As we have seen, beliefs about political authority changed during the Thirty Years’ War. Cardinal Richelieu’s foreign policy had interposed a new intermediate between God and the ruler in the devolution of authority and credibility. This intermediate was broadly described as the political community during the period and later would become more popularly known as the nation. However, in the mid-seventeenth century, the political community and the ruler were viewed as nearly synonymous: as Louis XIV of France proclaimed, “L’etat, c’est moi.” Over the next one hundred years, two changes simultaneously occurred to alter this momentary equilibrium. First, God became less important as the ultimate origin of political authority and credibility. Natural law and natural rights theorists still invoked the name of God, but they increasingly argued that these laws and rights would remain the same with an active God or with an absentee God (or with no God at all). As God’s role of guarantor of law was reduced, so was the usefulness of tying His credibility to that of the ruler. Second, the political community came to possess the inherent credibility forfeited by a receding God. The political community became seen as the guarantor of natural laws and rights – without it there would be no order and no security. It was then seen as credible in its own right, and the rational ruler now appropriated that transcendent credibility to enhance his own. The transformation of proto-nationalism into nationalism required both changes and this, in turn, produced the modern nation-state system. Middle ages and Reformation (see part 4 and 5 of this particular investigation)

God ruler Proto-nationalism (p. 6) God political community ruler Nationalism (p.7) God political community ruler. As a result of these changes, every nation or political community had the potential to be a different source of transcendent credibility. The number of sources of transcendent credibility in Europe thus grew from two, Protestantism and Catholicism, to many as political communities that possessed the power to support their claim to separateness did so. Our research indicates that the borders between these political units would also grow more distinct throughout this period. This, in fact, is what occurred – the nation-state system of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries contained political units separated from one another by extremely distinctive boundaries. In fact, distinctive borders and territoriality are considered essential characteristics of the modern nation-state.

Innitially during the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, political theorists were far more willing to mitigate God’s role in political authority than were practitioners and rulers. This is understandable since the consequences of pursuing untested paths fall only indirectly on the theorist, while the ruler can occasionally lose his head in trial and error. The constant rebellions and wars of religion of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries clearly demonstrated that the old system had numerous flaws. Political leaders had several options including reinvigorating Christianity as a source of transcendent credibility, embracing humanity as the only source of transcendent credibility, or adopting a source being developed by political theorists: nationalism. In theory, any of these may have dominated the others, but it was nationalism that political leaders saw as most advantageous to their ultimate purpose of generating compliance from the population.

Central to this decision was ensuring that the population would see the “nation” as possessing its own inherent (transcendent) credibility that rulers and governments could appropriate. This part highlights how political theorists developed the concept of the nation and its inherent credibility out of already accepted concepts of God and His credibility. Political practitioners grew increasingly capable of appropriating credibility more heavily from the political community rather than directly from God. By the time the nineteenth century arrived, nationalism had either absorbed or swept Christian theories of political credibility aside in Europe. This had an enormous impact on political boundaries: nationalism increased the number of sources of transcendent credibility in the European system, which produced an increase in the distinctiveness of boundaries between political units, producing the familiar “borders” of the twentieth century.

 

Ideological Foundations of Nationalism

In the aftermath of the wars of religion, there emerged a growing attitude that directly basing political authority on God could produce many negative consequences when there was more than one religious option.542 Understandably, by the mid seventeenth century, government entanglement with religion was frequently viewed as the primary cause of war. However, since political authority derived from God, there was no possibility that governments would or could remain aloof from theological discussions. These necessarily had political consequences that a ruler could not ignore. Some theorists suggested that if authority did not depend solely on God, religious conflicts would move out of the public sphere, thereby reducing the prevalence of war. However, taking God out of the equation entirely was not what they desired or, at least, not what the power structures of the time would allow them to say openly. If the people did not believe God was actively involved, the whole edifice of social order would collapse.

