Religion in John Toland

This study aims to present the views of John Toland, as a prominent figure of the late 17th and early 18th century who reinterpretated the philosophy of religion and God within the frame of the Age of Enlightenment. As a key man between the rediscovery of Renaissance and the rationality of the Age of Enlightenment, Toland made a major contribution to political, philosophical and theological matters with his brave and unusual criticism. He supported the liberation of Christianity based on free society, rational thinking, civil and secular religion rather than the superstition, the mystery and the prejudice between traditions and the individual. Accepting the reason and religious tolerance, and also protesting against the established religion and monopolised Church Fathers, Toland asserted that no tradition, authority or collective rationality can override the individual's own beliefs. In the light of science, he chose to integrate the freedom of religion with the proof of the individual's existence by glorfying and reshaping the situation of its place in the society.