Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau
- Part II Responses to (and Partial Incorporations of) Civil Religion within the Liberal Tradition
- 9 Baruch Spinoza
- 10 Philosophy and Piety
- 11 Spinoza's Interpretation of the Commonwealth of the Hebrews, and Why Civil Religion Is a Continuing Presence in His Version of Liberalism
- 12 John Locke
- 13 “The Gods of the Philosophers” I
- 14 Bayle's Republic of Atheists
- 15 Montesquieu's Pluralized Civil Religion
- 16 The Straussian Rejection of the Enlightenment as Applied to Bayle and Montesquieu
- 17 “The Gods of the Philosophers” II
- 18 Hume as a Successor to Bayle
- 19 Adam Smith's Sequel to Hume (and Hobbes)
- 20 Christianity as a Civil Religion
- 21 John Stuart Mill's Project to Turn Atheism into a Religion
- 22 Mill's Critics
- 23 John Rawls's Genealogy of Liberalism
- 24 Prosaic Liberalism
- Part III Theocratic Responses to Liberalism
- Part IV Postmodern “Theism”
- Conclusion
- Index
- References
12 - John Locke
The Liberal Paradigm
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Machiavelli, Hobbes, Rousseau
- Part II Responses to (and Partial Incorporations of) Civil Religion within the Liberal Tradition
- 9 Baruch Spinoza
- 10 Philosophy and Piety
- 11 Spinoza's Interpretation of the Commonwealth of the Hebrews, and Why Civil Religion Is a Continuing Presence in His Version of Liberalism
- 12 John Locke
- 13 “The Gods of the Philosophers” I
- 14 Bayle's Republic of Atheists
- 15 Montesquieu's Pluralized Civil Religion
- 16 The Straussian Rejection of the Enlightenment as Applied to Bayle and Montesquieu
- 17 “The Gods of the Philosophers” II
- 18 Hume as a Successor to Bayle
- 19 Adam Smith's Sequel to Hume (and Hobbes)
- 20 Christianity as a Civil Religion
- 21 John Stuart Mill's Project to Turn Atheism into a Religion
- 22 Mill's Critics
- 23 John Rawls's Genealogy of Liberalism
- 24 Prosaic Liberalism
- Part III Theocratic Responses to Liberalism
- Part IV Postmodern “Theism”
- Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
[T]here ought to be no Power over the Consciences of men.
– Thomas HobbesI have often wondered that men who make a boast of professing the Christian religion, which is a religion of love, joy, peace, temperance and honest dealing with all men, should quarrel so fiercely and display the bitterest hatred towards one another day by day, so that these latter characteristics make known a man's creed more readily than the former.
– Baruch Spinoza[Y]ou know how easy it is under pretense of spiritual jurisdiction to hook in all secular affairs.
– John LockeThe idea that religion and politics don't mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.
– Rev. Jerry FalwellUnfortunately, there is no coherent philosophical defense of moderation as moderation, or what might be called “good-natured and liberal muddling through.” This is because philosophy is by nature immoderate.
– Stanley RosenIs it true that there is no coherent philosophical defense of moderation as moderation? Not all philosophers are Platonists or Nietzscheans. In fact, there is a substantial liberal subtradition within the history of political philosophy whose purpose is precisely to demonstrate that not all philosophy is immoderate. Clearly, John Locke is one of the founders of this tradition of liberal political philosophy, and taking liberalism seriously as a philosophy of moderation entails taking Locke seriously.
Hobbes, as quoted in the epigraph to Chapter 5, asked, How can we have peace while Christianity is our religion? Locke believed that he had an answer to this question (namely mutual toleration between Christian sects). It is apparent, then, that Hobbes is the representative of the civil-religion tradition with whom Locke is most immediately in dialogue (whether by intention or not). If liberalism as a theoretical tradition is partly defined by its rejection of (or uneasiness about) the civil-religion project, then Locke's debate with Hobbes will clearly constitute an important chapter in the dialogue about civil religion within the history of political philosophy. So let us start with a restatement of Hobbes. As with so much else in their political philosophies, Hobbes addresses the same fundamental problem that Locke addresses, though their ultimate solutions may be radically different. This is certainly the case with respect to their distinctive approaches to the problem of politics and religion. As always, we can take our cue from Rousseau's encapsulation of Hobbes's view:
[T]he philosopher Hobbes is the only one who clearly saw the evil and its remedy, who dared to suggest reuniting the two heads of the eagle, and fully restoring that political unity without which no state or government will ever be well-constituted.
Rousseau, like Hobbes, was preoccupied with the problem of sovereignty, that is, the need for a robust unity within the political community to sustain political order. Rousseau and Hobbes had radically different ideas about how to secure political sovereignty (or the “one-ness” of political authority), but they were agreed in seeing that religion, with its implication of a “two-ness,” a duality, of ultimate authority, posed a radical threat to the idea of sovereignty, of undivided authority. As Rousseau says, the Hobbesian solution is a “reuniting [of] the two heads of the eagle”: the clear subordination of religious authority to civil (i.e., political) authority. Hobbes puts it this way in Leviathan, chapter 31:
[T]here be [many] that think there may be…more Soveraigns than one, in a Common-wealth; and set up a Supremacy against the Soveraignty; Canons against Lawes; and a Ghostly Authority against the Civill.…Now seeing it is manifest, that the Civill Power, and the Power of the Common-wealth is the same thing; and that Supremacy, and the Power of making Canons, and granting Faculties, implyeth a Common-wealth; it followeth, that where one is Soveraign, another Supreme; where one can make Lawes, and another make Canons; there must needs be two Common-wealths, of one & the same Subjects; which is a Kingdome divided in it selfe, and cannot stand.
As Hobbes forcefully expresses here, there is an intrinsic problem of religious authority in relation to civil authority. All religions assert an authority of their own said to be sanctioned by divine authority. The obligations asserted by a civil magistrate, enshrined in the laws of the commonwealth, are bound to look quite paltry in relation to claims to authority asserting divine sanction. As Hobbes sees clearly, there is no easy way to separate these implicitly opposing claims to authority. What is at stake, fundamentally, is a clash of sovereignty: “[T]hey are…two Kingdomes, and every Subject is subject to two Masters.” It follows from the very idea of sovereignty, as Hobbes understands it (and again, Rousseau agrees), that this is an intolerable situation. Hobbes's ultimate theoretical response is to propose a kind of “theocracy” in which theological–ecclesiastical authority is appropriated by the civil sovereign himself, to ensure that no competing claims to authority are asserted by churches or by priests. If our most urgent need as citizens is to inhabit a single community of civic authority, then the intrinsic threat to this singularity of political sovereignty emanating from religions must be neutralized through the (political) imposition of a single shared civic religion. Rousseau is right that Hobbes anticipates his civil-religion idea, for reasons that are basically the same as those that motivate Rousseau's own formulation of the civil-religion notion. A political community that is not joined together under the same laws and the same ultimate authority is not really a political community at all, but merely a confederation of sects waiting to resume war against rival sects.
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- Civil ReligionA Dialogue in the History of Political Philosophy, pp. 147 - 155Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010