The Great Debated is a series of fifteen lectures by Timothy McGrew, Professor and Department Chair, Department of Philosophy, Western Michigan University. The 'Great Debate' is a convenient umbrella term for a set of theological and philosophocal disputes about miracles, prophecy, and theism itself in the wake of the Deist Controversy. These disputes spanned roughly the years 1760 to 1900, played out across England, Europe, and North America, and associated with seven types of sceptical attack on the grounds of revealed religion: continental, urbane, populist, scholarly, transcendental,...
This lecture begins the account of the sceptics who appealed to the common working man, with the main focus of this first lecture on Thomas Paine, with responses by Bishop Richard Watson.
Published 06/29/17
This second and final lecture on urbane scepticism deals with the work of the Utilitarian John Stuart Mill and the English poet Matthew Arnold.
Published 06/29/17
Urbane scepticism, an extension of English Deism, is presented in this lecture mostly through the lens of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, with a response by Bishop Richard Watson.
Published 06/29/17