eprintid: 32145
rev_number: 33
eprint_status: archive
userid: 6913
dir: disk0/00/03/21/45
datestamp: 2022-09-09 08:43:33
lastmod: 2022-10-04 14:38:47
status_changed: 2022-09-09 08:43:33
type: doctoralThesis
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Pike, Jonathan D.
title: Early Eighteenth-Century Trinitarian Debates and Anglo-American Discourse on Authority, c. 1702-1758
subjects: 200
subjects: 220
subjects: 230
subjects: 300
subjects: 320
subjects: 970
divisions: 90001
adv_faculty: af-09
keywords: American Studies, Theology, Trinity, Religious Studies, Doctrine, Political Thought, History of Ideas, John Locke, Eighteenth Century, Authority, Doctrine of the Trinity, Church-State, Conscience, Scripture, Tradition, Reason, Reformation, Post-Reformation, Religion, Transatlantic, Thomas Emlyn, William Whiston, Anthony Collins, Samuel Clarke, Benjamin Hoadly, Cotton Mather, Salters Hall, Hemphill Affair, Benjamin Franklin, Breck Affair, Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Mayhew, Aaron Burr Sr., Samuel Johnson
cterms_swd: Amerikanistik
cterms_swd: Theologie
cterms_swd: Trinität
cterms_swd: Religionswissenschaft
cterms_swd: Doktrin
cterms_swd: Politisches Denken
cterms_swd: Ideengeschichte
cterms_swd: Locke, John
cterms_swd: The @eighteenth century
cterms_swd: Autorität
cterms_swd: Trinitätslehre
cterms_swd: Reformation
cterms_swd: Religion
cterms_swd: America
abstract: This dissertation contributes to the existing scholarship a further and detailed understanding of the early eighteenth-century Trinitarian debates and their relation to the Anglo-American discourse on authority. The study thereby provides greater nuance in the mapping of Trinitarianism and a better understanding of the foundations for the separation of Church and State and the parallel growth of State protections for individual Conscience. This dissertation argues that the Trinitarian debates of the early-eighteenth century, while not the ideological substance that the heresy-radicalism thesis claims, were in fact a significant medium for activating the discourse on authority between the institutions of Church and State in relation to individual Conscience. The study focuses on the salience of Lockean categories for societal and individual rights to the discourse on authority, especially for voluntary societies. The dissertation also demonstrates that the Trinitarian debates provided a substantial amount of material for the discourse on the authority of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason, providing insight into how Scripture and Reason became the prime arbiters in the American scene.

The Trinitarianism of Thomas Emlyn, William Whiston, Samuel Clarke, and Benjamin Hoadly are each assessed. The trials and controversies involving these figures, as well as Henry Sacheverell and Anthony Collins, are placed within a continuum of concern over Church-State prosecutions in the first decades of the eighteenth-century. The English debates are placed parallel to the ecumenical and pietistic concerns of New England's Cotton Mather. The precedents of Exeter and Salter’s Hall for English Dissent are echoed in America not only in the Presbyterians’ Hemphill Affair, but in the Congregationalists’ ordination controversies relating to Robert Breck and Jonathan Mayhew, events that have not previously been connected at length. Benjamin Franklin’s written contributions to the Hemphill Affair are briefly assessed with new insights on his religious thought. Against the latest scholarship, Mayhew’s theological position is demonstrated to accord with Emlyn rather than Clarke. Aaron Burr, Sr.’s response to Mayhew is assessed to its greatest extent yet in secondary scholarship. Samuel Johnson, Anglican clergyman in Connecticut and president of King’s College, is found to convey in his published curriculums the vicissitudes of Anglican Trinitarianism during the period. Through all, the Trinitarian debates are seen to consistently activate the discourse on institutional and individual authority and to provide further material and direction for the discourse on the authority of Scripture, Tradition, and Reason.
date: 2022
id_scheme: DOI
id_number: 10.11588/heidok.00032145
ppn_swb: 1818011557
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-321450
date_accepted: 2022-07-18
advisor: HASH(0x55c64f2e8050)
language: eng
bibsort: PIKEJONATHEARLYEIGHT20220901
full_text_status: public
place_of_pub: Heidelberg
citation:   Pike, Jonathan D.  (2022) Early Eighteenth-Century Trinitarian Debates and Anglo-American Discourse on Authority, c. 1702-1758.  [Dissertation]     
document_url: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/32145/1/J%20Pike%20PDF%20A%20Final%20HU%20Library%20Copy.pdf