Butler, Joseph

(1692–1752)

   Bishop and Theologian.

   Butler was born in Wantage in England and was brought up as a Presbyterian. He became a member of the Church of England and was educated at the University of Oxford. After ordination in 1718, he served congregations in County Durham and, after attracting the notice of Queen Caroline, he became Bishop of Bristol in 1738, Dean of St Paul’s in 1740 and Bishop of Durham in 1750. He is chiefly remembered as a theologian. A firm advocate of natural theology and ethics, in his Fifteen Sermons he taught that virtue consisted in living in harmony with one’s true nature; this he defined as being made up of self-love, conscience and benevolence. In his most famous work, the Analogy of Religion, he combated the Deism of his day by maintaining that the mysteries of natural and revealed religion are analogous to the mysteries that can be observed in nature and that this argues for God being the author of both. The Analogy was in- fluential on such diverse thinkers as David hume and John Henry newman and it remains a classic of British theology.

   A.E. Baker, Bishop Butler (1923);

   P.A. Carlsson, Butler’s Ethics (1964);

   I. Ramsey, Joseph Butler (1969).