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In the European Enlightenments it was often argued that moral conduct rather than adherence to certain theological doctrines was the true measure of religious belief. This book shows that the characteristically “enlightened” emphasis on conduct in religion was less reliant on arguments from reason alone than is commonly believed. In fact, the champions of the Scottish Enlightenment were deeply skeptical of the power of unassisted natural reason in achieving “enlightened” virtue and piety. They advocated a practical program of “moral culture,” in which revealed religion was of central importance. The book traces this to theological controversies going back as far as the Reformation concerning the key question of early modern theology, the conditions of salvation. It examines these themes in Scottish Enlightenment thought in the period from the Glorious Revolution until the early nineteenth century.

The first four works written by St. Augustine of Hippo after his conversion to Christianity are dialogues that have influenced prominent thinkers from Boethius to Bernard Lonergan. Usually called the “Cassiciacum dialogues,” these four works are of a high literary and intellectual quality, combining Ciceronian and neo-Platonic philosophy, Roman comedy and Vergilian poetry, and early Christian theology. They are also, arguably, Augustine's most charming works, exhibiting his whimsical levity and ironic wryness. This book is the third work in this tetralogy, and it is Augustine's only work explicitly devoted to theodicy, the reconciliation of Almighty God's goodness with evil's existence. In this dialogue, Augustine argues that a certain kind of self-knowledge is the key to unlocking the answers to theodicy's vexing questions, and he devotes the latter half of the dialogue to an excursus on the liberal arts as disciplines that will help strengthen the mind to know itself and God.

Most readers of Spinoza treat him as a pure metaphysician, a grim determinist, or a stoic moralist, but none of these descriptions captures the book of the Ethics. Offering a new reading of Spinoza's masterpiece, the book asserts that the Ethics is a celebration of human freedom and its attendant joys and responsibilities, and should be placed among the great founding documents of the Enlightenment. This book treats the famous “geometrical method” of the Ethics as a form of moral rhetoric, a model for the construction of individuality. It presents the Ethics as a companion to Spinoza's major work of political philosophy, the Theologico-Political Treatise, each work helping to explore the problem of freedom.