The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy / BoM Site

The Book of Mormon Site

The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy

by Timothy Dwight IV (1752-1817), Congregationalist minister
And president of Yale College up until his death
Two sermons, delivered in 1797 at Yale Baccaleaureate convocation
Published 1799

Timothy Dwight IV’s sermons were so popular that Theology: Explained and Defended (his complete sermons, in five volumes, published by two of his sons) went through 12 printings into the 1820s and 1830s. The Wikipedia article on Dwight says that this one published pamphlet (The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philosophy) helped kindle the Second Great Awakening.

Dwight’s Hit List: Deists, Atheists, Sceptics, Philsophers and Infidels

Apologists would be correct to claim that there is no way that JS Jr. could have had access to and read all of the works of all of these British Deists and Philosophers:

Yet this list is simply a transcript from a single sermon, where ordained minister and President Dwight of Yale College admits (in two footnotes) that even he had not read the works of these eleven men. Instead the printed version references Philip Skelton’s 1751 Deism Revealed: An Attack on Christianity and Bishop Horne’s A Summary of Hume (a garbled mischaracterization of Hume, copied in a long footnote) who do the work for him. Given all this, Dwight hypocritically calls out others who don’t read the philosophers’ works (p. 47 “Many readers of this Philosophy are ignorant; many impatient of thorough investigation, and accustomed to depend for their opinions on others”), while warning (entire second sermon) about the dangers of doing so, since the Philosophers are sophisticated and can be convincing. Which is it, President Dwight?

Luckily it doesn’t matter if JS Jr. read all of these British men’s obscure works from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Instead he can just read third-hand polemical mischaracterizations of these works and put those words into Korihor’s mouth, all from a single sermon published in New England (Connecticut) in 1799. (Note that for the purposes of this argument, it doesn’t matter if there exists a fourth, unknown revival sermonizer who used Dwight’s ideas, to hand off Skelton’s second-hand ideas to JS Jr., or if another similar sermon preceded Dwight’s 1799 diatribe—only that the text of Dwight’s sermon shows the plausible existence of some singular source for most of Korihor’s ideas or even specific words.)

Relevant Text

Compare the episode of Korihor and Alma in the Book of Alma, chapter 30. The quotes that follow are Dwight’s words, noted with the philosopher to whom he attributes the ideas:

