François de la Mothe Le Vayer (1586-1672), of Paris; iii. Samuel Sorbière (1615-1670); iv. Simon Foucher (1644-1696) ; v. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a Jansenist, who figured prominently in the religious controversies of his day. His book Pensées offers much beautiful argument for the truth of Christianity, but denies the possibility of attaining truth by reason alone ; vi. Daniel Huet (1633—1721), Bishop of Avranches in France, wrote a work on The Feebleness of the Human Understanding, in which he draws upon Sextus Empiricus for proofs of the inability of reason to achieve truth by its unaided powers ; vii. Pierre Bayle (1647—1706) defends the thesis proposed by Pascal and Huet.