Life
The son of a Presbyterian linen-draper, he was destined for the ministry of that church, and—along with future archbishop Thomas Secker—entered Samuel Jones's dissenting academy at Gloucester (later Tewkesbury) for that purpose. Whilst there, he entered into a secret correspondence with the conformist controversialist Samuel Clarke; his letters were taken to Gloucester post office by Secker, who also collected Clarke's responses from there. Clarke later published this correspondence. In 1714, Butler decided to enter the Church of England, and went to Oriel College, Oxford. After holding various other high positions, he became rector of the rich living of Stanhope.
In 1736 he was made the head chaplain of King George II's wife Caroline, on the advice of Lancelot Blackburne. In 1738 he was appointed bishop of Bristol. He is said (apocryphally) to have declined an offer to become the archbishop of Canterbury in 1747. He became Bishop of Durham in 1750.
He is most famous for his Fifteen Sermons Preached at the Rolls Chapel (1726) and Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed (1736). The Analogy is an important work of Christian apologetics in the history of the controversies over deism. Butler's apologetic concentrated on "the general analogy between the principles of divine government, as set forth by the biblical revelation, and those observable in the course of nature, leads us to the warrantable conclusion that there is one Author of both." Butler's arguments combined a cumulative case for faith using probabilistic reasoning to persuade deists and others to reconsider orthodox faith. Overall, his two books are remarkable and original contributions to ethics and theology. They depend for their effect entirely upon the force of their reasoning, for they have no graces of style.
The "Sermons on Human Nature" is commonly studied as an answer to Hobbes' philosophy of ethical egoism. These two books are considered by his followers to be among the most powerful and original contributions to ethics, apologetics and theology which have ever been made.
Today, he is commonly cited for the blunt epigram, "Every thing is what it is, and not another thing."
Butler died in 1752 at Rosewell House, Kingsmead Square in Bath, Somerset. His admirers praise him as an excellent man, and a diligent and conscientious churchman. Though indifferent to general literature, he had some taste in the fine arts, especially architecture.
In the calendars of the Anglican communion his feast day is 16 June.
He has his own collection of manuscripts (e.g. Lectionary 189).
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Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!—
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1809–1882)
“But every insight from this realm of thought is felt as initial, and promises a sequel. I do not make it; I arrive there, and behold what was there already. I make! O no! I clap my hands in infantine joy and amazement, before the first opening to me of this august magnificence, old with the love and homage of innumerable ages, young with the life of life, the sunbright Mecca of the desert.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The light of memory, or rather the light that memory lends to things, is the palest light of all.... I am not quite sure whether I am dreaming or remembering, whether I have lived my life or dreamed it. Just as dreams do, memory makes me profoundly aware of the unreality, the evanescence of the world, a fleeting image in the moving water.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)