Dwight's Characterization	Korihor in Alma 30
Shaftesbury ... asserts salvation to be ridiculous. Inspiration [i.e. revelations of the Bible] is a supernatural gift, ... and yet is madness (Hobbes)	Korihor: “Behold, these things which ye call prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets, behold, they are foolish traditions of your fathers. Ye look forward and say that ye see a remission of your sins.” And: “O ye that are bound down under a foolish and a vain hope, why do ye yoke yourselves with such foolish things? Why do ye look for a Christ? For no man can know of anything which is to come.” Korihor ridicules salvation (redemption of sins) and traditions (inspired prophecies) of their fathers. Korihor says that the lay people believe because “it is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes from the traditions of your fathers.” Madness, in other words, due to the traditions (recorded inspired prophecies, i.e. madness) of their fathers.
The scriptures are of no authority except as enjoined by the Civil Magistrate ... the civil or municipal Law is the only foundation of right and wrong (Hobbes)	Mormon summarizes in verses 10, 11 that “if [a man] murdered he was punished unto death; and if he robbed he was also punished; and if he stole he was also punished; and if he committed adultery he was also punished; yea, for all this wickedness they were punished. For there was a law that men should be judged according to their crimes. Nevertheless, there was no law against a man’s belief; therefore, a man was punished only for the crimes which he had done.” The “no law against a man's belief” part is a very-clearly American idea from the first amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion” because the founding fathers followed the logic of Hobbes, Locke, and all of these infidel enlightenment thinkers.
A subject may believe Christ in his heart, and yet may lawfully deny him before the Magistrate (Hobbes)	Korihor denies Christ before the Magistrate Alma, the chief judge, yet after being struck by the sign reveals that he believed in Christ in his heart the whole time.
Where there is no civil law, every man's judgement is the only standard of right and wrong (Hobbes) Every man has a right to all things, and may lawfully get them if he can (Hobbes)	Note that Korihor uses the phrase every man three times in the same context of prospering and getting ahead using his own genius and strength.
The Soul is probably material, and of course, mortal (Blount) The Soul is material and mortal (Bolingbroke)	Korihor says “When a man was dead, that was the end thereof.”
Experience is our only guide in matters of fact and the existence of objects (Hume) (Hume's Empiricism is accurately characterized here by Dwight, summarized by Wikipedia: “In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence.”)	Korihor says “Ye cannot know of things which ye do not see.”
There are no solid arguments to prove the existence of a God (Hume) Most of the Infidels of the present age deny [God's] existence, and treat the belief of it as a contemptible absurdity. (Dwight summarizes all eleven men's varying points of view as if they were one unified threat to Christianity.)	“Alma said unto him: Will ye deny again that there is a God?” to which Korihor agrees.
Pride and self-valuation, ingenuity, eloquence, quickness of thought, easiness of expression, delicacy of taste, strength of body, health, cleanliness, taper legs, and broad shoulders, are virtues (Hume) Such is the Atheism, which they now consider as the only rational and enlightened Philosophy. Such is the Scepticism of Hume, the mortality and materiality of the soul; the doctrine that Man is a mere animal. (Dwight summarizing dozens of views as if one unified boogeyman.)	Korihor says “Every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature [i.e. every man is an animal]; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength.” "Genius" in the late 18th/early 19th century often meant something like "native talent" or "innate capacity," as spelled out here with many examples (ingenuity, thought, expression, taste, body, health, legs, shoulders). On page eight, Dwight accuses philosophers of encouraging men to be “self-sufficient,” more of the same idea.
The prophets were mere fortune-tellers and discoverers of lost goods (Collins)	Unexpected connection to the Book of Mormon and the folk magic and treasure-digging history of the Smith family. Sarcasm: Did Joseph Smith read this as a battle plan instead of an indictment? End Sarcasm.
... adultery should be practiced (not Hume's actual position) ... [adultery] would by degrees come to be thought no crime at all ... crimes committed by [a man] cannot be imputable to him at another [future moment]. (p. 30 footnote Bishop Horne's summary of Hume)	Korihor says, “Whatsoever a man did was no crime.”

Again, it doesn’t matter if Dwight correctly characterizes the positions of any or all of these philosophers, but rather whether Korihor regurgitates these positions, lined up like dominoes for Alma to knock down with a single invocation of God’s authority.

Conclusion

Reading this one pamphlet is a slog. However, pretty quickly we are left to question Dwight’s intellectual integrity. On page seventeen he writes concering philosophies whose “discordance and contradictoriness of its doctrines … 300 sects of the western philosophers” yet he switches back at least five times to the singular and the definite article, trying to conflate dozens of views into one attack on Christianity:

p. 34 “the ancient Philosophy” (as if only one school of thought existed) “the only rational and enlightened Philosophy”
p. 35 “these are the substance of the modern philosophy”
p. 14 “the prevailing philosophy wholly denies the existence of such a being”
p. 45 “this Philosophy”

(Ironically he later admits that religion has the same pluralism problem but brushes past it like it doesn’t undermine his point. p. 21)

So how could JS Jr. have combined all of these modern philosophical ideas into a single character? Simple: because Dwight and other anti-infidel preachers had already done the same thing before him. The artificially constructed, misconstrued, misrepresented, over-simplified Infidel Philsopher was the perfect stock character to write into the Book of Mormon. And like Dwight, Alma fails to engage any of the philosophical ideas directly, but resorts to an appeal to authority to defend the believers from a perceived threat, with zero sense of self-reflection.

< Back to Index

The Book of Mormon Site