Several Letters to the Reverend Dr. Clarke from a Gentleman in Gloucestershire relating to the “Discourse concerning the Being and Attributes of God”

[Editor's Note: The “Gentleman in Gloucestershire” was none other than Joseph Butler (1692–1752), who went on to become one of the most important British moral philosophers and natural theologians of the eighteenth century. The exchange dealt mainly with divine omnipresence and divine necessity. The first topic was to become one of the most important in the controversy between Leibniz and Clarke. This selection should be read in conjunction with supplementary text 11. The text is from W11, 737–50.]

Butler's First Letter [W11, 737–9]

Reverend Sir,

I suppose you will wonder at the present trouble from one who is a perfect stranger to you, though you are not so to him, but I hope the occasion will excuse my boldness. I have made it, sir, my business ever since I thought myself capable of such sort of reasoning, to prove to myself the being and attributes of God. And being sensible that it is a matter of the last consequence, I endeavored after a demonstrative proof not only more fully to satisfy my own mind, but also in order to defend the great truths of natural religion and those of the Christian revelation which follow from them against all opposers. But I must own with concern that hitherto I have been unsuccessful, and though I have got very probable arguments, yet I can go but a very little way with demonstration in the proof of those things. When first your book on those subjects (which by all whom I have discoursed with is so justly esteemed) was recommended to me, I was in great hopes of having all my enquiries answered.