TINDAL, MATTHEW. – English philosopher, born at Beer Ferrers (Devonshire) in 1656, died at Oxford in 1733.
Having converted to Catholicism, he returned to Anglicanism in 1687. Among his numerous writings, noteworthy are The Rights of the christian Church against the Romish and all other priests who claim an independent power over it (published anonymously in 1706; despite its condemnation, it went through four editions in three years) and, foremost among them, Christianity as old as the Creation (1730), which exerted a broad European influence, especially in Germany, where it was translated in 1741. For many years this work deism (v.).
T. identifies Christianity with natural religion: human nature is immutable, like God, who has revealed himself to reason since the creation; hence positive Revelation is superfluous, since it adds nothing to natural revelation (the Gospel is “the republication of the law of nature”). There is no difference between morality and religion, since the reason of things (according to which one acts), considered in itself and as the law of God, is identical.