In my Christianity and Tyranny course, we are currently reading Locke's Second Treatise Concerning Government. Some of my students are disturbed by Locke's appeal to reason above scripture. On Monday, I'm going to show them these passages from Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding:
Reason is natural revelation, through which ·God·, the eternal father of light and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth that he has put within the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated immediately by God, the truth of which is supported by reason through the testimony and proofs it gives that they do come from God. Thus, someone who takes away reason to make way for revelation puts out the light of both – like persuading a man to put out his eyes so that he can better to receive the remote light of an invisible star through a telescope! (IV, xix, 4)
….
In any matter of divine revelation the only proof we need is that it is an inspiration from God. For he can neither deceive nor be deceived. But how can we know that a proposition in our minds is a truth put there by God - a truth that he declares to us and which we ought therefore to believe? This is where enthusiasm fails. For the enthusiasts boast of a light by which they say they are enlightened and brought into the knowledge of this or that truth. But if they know it to be a truth, they must know this either through its being self-evident to natural reason or through rational proofs that show it to be true. If they see and know it to be a truth in either of these two ways, it is pointless for them to suppose it to be a revelation; for they know it to be true the same way that any other man naturally can know that it is so without the help of revelation. . . . If they say they know it to be true because it is a revelation from God, that is a good reason; but then we should ask how they know it to be a revelation from God. If they say ‘By the light it brings with it, which shines brightly in my mind and I can’t resist’, I ask them to consider whether this amounts to anything more than ‘It is a revelation, because I strongly believe it to be true’. For the ‘light’ they speak of is only their strong though baseless conviction that it is a truth. . . . What easier way can there be to run ourselves into the most extravagant errors and miscarriages than in this way to take fancy for our only guide, and to believe any proposition to be true, any action to be right, simply because we believe it to be so? The strength of our convictions is no evidence at all of their own correctness; crooked things can be as stiff and inflexible as straight, and men can be as positive and peremptory in error as in truth. (IV, xix, 11)
Here Locke argues thus:
1. The only reasons to be convinced of the truth of some claim is that it is either self-evident to natural reason or that there is some rational proof supporting it.
2. The claim that something is revealed by God is like any other claim.
So, 3. To accept that that something is revealed by God it must be either self-evident or have rational proof supporting it.
4. It is not self-evident that any claim is revealed by God.
So, 5. There must be a rational proof that any claim is revealed by God.
So, 6. Those who accept a claim as revealed by God because of an inner light have no grounds to be convinced of the truth of the claim.
Locke’s ultimate conclusion in that the rational acceptance of any claim be on the grounds of its self-evidence or rational proof, and that another claim is revealed by God is subjected to the same scrutiny as any other claim.
4 comments:
OK, I think I kind of understand what John Locke is saying...the Bible must be able to undergo the same steps as any other book to prove that it is true. Is that what he is saying? That we should accept nothing on faith but that everything should be supported by fact?
from laura, for whomever:
1. Does Locke differentiate between the Bible and other kinds of divine revelation? What is his position on the Bible (what is the Bible to him)?
2. When we say that something should be evident because of reason or rational proof, is that the same thing as saying it should be evident because is factual? (Mom: "That we should accept nothing on faith but that everything should be supported by fact?")
That's all.
To be convinced of the truth of anything, there must be evidence supporting it. The claim that this text (the Bible or any other text) was revealed by God is, for Locke, a claim like any other -- it should either be evident to natural reason or supported by a rational proof. There is no rational proof for the fact that I am experiencing something red in my visual field, so that's something evident to natural reason. Proofs would be worked up from facts derive from experience for Locke. He does think that the existence of God can be proved, but he doesn't appear to think that the Bible has any independent revelatory force. It may on his view be accurate historically, and it may coincide with what reason tells us to do, but it never supercedes reason, as it does for the A team (Augustine and Aquinas).
It's also interesting that Thomas Jefferson drew heavily from Locke in writing the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self evident..."
Congratulations on publishing your article and the presentation in Orlando. I hope Laura can go too, but just be careful in Florida, because fertility increases in the Floridian climate. Kim Wheeler, one of my assistants made all 3 of her children in Florida.
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