In short, the effort to move beyond the conditions created during the Reformation produced an inherent tension between the desire for peace, which required marginalizing God to some extent, and the necessity to protect order and stability, which required continued access to the transcendent credibility of God. The Thirty Years’ War verified that Europe could not return to single source of transcendent credibility – neither Catholicism nor Protestantism could eradicate the other. Thus, international stability depended on separating God from the political order. This process had already begun in the development of proto-nationalism, as an intermediate was inserted between God and the ruler in the devolution of authority.

More distance was needed, however. The authority of the political community still rested on its connection with God. Thus, the potential for further religious conflicts still existed, as the civil wars in England exemplified. Two different theoretical developments were required to successfully untether God from direct control over political authority. First, God must be distanced from his role as a necessary component of political authority. Such authority must depend on something other than God in order to prevent the conflicts that had plagued Europe for the past century and a half. Among others, Hugo Grotius, Baruch Spinoza, and Thomas Hobbes structured their theories of authority around the idea that, although God exists and plays an important role in the world, political authority would still be legitimate even if God did not involve himself. Such theories would begin to marginalize God’s function in the legitimacy of political authority. This would open a transitional path for eighteenth century theorists, such as David Hume and the Enlightenment philosophes, to complete the sidelining of God and argue that political authority depended on something other than God. However, many practitioners of politics were unwilling to detach their authority from God without an alternative source of credibility as effective as God had been. Grotius and Hobbes suggested reason and science as alternatives. Political practitioners did not consider these adequate bases for political legitimacy. Rulers understood that even if such sources effectively generated compliance from the elite in society, they could never work among the illiterate masses.

Thus, this first development produced a new puzzle: from where does the government obtain its credibility without God? The second development of the seventeenth century was endowing the political community or “nation” with a transcendent quality that could itself function as a source of credibility for the ruler. In proto-nationalism the political community had become an important step in the overall devolution of authority, but it was still seen as a middleman, not a source of authority in its own right. Further, it was intimately associated with the ruler, who was seen as the physical embodiment of the nation. For the ruler to use the nation as a source of transcendent credibility in its own right, he would need to separate himself from the nation. Only then could it attain a transcendent quality with an unquestioned credibility of its own.

Theorists within this line of thought, such as Johannes Althusius, George Lawson, and John Locke, had a problem of their own. At least initially, the nation had no credibility aside from that appropriated from God. The idea of the nation had to filter through society and become a part of worldview of people to the extent that it gained a credibility that did not necessarily need to rely on God. This would take time. In the meantime, God would have to stick around. Thus, the different lines of thought of Hobbes and Locke had to develop separately, yet simultaneously, in the seventeenth century.

In the eighteenth century, however, after many Europeans had been given sufficient time to acclimate to these two theoretical developments, it was possible for writers such as David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Johann Gottfried Herder to begin to unite the separate strands of thought into a unified theory. This unification underwent several permutations before modern-day nationalism finally emerged as the dominant theory of political credibility in Europe late in the eighteenth century, notably following the American and French Revolutions.

God Wanes Before nationalism could take hold, political credibility’s traditional dependence on God needed to be weakened. For this it is necessary to turn to the Natural Law and Natural Rights theorists of the seventeenth century. These writers were concerned with what they saw as a direct connection between religious disputes and the prevalence of international and civil war. Despite some recent debate over the connection of Hugo Grotius and Thomas Hobbes, they definitely agreed on one crucial point.543 At a bare minimum, each sought to demonstrate “how people without theistic beliefs can have a moral life,” and, by extension, how a government can maintain its only a few shared, fundamental doctrines are required for humanity, while the other doctrines should be held loosely, if at all. Most importantly, Grotius argued that the government had a right (or duty) to enforce these fundamental doctrines of religion, while it should stay entirely out of other religious debates.547 To the extent that God did involve Himself in temporal affairs, he did so only sparingly. If governments stuck to the enforcement of the fundamental doctrines and ignored the others, religious disputes would cease to become political battles and the conflicts that occurred within and between states would finally abate.

