The close relations between religion and literature in most societies testify to the vital role of imagination in the sphere of human values. The secular terms in which this statement is cast are characteristic of the period from the late Enlightenment critiques of religion to the various forms of nineteenth-century apologetics, although the latter may appear draped in traditional language. The secular agenda and terms still dominate current thinking. This period, then, marks a major shift in the relations between religion and literature. It can be expressed by saying that literature becomes the dominant partner; if ‘religion and literature’ would have expressed a clear hierarchy at the beginning of the period, it is of ‘literature and religion’ that we have come to speak. Criticism finds its vocation in negotiating this shift.

The critiques of the Enlightenment went to the roots of religious claims to supernatural authority, rational validity, divine inspiration of the sacred books, and historical evidence. They often employed a mocking tone, in which literary modes of satire and irony were effective persuasive tools. One of the major works scrutinizing these claims was David Hume's Dialogues concerning natural religion (1776), and especially the essay ‘Of miracles’ (1752), which demonstrated the radical incoherence of claims to miraculous supernatural events including ‘prophecy’ (inasmuch as natural law could not be abrogated); this represents one of the first major victories for the scientific world-view over the religious. Spinoza's Tractatus theologico-politicus (1670), questioning the infallibility of the Scriptures and regretting ‘that human commentaries are accepted as divine records’ (while counselling external conformity to authority), had an underground circulation throughout the eighteenth century despite condemnation of Spinoza as an ‘atheist’, and his arguments were absorbed into the Deist works of John Toland and Conyers Middleton.