Politics And Progress From The Perspective Of Joseph Priestly's Theological Epistemology

Joseph Priestly was an encyclopedic figure in England in the 18 th century,He holds an extremely optimistic progressive view of human society.But unlike other thinkers,he tried to give a divinity to this kind of progressiveness,He believed that the progress of human society was He believed that the progress of human society was guided by God's divine will and was part of God's divine plan.Therefore,this paper attempts to analyze how Priestly understands human political activities and historical progress on the basis of his unique theological epistemology.In the framework of this theological epistemology,how he views the role of government and civil liberties,and how this will affect the progress of human history.In Priestly's entire intellectual landscape,all his knowledge systems(including philosophy,morality,and politics)are based on theology.He advocated a rational religious view and tried to remove the irrational elements of Christianity,as it was the result of Christian corruption,and the most primitive Christianity was a pure revelation of truth,so he was also a millennialist.His epistemology contained the core concepts of determinism,inevitability,causality and materialism,and he believed that they were interrelated and coordinated.This formed the basis of Priestly's theological epistemology on politics and progress.He believes that nature itself is God's creative activity and is governed by the law of a chain of divine causation.Nature itself has divine power.Man's inquiry into nature seeks the truth of God and the perfection of man himself.Priestley passed the rationality,necessity,materialism and causality to illustrate that man can perfect,the human society is progressive.Therefore,based on this theological epistemology,he believes that the sole purpose and first principle of government is to promote human perfection(happiness)and social progress,in which the individual liberty of citizens is the most central element.So he focused on arguing that the government should not interfere with civil liberties,(including education andreligion).Finally,this paper links Priestly's theology(millennialism)with politics from a historical point of view.Human history is a process of continuous pursuit of God's truth,history is regarded as the arena of truth,and it is also a process of continuous improvement of human beings.The end of this process is the realization of the millennium.And in this new view of history,Priestly has a new understanding of human politics and liberty.