In Of the Law of War and Peace (1625), Grotius revolutionized Natural Law theory when he suggested that the Laws of Nature did not depend on the constant enforcement of God.548 These universal laws applied to all people at all times because to act against them was to act against one’s self-interest (against reason). Richard Tuck puts it this way: “Given the natural facts about men, the laws of nature followed by (allegedly) strict entailment without any mediating premises about God’s will.”549

In effect, Natural Law was self-enforcing, or perhaps more accurately, reasonenforcing. Whether God was actively present in the affairs of men or aloof made no difference in the Laws’ validity or in the nature of human beings. To Grotius then, the Natural Laws themselves possessed an inherent credibility separate from God or a political community.550 In fact, the government’s credibility was derived from the role it had in forcing irrational persons to act according to Nature and reason. Christians, Grotius argued, have the benefit of redundancy: credibility comes from both natural rights and from God. However, even if a group of people were not Christian it was possible that they could use their natural rights to successfully create a political society.551

This idea was particularly useful during periods of European expansion throughout the world.552 However, it was impractical as a source of transcendent credibility to seventeenth-century rulers, primarily because it argued for a much broader idea of individual rights (so long as one followed Natural Laws) against the authority of the government.553  Like Grotius, the Jewish philosopher Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch outcast attempting to find a way to cope with increasingly inflexible Calvinism.554 For both writers, the goal was not to oppose Calvinism or its institutions, but to find a political theory that could embrace a plurality of confessions simultaneously. In his Theologico-Political Treatise (1670), Spinoza sought to accomplish this by distinguishing between an ideal world and the real world. In an ideal world, each person could use his reason to clear away the clutter in his mind: “Everyone would be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed; . . . each would then obey God freely with his whole heart.”555 But, Spinoza argued, in the real world most people would not use their reason because they both despised it and ridiculed it.556 While these people flailed about aimlessly, cut loose from the anchor of reason, it would be impossible for others who chose to follow reason to do so. The real world required government to keep the ignorant people from preventing others’ pursuit of the best life.557 Government existed primarily for this freedom.558

For Spinoza, the right for an individual to pursue his best way of life and to live according to the dictates of reason – in other words, his right to liberty – preexisted government. A government’s legitimacy depended not on God, but on how well it permitted its’ citizens to exercise their liberty. In fact, the opposite was true: God’s legitimacy depended on the civil government.559 Spinoza then searched history and found “Divine justice only in places where just men bear sway.”560

However, Spinoza recognized the importance of religion in the real world. He attached a Machiavellian argument regarding the use of religion for the purpose of keeping the common people manageable.561 History had shown that religion was a very useful means of controlling those who did not use their reason.562 While a minority of the people would use their reason to achieve their well-being, the rest could justly be controlled using superstition and religion. Without this power, the society would fall apart in division and strife.563 A government could command the ignorant people to follow certain outward observances of religion and rituals, as long as these acts were in “accordance with the public peace and well-being,” though it could not command belief.564 This division of the members of society into those who obey reason and those who do not became an important distinction in many subsequent political theories. Spinoza was not advocating the removal of God from the political stage. He was, in effect, arguing for two simultaneous theories of political authority, one for the ignorant masses of the real world and one for the minority who used their reason.565

In general, a government should pretend to rely on the old theories of authority in which a ruler’s legitimacy was derived from God. But, those who have chosen to live in the ideal world and who, therefore, use their reason would know the secret truth that the government’s legitimacy and authority is actually the result of its ability to protect the Natural Right of Liberty. Only the superior persons of society could understand such an idea of legitimacy.566

Grotius and Spinoza provided two examples of political authority as it might have been (and may still become). Grotius began the task of dislodging God from a central role in the devolution of political authority to rulers, but his proposed alternative source of transcendent credibility did not appeal to practitioners. Both he and Spinoza transferred the credibility of government to its ability to protect rights that existed in the State of Nature but that could not be fully enjoyed due to the chaos of that condition. Spinoza hoped to make his system more appealing to practitioners by empowering the government to perpetuate the “myth” that older, more traditional, theories of political authority still reigned supreme. Neither suggested God played no role in the establishment of political authority. They merely asserted that his part in the play had already been completed.

