On The Theological Foundation Of Locke's Political Philosophy

For many years,scholars have been disputing with the relationship between John Locke's political philosophy and his theology.And the answer to it is the key to understanding Locke's political thoughts.This paper argues that Locke's political philosophy and his theology are closely related both historically and logically,and Locke's political philosophy therefore is some kind of political theology.The Reformation and the British Civil War undermined the traditional political theology,which was the foundation of British regime at that time.People began to question what kind of government was legitimate.To answer this question,Samuel Rutherford developed his preliminary contract theory that Sovereignty Belongs to the People by interpreting Bible.However,his emphasis on human nature probably transformed the foundation of political philosophy from God to human and then weakened his own contract theory.Later,Thomas Hobbes cut down all the connections between God and human with his nominalism and sentenced the traditional political theology to death.He defended the absolute monarchy of the British king with his contract theory,arguing that building up a government with absolute power was the only way to stop a country from dissolution.Hobbes's argument was logically powerful if we accepted his nominalism.As Hobbes's opponent,Locke tried to re-build the relationship between God and human so that he could complete his contract theory that defended people's sovereignty.Unlike Rutherford,Locke started his argument not with Biblical interpretation but with human understanding,as his opponent Hobbes did.According to Locke's study in An Essay concerning Human Understanding,it was possible for human to acquire some knowledge about the infinite God so that we could establish a system of morality that was based on the award and punishment from God.Both Hobbes and Locke agreed that "pursuing joy and avoiding pain" was human nature.Things bringing joy would be considered as Good and those bringing pain as Bad.But taking the tremendous award and punishment from mighty God into consideration,people would absolutely recalculate the joy and pain of their behaviors and change their actions.It was obvious that the system of morality actually told us to behave according to God's will and law.But how could we understand God's will and law?Locke believed that natural laws and Bible would tell.Generally,Bible was easy to read but it was easy to misunderstand too,for most words had multiple meanings.Natural laws were presented in human reason by God.Everyone would understand and agree on natural laws if they fully used their reason.However,it was not easy to obtain natural laws since human reason had its limitation.Therefore,Locke emphasized that natural laws and Bible were compatible and complementary on understanding God's will and law.We had objective standard of morality for everyone's behaviors as soon as we understood God's will and law.Here was what Locke obtained from it.As human were created by God,our lives belonged to God.Consequently,it was our obligation to preserve ourselves and other as possible as we could,which implied that we had right to life and property right.In the state of nature,these rights drew a line between ours and theirs so that our life wouldn't go as Hobbes said in Levitan.Human had lost their instincts to understanding and following God's will and law since their fall and now human used their limited reason to reach God's will and law.As a result,there was inconvenience in the state of nature,such various opinions on how to punish a thief.According to Locke's description,human led a quite comfortable life in the state of nature,but a government was necessary to overcome the inconvenience.Hence human made a contract that everyone ceded some rights and established a government to execute these rights.The right to life and property right were inalienable and inviolable so they were the limitation as well as the purpose of the government power.As we can see,based on God's will and law,Locke's political philosophy tries to repair the relationship between God and human back to the time before human's fall.It is impossible to separate Locke's political philosophy from his theology without distorting his thoughts.That is why I interpret Locke's political philosophy as a political theology.But Locke' s political theology is different from the traditional one as it doesn't need the church or government to announce God's will and law to restrict people's behaviors.In contrast,people use their own reason to understand God's will and law as possible as they can,then they use it to restrict the government.