Religious Toleration And Atheism——on Locke’s Religious Thoughts

In 16、17 century, toleration of religion is an important topic for western philosophers. For Locke, toleration is not only related to religion, but also to modern politics. The atheism involved is more than just a religious issue. Based on A Letter concerning Toleration, Two Treatises of Government and An Essay concerning Human Understanding, this paper makes an attempt to explore the Locke’s theory of toleration from the perspective of atheism to reveal the inner connection between religion and politics.Chapter one will state the Locke’s religious toleration and put forward the question of atheism. For Locke, the way to ensure the toleration is to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion, and settling the bounds between them. However, atheists are not to be tolerated for following reasons:things as promises which are the bounds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist; atheists challenge the privilege of a toleration. Given the separation of church and state, why political society is related to the God? By what can the atheists who deny the being of God fight against the religious toleration?Chapter two emphasizes on the first reason of intolerance of atheism, that is, the investigation of modern politics. We find some major elements such as law, contract, government lay a mark of God. Modern political society has sense of religion. And what is bound of it?Chapter three will illustrate the practical effects of religious toleration, and analyze the reason and significance about the intolerance of atheism again. In Locke’s view, there are two limits, one is the public good; another is the enthusiasm which corresponds to the second reason of rejecting atheists. Both of them reflect the intolerance of atheism. Thus, John Locke’s reason for thinking that atheists should be excluded from public life has two dimensions. First, atheism threats the hidden god who supports the modern politics directly. Second, like atheism, enthusiasm takes thoughts as the truth to challenge the toleration. For Locke, the meaning of the intolerance of atheism lies not in religion, but politics. It divides into two levels. First, to keep the sense of religion in the modern politics, that is, to keep the foundation of the modern politics. Second, to clear the limited nature of the political power. Locke not only fights against the absolute monarchy, but also foresees the problems of Rousseau.