Matthew Tindal
Christianity is as old as the Creation: natural religion is perfect and revelation can only restate it.
Life
Matthew Tindal (c. 1657-1733) was an English lawyer and philosopher, for many years a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He first defended freedom of the press and the authority of the state over the Church. In the last years of his life he published Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), which argues that natural religion is perfect and that the Gospel only republishes it. The book became the reference of the English deists and drew very many replies, among them Butler's.
Main works
A dialogue arguing that the religion of nature is perfect and that revelation can only republish it.
A book defending the authority of the state over the Church against the claims of the clergy.
In his own words
« Can laws be imperfect, where a legislator is absolutely perfect? Can time discover any thing to him, which he did not foresee from eternity? »
« the religion of nature is an absolutely perfect religion; and that external revelation can neither add to, nor take from its perfection »
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceHe holds that an infinitely wise and good God exists and gave all people one natural religion; he holds that a revelation can add nothing to it, which places him among the deists.
Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), ch. I et VI ; valeur 1 = Dieu créateur sans révélation particulière nécessaire, comme pour Paine
The law of nature is eternal, universal and unchangeable, founded on the nature of God and of things, not on God's mere will.
Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), ch. VI
Reason judges everything, revelation included: a revealed religion is valid only if it agrees with the religion of nature and reason.
Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), ch. VI