The True Toland?

This thesis attempts to trace the religious and philosophical ideas of the Irish/ English philosopher John Toland (1670-1722) throughout his oeuvre. It focuses on the possible radical implications of his writings, and proposes a new answer to the much-debated question whether Toland should be called a Christian, deist, pantheist or even an atheist writer. Special attention is paid to the hermeneutical side of this debate: how to read such ambiguous and possibly dissimulating texts from the Early Modern era?