Samuel Clarke
1675–1729 · British Moral Philosophy · Known
Samuel Clarke was an English theologian who followed Newton and set out to prove God the way you prove a theorem, resting the argument on the rule that nothing is the case without a reason for being so. His God can be described: eternal, infinite, intelligent, good and just. He defended Newton's absolute space and time and a will that could have chosen otherwise, and he read morality as an eternal fitness of things.
Signature
The position Clarke is most identified with in the Profiler:
- The Divine
- strongly leans Describable
- Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
Positions on the 12 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (84 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (97 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- strongly leans Describable (0 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Universals
- leans Realism (12 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (6 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (94 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (75 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (84 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (100 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Ethics
- leans Means (81 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
- Conviction
- mildly between Uncertain and Certain (56 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (78 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
8 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Clarke refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Non-Trinitarian Monotheism / Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Good and Evil
- Moral Realism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Indirect Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo / Eternal First Cause
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Rational Expertise
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Paradox
- Paradox as Error
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Judgement
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- Imago Dei
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?