 David Berman in his A History of Atheism in Great Britain, gives a number of reasons to take Collins as an atheist rather than a deist. He sees Collins’ account of the creation of matter ex nihilo in the Answer to Mr. Clarke’s Third Defence in the Clarke Collins correspondence as an argument for atheism disguised as an argument against atheism (Berman 1988: 80–81). He sees Collins as using Bayle to raise the problem of evil in the Vindication of the Divine Attributes and then showing that both the solution offered by Bayle and Dr. King are unacceptable. Collins’ official position at the end of the Vindication is that King is wrong but atheism is avoidable. Berman asks what the actual conclusion of the Vindication is. He continues: