Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Human Nature in its Fourfold State

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Star Mississippi 01:51, 21 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Human Nature in its Fourfold State[edit]

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References are not reliable sources. Does not meet GNG Whiteguru (talk) 05:07, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History, Religion, Bible, and Christianity. Whiteguru (talk) 05:07, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Literature and Scotland. Curbon7 (talk) 05:17, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. "References are not reliable sources" is not, of course, a reason to delete. But I have added a reliable source demonstrating the book's significance. St Anselm (talk) 06:17, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: it was also the topic of Philip Ryken's D. Phil. thesis. St Anselm (talk) 06:26, 13 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Despite the addition of a reference, I still do not think this article meets GNG notability criteria. If further, reputable sources could show how this book was notable in it's time than it could be a keep. If it was as popular as Ferguson notes, I would have expected to see a wider impact on social history. I didn't find anything on a couple of different university library searches. Coldupnorth (talk) 12:42, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I see that not much comes up in searches, but I think that's because sources are offline. I suspect that Paul Helm's Human Nature from Calvin to Edwards would discuss the book and thus satisfy WP:GNG but I don't have access and so I don't know. St Anselm (talk) 13:53, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I added a reference from Jonathan Yeager which cites G. D. Henderson, The Burning Bush: Studies in Scottish Church History . Again, I am not able to access that work, but I think it will provide the significant coverage you're looking for. St Anselm (talk) 14:28, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- The nom is plain wrong. One of the sources is a description of the book, which might fail RS. The second appears to be a place where the text can be downloaded. The third is certainly RS. Possibly the titel should be Human Nature in its Fourfold State (book). If what the article says is true, this was a best seller of the 18th century, in which case it was notable then; if so, it is notable now, as WP-notability is not temporary. Peterkingiron (talk) 13:50, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I added the Ferguson source to the article after the deletion nomination. St Anselm (talk) 13:53, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The book appears to be discussed at some length in every source that discusses Boston. E.g., here in the introduction to an edited collection of his works, and here in an 1899 journal. That second source is paywalled but 1/4 of it is a discussion of the publication and reception of this book. Looking at bibliographic databases, it went through a huge number of editions for an 18thC book, signalling real popularity -- a book with that kind of footprint is essentially guaranteed to have gotten newspaper reviews in the 18thC, but those reviews are very hard to find now, as they are not indexed in databases. Philip Ryken's dissertation is not an RS (theses and dissertations are assumed not-RS unless there's a reason to make an exception), but Ryken subsequently published a book version, Thomas Boston as Preacher of the Fourfold State, which is. Based on the index Ryken's book seems to be mostly about Boston's religious philosophy, but it must have at least some discussion of the book since it is clearly about the book's main topic. Based on a book review I found for The Federal Theology of Thomas Boston by A.T.B. McGowan in 1997, I think it likely discusses this book as well, as do publications by James Torrance and Sinclair Ferguson also from the 90s; Thomas Boston apparently attracted a lot of attention then. WP:NBOOK just needs two sources of sustained coverage; usually that would be two reviews. Here, I would say that the 1899 journal and Ryken's book are the best two sources for an NBOOK pass, if we don't want to take the existence of 18thC reviews on faith. ~ L 🌸 (talk) 22:48, 15 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your research. One small quibble: WP:SCHOLARSHIP specifically allows doctoral theses as reliable sources. St Anselm (talk) 01:36, 16 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, re WP:OLDBOOK, as brought out in the article: "the most frequently published Scottish book of the eighteenth century, going through nearly 60 editions by 1800 and over one hundred editions in all". Coolabahapple (talk) 14:02, 17 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Excellent work by StAnselm so that the article now clearly establishes notability. Srnec (talk) 13:31, 18 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.