Anthony Collins

Anthony Collins (born June 21, 1676, Heston, Middlesex, Eng.—died Dec. 13, 1729, London) was a prolific and provocative English Deist and freethinker and friend of the philosopher John Locke.

In Collins’ first noteworthy work, Essay concerning the use of Reason in propositions the evidence whereof depends on Human Testimony (1707), he demanded that revelation should conform to man’s ideas of God drawn from nature. Neither an atheist nor an agnostic, Collins wrote in A Discourse of Free-thinking (1713), his major work, “Ignorance is the foundation of Atheism and Free-Thinking the Cure of it.” Like all of his other works, this essay was published anonymously. It immediately caused a sensation, eliciting numerous replies. Similarly, no fewer than 35 answers were directed against his Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian Religion, prefixed by An Apology for Free Debate and Liberty of Writing (1724). Written in opposition to the effort of William Whiston, an English theologian, to show that the Old Testament prophesied New Testament events, the work asserts that such fulfillment by Christ of Old Testament prophecies is all “secondary, secret, allegorical, and mystical.” To his opponents, who included Anglican bishops and the philosopher Samuel Clarke, Collins replied with his Scheme of Literal Prophecy considered (1726). An appendix to the work, directed at Whiston, maintains that the Old Testament Book of Daniel was a forgery. Collins thus helped prepare the way for modern biblical criticism by raising the issue of the validity of the scriptural canon.

Although most Deists defended the doctrine of individual freedom of the will, Collins advocated necessitarianism, referring to an inevitable cause-and-effect relationship between events. His brief Inquiry concerning Human Liberty and Necessity (1715) was attacked by Samuel Clarke, and Liberty and Necessity (1729) was Collins’ rejoinder. Against Clarke he also argued, in A Letter to Mr. Dodwell (1707), that, even if an immaterial soul be admitted, it does not follow automatically that such a soul is immortal. Collins’ other writings include Vindication of the Divine Attributes (1710), Priestcraft in Perfection (1709), and two tributes to John Locke published in 1708 and 1720.