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- Title
THE LIGHT OF NATURE: JOHN LOCKE, NATURAL RIGHTS, AND THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
- Authors
HEYMAN, STEVEN J.
- Abstract
This Article explores John Locke's theoryof religious liberty, which deeply influenced the adoptionof the First Amendment and the first state billsof rights. Locke sharply criticized the religious and political orderof Restoration England-a regime in which the king claimed to hold absolute power by divine right and in which individuals were required by law to conform to the established church. In opposition to this regime, Locke developed a powerful theoryof human beings as rational creatures who were entitled to think for themselves, to direct their own actions, and to pursue their own happiness within the boundsof the lawof nature. He then used this view to give a new accountof political and religious life. To promote their happiness in this world, rational individuals would agree to give up someof their natural freedom and to enter into a civil society for the protectionof their natural rights or "civil interests" of life, liberty, and property. By contrast, Locke argued that, when they made the social contract, rational individuals would not surrender anyof their religious freedom, for they could reasonably hope to attain eternal happiness or salvation only if they used their minds to seek the truth about God and the path he desired them to follow. For Locke, the most basic preceptsof religion could be known by the lightof nature and reason, while others were mattersof faith. Locke's conceptionof human beings as rational creatures provided the basis not only for individual rights but also for duties toward others. Reason required one to recognize that other individuals were entitled to the same rights one claimed for oneself. It followed that all membersof society were obligated to respect both the religious freedom and the civil rightsof those who differed with them in mattersof religion. In addition to defending religious freedom, Locke advocated a strict separationof church and state. Because libertyof conscience was an inalienable right, individuals would not grant the state any authority over spiritual matters. Instead, those matters were reserved for the individuals themselves as well as for the religious societies or churches that they voluntarily formed to promote their salvation. In these ways, Locke sought not only to protect the inherent rightsof individuals but also to dissolve the dangerous unity between church and state that characterized the Restoration. At the same time, he sought to transform the natureof those institutions in a profound way: insteadof being rooted in any notionof a hierarchy ordained by God or nature, both church and state should be founded on the consentof free and equal individuals and should respect their nature as rational beings. Understood in this way, religion would be an ally rather than a threat to human liberty. After exploring Locke's theory, this Article sketches someof the ways that it contributed to the eighteenthcentury American viewof religious liberty that was embodied in the First Amendment.
- Subjects
UNITED States; FREEDOM of religion; LOCKE, John, 1632-1704; UNITED States. Constitution. 1st Amendment; UNITED States. Constitution. Bill of Rights; DIVINE right of kings; LIBERTY; POLITICAL attitudes
- Publication
Marquette Law Review, 2018, Vol 101, Issue 3, p705
- ISSN
0025-3987
- Publication type
Article