Dominic Erdozain argues that the real solvents of orthodoxy in the modern period have been concepts of moral equity and personal freedom generated by Christianity itself.

• Abbreviations


• Introduction: Desecularizing Doubt


• 1. The Prophets Armed: Luther and the making and breaking of conscience


• 2. "To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine. It is to kill a man": the wars of religion and the virtues of doubt


• 3. The Metaphysics of Mercy: Calvin and Spinoza


• 4. In Search of a Father: Voltaire's Christian Enlightenment


• 5. "A damnable doctrine": Darwin and the soul of Victorian doubt


• 6. The God that Failed: Feuerbach, Marx, and the politics of salvation


• Conclusion: in Augustine's shadow

Dominic Erdozain is a visiting scholar at Emory University. His first book The Problem of Pleasure: Sport, Recreation and the Crisis of Victorian Religion was published in 2010.