John Toland: The 18th-century radical who dared to call religion a political fraud

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 29 September 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: John Toland was the first person ever labeled a freethinker. A brilliant, combative Irish philosopher, he argued that reason should govern all human belief. His radical ideas on church and state earned him public book burnings, exile, and a reputation as a dangerous man who refused to follow anyone.

Born in 1670 in Ireland, John Toland emerged as a central figure of the early Enlightenment. His seminal 1696 work, Christianity Not Mysterious, argued that no religious dogma should be beyond the reach of human reason. This stance was explosive; it challenged the authority of the Church of Ireland and the state alike, leading to his prosecution and the burning of his books by the public hangman. Toland’s philosophy was not merely theological but deeply political, as he believed that questioning ecclesiastical hierarchy was inseparable from questioning the divine right of kings.

Toland’s intellectual life was defined by a strategy of 'exoteric' writing—publicly participating in mainstream discourse while using irony and paradox to undermine it from within. In works like his 1704 Letters to Serena, he explored the origins of superstition and proposed a materialist view of the universe, even coining the term 'pantheism' to describe the philosophy of Spinoza. Some scholars, such as David Berman, suggest that Toland was a closeted atheist who used these complex, contradictory arguments to safely spread radical ideas in an era where heresy could be fatal.

Despite his influence, Toland died in poverty in 1722, largely ignored by the political establishment of Robert Walpole’s England. While later thinkers like Edmund Burke dismissed him as a relic, his legacy persisted through his editing of radical republican texts by figures like John Milton and James Harrington. Today, he is remembered as a man who pushed the boundaries of liberty, arguing that freedom was a defining human characteristic. As one scholar noted, had he lived two centuries later, he might have been a professor; in his own time, he was simply ignored to death.

General information, not professional advice. Spotted an error? Flag the card or see corrections and complaints.

Intellect Plus is a visual educational discovery platform for exploring fascinating facts and ideas. Brain Food, Not Brain Rot. What is Intellect Plus?

Related

• John Scotus Eriugena: The Ninth-Century Irish Intellectual Who Reconciled Reason and Divine Faith
• The 17th-century philosopher who championed both the scientific method and the reality of witches.
• Can reason replace revelation? The provocative philosophy of England’s most notorious eighteenth-century freethinker.
• Richard Whately: The flamboyant archbishop who treated political economy as a logical science
• How nineteenth-century theologians tried to outflank the rise of secular science
• John Wallis: The cryptographer who gave us the symbol for infinity
• Can a machine truly understand, or is it just shuffling symbols in a room?
• The polymath who shaped modern photography and fueled a century of scientific conflict myths.
• Can humanity survive by abandoning civilization and returning to a hunter-gatherer existence?
• A brilliant Scottish physicist who helped define modern science became a pioneer of conspiracy.
• Can rational choice theory explain human behavior, or is it just a myth?
• The forgotten 6th-century thinker who predicted the laws of inertia

More in Philosophers · More in Ideas & Philosophy · Latest · A–Z · All topics