Thomas Chubb
| Thomas Chubb | |
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Portrait of Thomas Chubb, by Thomas Gainsborough
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| Born | September 29, 1679 |
| Died | February 8, 1747 (aged 67) |
| Genre | Theology |
| Literary movement | Deism |
Thomas Chubb (September 29, 1679 – February 8, 1747) was an English lay Deist writer, born near Salisbury.
Chubb regarded Christ as a divine teacher, but held reason to be sovereign in matters of religion, questioned religions' morality, yet was on rational grounds a defender of Christianity. He had no learning, but was well up in the religious controversies of the time.
Chubb wrote The True Gospel of Jesus Christ, Asserted, wherein he stated that one must distinguish between the teaching of Jesus and that of the Apostles who wrote the Gospels.
Chubb's views concerning free will and determinism, as expressed in his book A Collection of Tracts on Various Subjects (1730) was the subject of extensive criticism by Jonathan Edwards in his book Freedom of the Will (1754).
He published tracts, one of which, The Previous Question with regard to Religion, went through four editions, three in 1725. They were collected in a quarto volume in 1730, and attracted wider notice. (A second edition, in 2 volumes which appeared in 1754 included 35 tracts.) Chubb was encouraged to write further tracts. A disciple of Samuel Clarke, he gradually diverged from Arianism into a modified deism.
In 1731 he published a Discourse concerning Reason, … (showing that) reason is, or else that it ought to be, a sufficient guide in matters of Religion. Some ‘reflections’ upon ‘moral and positive duty’ were added, suggested by Clarke's Exposition of the Catechism. In 1732 he published The Sufficiency of Reason further considered … appended to an ‘enquiry’ directed against a recent sermon by Samuel Croxall, and urging that the celebration of Charles I's martyrdom was inconsistent with the celebration of William III's arrival.
In 1734 appeared four tracts, in which he attacks the common theory of inspiration, argues that the resurrection of Christ was not a proof of his divine mission, and criticises the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. The whole argument showed an increasing scepticism, and the argument about Abraham led to some controversy. He returned to the question in 1735 in some ‘Observations’ on Thomas Rundle's nomination to the see of Gloucester, Rundle having been accused of disbelieving the story. Three tracts are added in continuation of the former discussion.
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