John Locke: A Letter Concerning Toleration

As an armchair Platonist, I find Locke’s idea of toleration lacking in justice for the following reasons:

The Goods of Man

Fallen Angel by Salvador Dalí
Fallen Angel by Salvador Dalí

According to Locke, states and churches are founded on the voluntary and rational consent of people who share common interests. The common interests of the people of any state is to protect their lives and properties, and the common interests of the churchgoers is to obtain the salvation of their souls. Therefore, states and churches have their separate spheres of jurisdiction, which do not and should not interfere with one another.

According to ancient Greek philosophers, there are three levels of goods: external goods, such as wealth and lands; goods of the body, such as health and beauty; goods of the soul, such as knowledge and virtue. Virtue is the highest good of man, being the most excellent and enduring. The other goods are not desirable for their own sake, but are such only to the extent that they serve the highest good.

To divide the goods of the citizens into separate jurisdictions is like dividing a man’s soul from his body. A man thus divided cannot live, and a state thus divided cannot stand. Therefore, a government should exercise jurisdiction over the properties of the citizens, the lowest goods, with due regard to their highest goods, the well-being of their souls.

Like the Protestant Reformers a century before him, Locke insists on freedom of conscience against tyranny. I agree and sympathize with him on that point. However, Locke poses a false dichotomy between freedom of conscience and religious duty in private and public life. By dividing the religious from the civic, his theory of “toleration”, if implemented as intended, would create a perniciously fragmented nation full of fragmented citizens.

Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.

God and Caesar

In the ancient world, governments are established with a view both to the citizens and the patron deities. The state offers its patron deities proper worship so that it may prosper under their auspices. The Athenians sentenced Socrates to death because he allegedly failed to worship the gods. Rome persecuted Christians partly because their refusal to participate in state-sponsored worship disrupted the religious and social stability of the empire. In other words, the ancient empires punished non-worshippers for the purpose of self-preservation.

In Christendom, “There is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God” to execute justice. Justice is to render each his due. Therefore, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s”. The implication is that any ruler who doesn’t render each his due will have his authority revoked.

But how exciting is toleration? If a man characterized his relationship with his wife as tolerable, you might well pity them both.

Justice Not Toleration

In his defence speech, Socrates appeals to justice not toleration for his religion. With a tinge of defiance and irony, he claims it is his just due that Athens should maintain him for the rest of his life, for the services he has rendered the souls of her citizens.

Injustices to external goods are easy to detect, but injustices to the goods of the soul are more insidious. If the life and ideas of Socrates had not been recorded by his pupils, we would never have known about the injustice Athens committed against herself. The people of Athens lived an unexamined life, and Socrates thoroughly exposed them. Since separation of religion and politics was impossible for them, they could not confine his sphere of influence that way, so they had no choice but to put him to death.

In short, a religious person concerned about the wellbeing of his soul and his nation would suffer from a nation that “tolerates” his religion. For “toleration” is nothing but an euphemism for confinement.

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2 comments

  1. The option to tolerance is advocacy. Would you have the state advocate which religion its citizens should follow?

    1. I haven’t really thought carefully about the alternatives to “toleration”. But, just for the sake of discussion, I would say, in my Utopia, people choose the religion(s) to be advocated by the state, just as they choose the official language(s) of the state. For religion is an expression of a way of life, like language.

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