Locke, John

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LOCKE, JOHN

LOCKE, JOHN (1632–1704), English Christian writer on religious toleration, epistemology, political theory, theology, education, and economics. Locke was admitted to Westminster School, London, upon the recommendation of a Puritan family friend and proceeded as a King's Scholar to Christ Church, Oxford, where in 1658 he was chosen as a senior student (fellow) to teach moral philosophy. He studied chemistry and medicine, the practice of which contributed to his friendship with Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury and leader of the Whig Party. This political association led to Locke's self-imposed exile in Holland and the loss of his Oxford studentship in 1684. With the "Glorious Revolution" of 1689, he returned to England, where he devoted the remainder of his life largely to writing.

Locke's earliest extant writings of substance (not published until the twentieth century) set the course, though not the content, of his later, most influential works. After the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, Locke conformed to the Church of England and wrote two essays defending the right of the civil magistrate to determine and enforce adiaphora, indifferent matters of religious worship. He believed that such authoritarianism was the only means to religious and political peace after the conflicts of the interregnum. In 1661 he reiterated this position in an essay on infallibility, which subject perhaps initiated his interest in the relationship between issues of knowledge and religious policy. By 1667, after his association with Shaftesbury, Locke changed his position and defended religious toleration in An Essay concerning Toleration, which foreshadowed the liberal views of his Epistola de tolerantia (1689), his classic defense of religious liberty. There he argued that religious opinions, even in "matters indifferent," could not and ought not be imposed upon subjects since a government magistrate had no more certain or infallible knowledge than anyone else.

From his consideration of religious toleration, Locke turned his attention to two fundamental attendant issues: the nature of government and the nature of knowledge. His Two Treatises of Government (1689) sets forth both a biblical interpretation attacking the basis of traditional patriarchal political theory and a model of human society in which every person has a direct relation to God under natural law. In accord with his views on toleration, Locke's theory of government does not require a uniformity of religion but is instead based on the right and need of individuals to preserve their lives, liberty, and property under natural law, even to the point of revolution.

His Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) addresses issues of epistemology with an eye toward their religious and political implications. He attacks the theory of "innate principles," charging that its proponents (Hobbesians, Enthusiasts, and Roman Catholics) used it to impose their opinions on others as infallible so that they might govern by demanding unquestioning faith in their judgments. He seeks to show how little proper knowledge, that is, certainty, is available and asserts that religion rests primarily upon faith, not on knowledge. By "faith" Locke meant an assent to revelation; such an assent is essentially a judgment of probability, however great an assurance or confidence it carries. Thus, his epistemology supports his claim, with regard to toleration, that the leaders of society have no basis for imposing religion on subjects. However, he firmly believed that each individual could determine what was essential to his or her own salvation and moral life.

In The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), Locke sets forth his own understanding of true religion, which he describes as a simple, intelligible Christianity derived from scripture alone. Drawing on an old tradition, he argues that the fundamental articles of Christian faith had been clearly designated by Jesus and the apostles, and that they are evident to anyone who reads the Bible. Focusing on the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, he attempts to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus and the apostles so as to show that they required for salvation belief only that Jesus was the Messiah, which presupposes belief in the existence of God and carries with it certain "concomitant articles" (such as Jesus' miracles, resurrection, and ascension) that proved him to be the Messiah. He admits that other scriptural doctrines must be believed as one comes to know them and emphasizes that moral obedience must accompany faith. Locke seems to have hoped that such a vision of Christianity, founded on a simple article of faith and clear morality set forth plainly in scripture, could provide a basis for social and political unity in which secondary matters of difference would be tolerated.

Locke's method in Reasonableness was also influential in the history of biblical criticism. His attempt to reconstruct the earliest teachings of Christianity led him to write a virtual "life of Jesus," including attention to what would later be called the "messianic secret." He emphasized what he thought were the more historical portions of the New Testament over the more doctrinal letters. His later Paraphrases and Notes on the Pauline Epistles, published posthumously (1705–1707), also contributed to the perspective and style of subsequent biblical interpretation.

Locke's views on religion have been labeled as Hobbesian, Socinian or Unitarian, and deistic. The thesis of Reasonableness is nearly identical to that of Hobbes, and modern Marxist interpreters have revived the charges of Hobbesian inclination made by a few of Locke's contemporaries. However, non-Marxist historians have countered with alternative interpretations of Locke's meaning and broad intentions. Locke's ownership of numerous Socinian books, his several Unitarian friends, and manuscript records of antitrinitarian sentiments have often been cited as evidence of his secret sympathies. Yet such claims depend largely on silence and association, and recent analyses of manuscript sources have revealed that nearly all of Locke's "Unitarian" manuscript writings were not his own opinions but notes taken from his readings. His epistemology became a standard foundation of eighteenth-century Deism, but Reasonableness may well have been directed in part against the Deists and was used as a source of anti-Deist polemics. Locke strongly denied that his religious opinions were either the same as or influenced by Hobbes, the Socinians, or the Deists. If he is to be classed with any group or party, he might best be labeled as an independent thinker of the English Latitudinarian tradition.

Bibliography

Maurice Cranston's John Locke: A Biography (London, 1957) is more comprehensive in its biographical detail than compelling in its interpretations of Locke's thought. Peter Laslett's edition of Two Treatises of Government, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 1964), provides the best critical text, as well as a revolutionary interpretation that has been widely accepted. The best work on the religious influence of Locke's epistemology is John W. Yolton's John Locke and the Way of Ideas (Oxford, 1956).