The Influencer & Philosopher--John Locke

 

JOHN LOCKE.

 (1632–1704) 

 

 Most influential British philosopher of the Enlightenment 

 

Locke was a devout Christian with Puritan leanings. 

   His education, completed at Oxford, included biblical languages as well as science, medicine, and philosophy. His writings ranged from ethics, politics, and education to epistemology and theology.

  He is best known for his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), which presents a systematic exposition of the empiricism that has shaped British philosophy ever since. The essay applies to both our shared universal awareness of the world and the main concepts of Newtonian science—the thesis that all knowledge is derived from the simple ideas that make up our sensory and reflective experience. The 5 senses and considered reflection.

  Even the concept of God arises from these simple ideas, combined with the recognition of God’s infinity.

   Locke’s political ideas helped shape Western democratic ideals. 

 

  Our moral beliefs are learned from experiencing the pleasures and pains God has established as a moral guide.His essay on Two Treatises on Civil Government (1689) argue for God-given rights to life, liberty, and property, as laws of nature. Government exists by the consent of the governed to protect those rights, so that significant moral limitations are placed on political power as well as on war and other government activities. 

  The right to property stems ultimately from the fact that God gave the resources of his creation to all people to share. The individual’s right is limited, then, to what he can appropriate by his work and what is needful in sustaining a human quality of life. He must leave sufficient resources for the needs of others.

  The self-centredness of an unbridled capitalism has no place in Locke’s thinking, for human beings are to be responsible stewards in God’s creation

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 Locke also wrote An Essay on Religious Toleration (1667), a progressive document at the time, in which he advocated freedom of religious belief and practice—provided only that that freedom does not endanger the community.
Locke’s most extended religious work was The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), which argues that while the Christian revelation adds to what we can discover by reason alone, it does not contradict reason.
Locke tried to diminish the theological schisms in the church by returning attention to the inspired Scriptures. 

In the Scriptures he found that being a Christian involves two essentials: one must accept Jesus as God’s Messiah and so be justified by faith and one must live in accordance with Christ’s teaching.