These people, Locke argued, sought religious toleration "only until they have supplies and forces enough to make the attempt" on liberty. Does Fratelli Tutti Change Church Teaching about the Death Penalty? [14] This has been interpreted by historians as a reference to the Catholic Church, with the Pope being the prince to whom Catholics owed allegiance. From the proposition that there is no connection between civil affairs and the salvation of souls, however, it automatically follows that churches cannot concern themselves with politics. [20][21][22] Mark Goldie argues that the traditional interpretation of Locke's position on Catholics "needs finessing, since he did not, in fact, exclude the theoretical possibility of tolerating Catholics...if Catholics could discard their uncivil beliefs, they could then be tolerated". J. W. Gough, 'Introduction', Faith, however, as stated in the previous argument, demands “the inward and full persuasion of the mind.” Therefore, the magistrate has no power by which he can influence the religion of his subjects. Locke's reply to Proast developed into an extended, controversial exchange. [17] The end of the state, therefore, is to protect those natural rights which its citizens value most and hence want to enjoy most without the interference of others. Locke argues that civil unrest results from confrontations caused by any magistrate's attempt to prevent different religions from being practiced, rather than tolerating their proliferation. Neither did "those who refuse to teach that dissenters from their own religion should be tolerated". From the BBC Radio 4 series about life's big questions - A History of Ideas. It a slightly revised version of Derek Remus’s thesis at Thomas Aquinas College. “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State” (Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in The Portable Thomas Jefferson, ed. What, for example, are the Church’s teachings on marriage, education, and economics if not teachings that pertain to civil affairs? Is it possible to persuade people to change their beliefs by force? [2]         I say that this is true more or less. We are answerable for them to our God. [13]       Locke, Second Treatise of Government, p. 8. As the theory of empiricism goes, what we see and experiment reflects on what we do and how we view the world. 22 likes. Locke wrote the Letter during the winter of 1685-86. This makes sense, if we bear in mind that the only limit to the “state of perfect freedom” is the law of nature, which forbids a man from destroying himself and from harming the “life, health, liberty” and “possessions” of others. We should note here that Locke himself is “personally” a believer and thus thinks that God has made some kind of special revelation to man, but from what we have said, he clearly thinks that this revelation is ultimately a matter solely between God and the individual and that its interpretation is subject to the individual’s supreme judgment. And kings in the brightness of thy rising. Hence, Locke declares that while man always has the “right” to enjoy his “state of perfect freedom,” his actual enjoyment of that state is “very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others.”[16] In order to make that enjoyment certain, men form a contract with each other whereby they agree to unite into a society and to create some authority to whom they confer the power of protecting their lives, liberties, and possessions from the encroachments of others. While it is true that, in entering the state, men give up certain “rights” belonging to their natural “state of perfect freedom”–most notably, the right to punish those who attempt to harm them without appeal to a higher power–, they do so only in order to enjoy the remainder of those “rights,” which they value more, more securely. If we deny this claim, then the arguments fall apart. Concretely, this means that the state must grant equal status and liberty to all religious bodies within its domain and that those religious bodies must in turn refrain from all intervention in affairs of state.

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