The English philosopher Thomas Hobbes took this idea to its radical conclusion: for all intents and purposes, the immortal God was replaced with the mortal god, the Leviathan. Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651) is often cited as a watershed in political theory. I would argue that this is because he was the first theorist to successfully reduce God’s role in political authority and establish the political community as a workable alternative as a source of authority and credibility. Like Grotius, Hobbes envisioned a State of Nature. Unlike Grotius, he found in this pre-government condition absolutely no laws, natural or otherwise: “Where there is no common power, there is no law.” This did not mean there was no God, or that God did not possess the requisite power to establish and enforce laws if he so chose. By providing man with reason, God had already done all he needed to do.567

Where did political credibility come from, however, if God was absent? Hobbes’s answer required an examination of how government emerged from the State of Nature. In this State, man had only his nature and his reason. Although life in this condition was nasty, brutish, and short, every man possessed God-given reason, which suggested a solution in “convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn to agreement.”568 Still, this “contract” lacked an enforcement procedure. These precepts, “without the terror of some power to cause them to be observed, are contrary to our natural passions.”569 For Natural Law theorists of the Middle Ages, the solution was God who, through His power and the power He bestowed on the state and the church, could monitor and punish any cheaters. For Grotius and Pufendorf, “sociability” did some of the work, the Natural Laws in many instances could enforce themselves, and government did the rest. For Hobbes, however, a civil government must carry the entire burden of enforcement.

Therefore, enforcement of the contract that created a common power required men to voluntarily reduce all their wills to one will and transfer that power to one man or one group of men.570 This newly created sovereign enforced the agreements in the original contract and, therefore, worked for the peace and defense of every person. Hobbes called this sovereign the Leviathan, or the “mortal god,” who served in the role traditionally assigned to God.571 The Leviathan took on all of the transcendent qualities of God. The Leviathan inherently possessed credibility because it was a voluntary creation existing for the security of the people. Without it, life once again became nasty, brutish, and short.

 

The Birth of Federalism

The descent back into the dangerous chaos of the State of Nature was so horrific that once sovereign authority was in place, it could not be questioned or removed. Until the contract was signed, no political community or commonwealth existed. At the moment of agreement, the commonwealth and the Leviathan came into existence simultaneously.572 Quentin Skinner argues that, in Hobbes’s theory, “the legal person lying at the heart of politics is neither the persona of the people nor the official person of the sovereign, but rather the artificial person of the state.”573

However, this statement seems to mask the reality that, throughout the Leviathan, Hobbes insinuated that it is the “official person of the sovereign” who acted on behalf of the “artificial person of the state.” The people were not permitted to usurp this position. In short, the legitimacy of the political community itself depended on the existence of the ruler. While the origin of the government ultimately came from the individuals (the multitude), its legitimacy did not depend on that group’s continuing consent. Where then did its legitimacy come from? It derived primarily from three places. First, it came from the fear of plunging back into the anarchic State of Nature. Fear could strengthen the contract and could be generated through the government itself and from religion.574

 Inasmuch as the government used religion to avoid the collapse of society, it was just.575 Second, the government’s legitimacy emerged from the obligation willingly accepted by each member of the political community at the signing of the original contract. Third, since reason authored the contract, reason and “science” also legitimated it. To Hobbes, science was how human beings gained knowledge and reason was the act of gaining knowledge. The only purpose for pursuing reason and science was the “benefit of mankind.”576

