God in the Philosophy of Berkeley

Abstract

The following pages contain an attempt at a study of one aspect of the philosophy of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, viz., his view of the place of God in the universe. It may thus be called a study of part of Berkeley's Philosophy of Religion, although Berkeley himself does not distinguish the Philosophy of Religion from philosophy in general, because he believed that no philosophical system could be complete unless it gave God a preeminent place. This study deals with that part of his philosophy which manifests his teaching about the existence of, and our knowledge of, the Divine Being. But here I must make a disclaimer. I cannot pretend that this is even a nearly complete treatment of the subject, because, as A. A. Luce has truly said, (Berkeley's Immaterialism, p. 74) "A full account of God in the Berkeleian philosophy would be a full account of that philosophy". The editions of Berkeley's Works which I have used are those of A. C. Frazer (1901) and Luce and Jessop (1948-). I have used the latter wherever possible, but, as the first two volumes were the only ones available at the time of writing, I have had recourse to Frazer's edition for one or two of the later works. A full list of the works used, along with an indication of the edition referred to, is given in the list of abbreviations. In quoting from the "Principles" I have referred to Berkeley's Section numbers, but in all other cases I have shown the page number of the edition used. Of the commentaries available I will specially mention two, those of A. A. Luce (Berkeley's Immaterialism, Nelson, 1945) and G. A. Johnston (The Development of Berkeley's Philosophy, Macmillan, 1923). Other books have been referred to throughout the text and/or noted in the bibliography.