 It is true that the classical arguments for God’s existence – e.g., Thomas’s “Five Ways” – predate the development of secular reason, but scholars have argued that their function changed over time, and that they were not originally intended as stand-alone proofs that would convince an unbeliever. They operated within a distinctive theological theater to elucidate it, rather than providing external foundations for it. John Clayton has argued that, within pre-modern Judaism and Christianity, theistic proofs were used within religious communities “to correct heresy, confirm true belief or simply express awe or wonder” (92). They were also used apologetically by Christians, but their target audience was typically other theists, including Muslims. “[S]ince the Muslims already believed in God, Thomas cannot have wanted by means of rational argument to convince them that God exists […] It would seem more likely that he hoped through rehearsing such proofs (together with other proofs about God’s nature) to establish with Muslims a positive basis upon which additionally, more specifically Christian, arguments could be built” (92–93). By the seventeenth century this had begun to change. In attempting to rescue God from the enthusiasm and perceived dogmatism of traditional religion, deistic thinkers sought to establish a less theologically ramified, more universal or “natural” religion. Whereas formerly the proofs had operated emically, within a horizon of shared theological concerns, “[i]n the new dispensation,” Taylor argues, “the issues of God’s existence, our relation to him, what we owe him, and the like, are put by Deism quite outside this horizon” (294). This shift in the arguments’ role was accompanied, necessarily, by a corresponding shift in the meaning of key terms. “The world” which the “disembedded” proofs take as their point of departure, is no longer the created order, but the immanent domain of the emerging natural sciences. God is no longer essential to a proper understanding of the world but a hypothetical explanation for its existence and order.