Thus, the contract itself existed for mankind’s benefit and was thereby legitimate. Hobbes did not believe that reason needed any further justification than itself. The additional step of “God” was redundant and, hence, unnecessary. In a sense, Hobbes brought theories of political authority “down to earth.” A ruler’s authority did not trace back to God or Natural Laws, but to reason and the conditions that necessitated the formation of the government. It may even be said that he “secularized” political authority. Inasmuch as his theory replaced God with a “mortal god,” there was a great deal of secularization. However, we should be careful about making Hobbes more radical than he actual was. Political authority still appropriated the credibility of transcendent entities. Hobbes also retained God as a backstop: “This is the generation of that great Leviathan (or rather, to speak more reverently, of that mortal god) to which we owe, under the immortal God, our peace and defense.”577 The idea that the political community possessed inherent credibility seduced practitioners who sought an escape from the negative consequences of Godbased authority, justification for changes in international relations practice, and an alternative source of transcendent credibility that could be managed, manipulated, and sold to the people.

Grotius, Spinoza, and Hobbes believed theories that made political authority less dependent on God solved many of Europe’s most pressing problems. Critics, however, stressed that, if the fundamental laws of nature developed from reason alone, God’s role in the world ceased to be that of divine legislator and became, at best, observer from afar.578 In other words, the political and theological implications to these theories were closely linked. Although some in Europe embraced this essentially deistic vision of the world, the vast majority were not willing to accept it. Thus, while Grotius and Hobbes managed to move God further from the center of theories of political authority, neither was ultimately successful in shifting the source of legitimation to another entity. Grotius transferred it to the natural laws and Hobbes pushed it onto reason. Neither of these possessed sufficient means of motivating a population to comply with the ruler’s commands. Spinoza seemed to recognize this and suggested that two different theories should operate simultaneously: the rational members of society should adopt Grotius’ and Hobbes’ theories (for they are “True”) and the commoners should continue to be guided through older theories, which although false, were very useful for generating compliance. The problem with Spinoza’s policy was that it failed to solve the condition of religious dissent that sparked these discussions in many societies. What was needed was one inherently legitimate entity that all persons in society would believe as credible in the absence of God. This was provided in the concept of the political community.

 

Calvinist Theories of Resistance

During the early modern period in Europe, the use of the notion of a “political community” centered in largely on Calvinist theorists. These writers were significant, Quentin Skinner argues, in that “they separate sovereignty from sovereigns,” but they “make no comparable distinction between the powers of sovereignty and the powers of the people.”579 Like the proto-nationalists discussed in the last chapter, they saw political legitimacy as originating in God, passing through the people, and ultimately resting on the ruler. Unlike the proto-nationalists, however, these Calvinist theorists attempted to increase the separation between the ruler and the people. The ruler was not the embodiment of the political community, the “people” were. On the issue of resistance to rulers, these Calvinist theorists veered away from John Calvin, who insisted that, according to Romans 13, God commissioned all earthly rulers and no person could justly raise their hand against what God had put in place.580

However, many Calvinists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries lived in circumstances in which obedience to Calvin’s interpretation could mean the eradication of Calvinism altogether. Thus, these writers examined the Scriptures, sure that the reform Calvin had instituted possessed the right, even the duty, to protect itself legitimately from tyrants and heretics. In the end, they developed the concept of an independent “political community,” which evolved alongside the strand of thought of Grotius and Hobbes, but with a complementary outcome. While Hobbes and Grotius edged God out of the formula of political authority, they failed to find a practical alternative. The Calvinists, most notably Johannes Althusius, George Lawson, and John Locke, established the political community as an inherently credible alternative in its own right, distinct from both God and ruler, but piously attempted to do so without minimizing the role of God in the least.

In the wake of roughly seventeen years of overt war between the Catholics and Huguenots of France, an anonymous Calvinist published Vindiciae contra tyrannos (1579). The Vindiciae was an attempt to expand the reasoning of Calvin and Romans 13 in such a way that it remained Scriptural (and thus authoritative), yet also contained conditions under which resistance to authority would be just. Its’ solution was an insertion of “the people” between God and the ruler in the formula of political authority: “it is the people that establishes kings, gives them kingdoms, and approves their selection by its vote. For God willed that every bit of authority held by kings should come from the people.”581 In this case, so the author of the Vindiciae argued, the king’s continued persecution of the Huguenots demonstrated his inability to do his job and it was the responsibility of the “people” to correct the king. Thus, from this perspective, the true rebels were not the Huguenots, but the king who refused to step down.

