Froude was particularly influenced by the Catholic teachings of the Oxford Movement and by the new approach to religious scholarship developed by the German Higher Critics.

The novel was condemned by English religious figures and publicly burned by William Sewell; this led to Froude's resignation of his fellowship at Oxford University.

The novel's reception amongst literary reviewers was mixed; while writers such as George Eliot professed profound admiration, others such as Thomas Carlyle were harshly critical.

Although no longer widely read as a literary work, it remains significant in intellectual history for its accounts of Victorian scepticism and the Oxford Movement.

Sutherland, under pressure from his father to become a clergyman, confesses to Arthur his reservations about accepting the Thirty-Nine Articles and contemporary English Christianity in general.

Sutherland also seeks guidance in the writings of Victorian historian and sage Thomas Carlyle (who was Froude's chief intellectual influence in later years), but finds no solutions.

The novel's primary interest comes from its depiction of Sutherland's religious doubts, which arise from the weakness of a faith based on empirically false historical claims, "old-wives' tales" taken for truth.

"[8] Although recent critics tend to be more positive about the novel's depiction of Sutherland's speculative crisis, they have maintained the weakness of the ending, attributing it to Froude's inability to come to terms with his own doubts.

[9] By contrast, the novel was positively reviewed by such literary figures as George Eliot and Mrs. Humphrey Ward, whose 1888 novel Robert Elsmere was significantly influenced by the novel and by Froude's life.

[10] In a review in the Coventry Herald Eliot wrote that in reading The Nemesis of Faith "we seem to be in companionship with a spirit who is transfusing himself into our souls, and so vitalising them by his superior energy, that life, both outward and inward, presents itself to us in higher relief, in colours brightened and deepened.