D'Holbach's Critique of the Scholium Generale and the Reception of Newton's Theology in the French Enlightenment

The purpose of this essay is to examine d’Holbach’s critique of Newtonian theology in the System of Nature (1770), a topic that has not been investigated so far. D’Holbach dissects Newton’s General Scholium and rejects both the traditional Christian apologetic use of Newtonian science, and its deistic interpretation proposed in France by Voltaire. D’Holbach’s critique is illustrated here against the background of the reception of the relationship between Newton’s theology and science in the French Enlightenment, which has been reconstructed with reference to Voltaire, Maupertuis, d’Alembert, Condillac, Diderot and several articles of the Encyclopédie. It is significant that the French philosophes were fully aware that Newton’s intellectual activity was not limited to physics, but also included religion and theology. Alongside the deistic reading of Newtonian physics, a gradual methodical separation of scientific theories from their metaphysical background developed in authors such as Maupertuis, Condillac and d’Alembert. As for Diderot and d’Holbach, they elaborated a new dynamic conception of matter, influenced by chemistry and the life sciences, and thus also distanced themselves from Newton in terms of their conception of nature. D’Holbach recognized the fundamental relevance of Newtonian physics, and regarded it to be intrinsically atheistic, as an explanatory theory of the laws of nature, compatible only with an integrally materialistic philosophical system.