There is a greater distance between the people and the ruler in this theory than in that of Bodin and Hobbes. Power transferred to an employee is delegated, not alienated. But, from where do the people get their authority? Here the Vindiciae only implied answers. It could not be all French people, because the Huguenots were a very small percentage of the total population and could not have mustered the necessary support in an assembly to oust the king. The Vindiciae implied that the “people” were the Calvinists themselves.582 John Calvin argued that the elect, meaning those God predestined to receive grace, stood in a position to help instruct the reprobate, or those God predestined not to receive grace. The elect clearly belonged to the Huguenots and, therefore, it was they who spoke for all the people through their representatives.583

The aims of the Dutch Calvinist Johannes Althusius differed fundamentally from those of the author of the Vindiciae. The Huguenots needed a theory that could motivate and legitimate resistance, while the Dutch Republic of the final decades of the sixteenth century needed a theory that could produce selective obedience and submission. He required a theory that, among other things, justified the independence movement of the United Provinces, yet also prevented discontented individuals from encouraging further dissolution of this new political entity.584 To resolve this, Johannes Althusius  based ultimate political authority on small associations. In Politics Methodically Set Forth (1603), Althusius asserted that sovereignty rested not in the people, but in the people as members of associations.585

If the basis of authority rested in the larger state (ala Bodin), the United Provinces had unjustly broken away from the Holy Roman Empire; however, if authority resided with the people, created.586

The creation of a higher level of association does not in any way abolish associations at a lower level. In Althusius’s writings, the task of the highest level of political association is simply to prevent tyranny. The inferior magistrates of the people can withdraw authority from a ruler who attempts to use powers beyond this narrow purpose.587

This theory of authority was based on voluntary contracts between associations of people, not between the people and the ruler. The creation of associations, whether private or public, was the product of a rational consent among equals and a passionate “bond” between men.588

These contracts rested on natural law and natural law rested on God’s authority. The position of the ruler in this theory was both minimized and made accountable – exactly where Althusius wanted the Holy Roman Emperor. Thus, Althusius’ federalist theory created a greater separation between ruler and political community, giving the latter a life of its own. Still, the community remained an intermediary through which God’s power passed, not an entity that was credible in its own right. Historian J. Wayne Baker points out that “Althusius specifically connects his entire political theory with the religious covenant. In this religious covenant, the magistrate and all the members of the realm promised to introduce, conserve, and defend true religious doctrine and worship.”589 This is unsurprising in a territory that had been in a constant state of war with Catholic Spain for over three decades. His theory mirrored the organizational structure of Calvinist national churches that Theodore de Beza had initiated in 1558.590

Althusius’ political model allowed for lots of local empowerment, but he stopped far short of allowing for political or religious tolerance. Evidence that this reflected the mood of the United Provinces can be found in the 1619 execution of Advocate Oldenbarnevelt for his policy of tolerating Arminians. Turning to England, in 1660 the minister George Lawson wrote Politica Sacra et Civilis, which more firmly placed sovereignty in the hands of the people, meaning the community as a whole.591 Calvinist theorists had been unwilling to do this because of their doctrines of the elect and the strong connection they conceived between the political and Church organizations.592 Supporters of the Stuart monarchy also hesitated to make such a radical move because admitting the people had such authority could be used to justify the beheading of Charles I. Lawson’s ability to shift his arguments with the changing political winds enabled him to see political authority through new eyes.

The author of the Vindiciae and Althusius had argued that the right to resistance rested in the hands of the people’s representatives. Lawson rejected this.593 The whole people voluntarily had joined together under natural law and formed apolitical community. With voluntary and unanimous consent, this community created a coercive power to sustain society. The people retained “real majesty” and delegated a lesser form, “personal majesty,” to the coercive power. Thus, the creation of representatives was a delegation of power that could be retracted at any time.594

Lawson, writing in the Restoration, designed his theory to examine the past three tumultuous decades. The people of England created a government possessing multiple branches, a monarchy and a parliament. If either of these branches were eliminated, the whole government ceased to exist.  According to Lawson, parliament did not have the authority back in 1648 to abolish the monarchy because there could be no parliament without a monarchy. The people could choose to adjust the structure of government, but neither branch could make such a decision single-handedly.  Note how Lawson attempted to take a middle position. The execution of 1648 was illegitimate because parliament lacked the power to make such a decision. However, both the Cromwell government and the newly-restored Stuart monarchy were legitimate because the people chose to implement each. More coherent version of this theory had to wait until the Glorious Revolution of 1688 cleared the path for John Locke to safely publish his Two Treatises of Government.

Lawson’s real impact on the history of political thought stems from his influence on Locke.595 It is primarily through Locke that modern political theory derives the idea that sovereignty always rests in the people. Locke argued for a theory of political legitimacy founded on the consent of the members of the English nation, but which also retained the credibility of God to supplement this credibility. Locke had an enormous impact on the founding constitution of England following the Glorious Revolution. King William III found in Locke’s ideas exactly the political theory that would solidify his authority despite the “revolutionary” context of his crowning. 596

To do this, Locke’s Two Treatises of Government first had to refute Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha of 1653 (reissued in 1680).597 Tory politicians and clergy in the last years of the Stuart monarchy favorably read Filmer’s statements of support for absolutism in the monarchy. Filmer’s theory rested on the analogy of the state as a family: because the king is the father, political obligation is analogous to paternal  submission.598 Locke’s refutation accepted this well-accepted notion that the state is like a family and the accompanying analogy between political obligation and paternal submission within a household. However, Locke viewed this obligation very differently. The male parent was not absolute. Children are the property of God, created by Him, and entrusted to parents for proper care and training. Once the child reached an age of reason and understanding, the young adult was free and considered an equal of the father.599 The parent’s authority only continued with the voluntary consent of the child.

Having used Filmer’s own analogy to set a new standard for political authority, Locke followed many of his fellow seventeenth-century theorists back to a State of Nature to understand how and why people first consented to create a government.600 Locke argued government was not “natural,” but was a human creation designed to secure property rights.601 The only truly “natural” thing was the “law” of selfpreservation. People would occasionally misjudge what actions would preserve them and which would destroy them. These “inconveniences” could effectively be solved with the creation of a civil government. This was done when men “agree[ed] together mutually to enter into one Community, and make one Body Politick.”602

Just as Locke took sovereignty away from Adam and gave it to the people, he did the same with property.603 God entrusted the world “to Mankind in common” for life and convenience.604 A person said something was “mine” if he mixed his labor with the stuff in nature. However, all property ultimately belonged to God – it was only temporarily entrusted to the individual. The competition for property produced disagreements between individuals, one of the most prominent “inconveniences” a civil government should solve. Government began with a two-step process. In the first phase, a group of free individuals consented to put themselves under obligation to each other and submit to the majority. This act transformed the disparate group into a united community – a “people.” In the next step, the community decided to erect specific political institutions and select personnel to exercise their authority. Like Lawson and contrary to Hobbes, Locke saw this as a delegation of power, not alienation. The institutions of government could completely dissolve (step two above), but sovereignty still remained in the people thanks to their original compact (step one).605 If the government was not  doing its job (i.e. protecting property) or if it began to act contrary to its purpose (i.e. confiscating property), it declared a state of war on the people.606 Thus, people don’t rebel, governments do. The author of the Vindiciae indicated that such a state of war could only be declared by the magistrates of the people, but Locke bestowed this judgment on the people as a whole.607 Locke also turned the concept of “the people” against a William Barclay’s version of divine right of kings.608

Barclay had argued that if a king set himself against the commonwealth, the people as a whole could defend themselves, but they could not attack the monarch. Barclay used the standard argument of hierarchical arrangements: “an inferior cannot punish a superior.” But, in very extreme cases and in very specific conditions, Barclay argued that the parliament could rightfully remove the authority of the king. Locke again followed Lawson in his response: once the king set himself against the commonwealth, any relationship of inferior and superior the Constitution in Scotland and England: A Comparative Approach to the Glorious Revolution,” Journal of British Studies 38(1): 28-58. Ceased to be, so Barclay’s argument collapsed. In such cases, the people as a whole were the judges of right and wrong.609 Of course, God was the final judge, but He encouraged the people to be industrious and pursue justice on their own. Since government existed to police violators of the Natural Law, every government action had to conform to natural law and reason for the government to be legitimate. God was the author of both natural law and reason. Locke argued that this meant the government had no business involving itself in confessional or doctrinal arguments about God. The theological disputes between Calvinists, Arminians, and Catholics were private concerns, not public ones. This is why Locke argued in Letter Concerning Toleration (1685) that a state should tolerate all religions, but not atheism.

The Eighteenth Century: Bringing the Two Strands of Thought Together The Hobbesian and Lockean strands of thought described above developed somewhat separately for many years, but over the course of the eighteenth century they began to merge into a single theory of political credibility. This was done, in part, through a theoretical transformation of religion that jettisoned the metaphysical source of God, but which retained the crucial function of social cohesion. According to a new group of thinkers, the traditional religion of Europe should be set aside for “natural religion,” or a religion that depended on reason rather than superstition. This new form, however, did not generate the same degree of passion among followers – a

When the atheist denied God existence, he undermined the bases for government (natural law and reason).
This concept of “separation of church and state” was institutional only, however. Organized religion should be distanced from government, but God should be brought closer. Government should stay out of religious disputes, but it should be intimately involved in the morality of its citizens. And there was no doubt for Locke that God, not reason, was the source of this morality. In The Reasonableness of Christianity, Locke claimed that “human reason unassisted failed men in its great and proper business of morality.”611 On the other hand, whether the Eucharist changed form or just remained bread was irrelevant for government. Thus, Locke sought to avoid the religious disputes that had produced wars and civil wars, but he also kept God firmly in control as the ultimate source of legitimacy and credibility.612

 

Bibliography

 

542 Stephen Toulmin (1990), Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity (Chicago:University of Chicago Press): 69-87.

543 At the heart of this debate is the idea that there was a “modern school of natural law,”meaning specifically a conscious project by, in particular, Grotius, John Selden, and Hobbes, to combat skepticism and demonstrate the validity of a natural law based on reason and self-preservation.Proponents of this view include AP D’Entreves (1994 [1951]), Richard Tuck (1987), and JG Schneewind (1998). On the other side of the debate are those who argue that Hobbes’s project was completely different than that of Grotius and any connection is incidental rather than consciously developmental. Scholars on this side include Perez Zagorin (2000), Johann P Sommerville (2001), and Annabel Brett (2003).

544 Knud Haakonssen (1998), “Divine/Natural Law Theories in Ethics,” in Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, vol. II, Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, eds. (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press): 1330.

545 Richard Bonney (1990), The European Dynastic States, 1494-1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 181-83. The subsequent Dutch reaction in 1619 to the Arminians and anyone who dared to support them led to the execution of Oldenbarnevelt and the flight of Grotius to France. There is no indication that either of these statesmen professed Arminian doctrines themselves. Their policy of toleration was likely intended to present a united Protestant front against the constant threat from Catholic Spain, CG Roelofsen (1990), “Grotius and the International Politics of the Seventeenth Century,” in Hugo Grotius and International Relations, Hedley Bull, Benedict Kingsbury, and Adam Roberts, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press): 95-133

546 It had enormous effects on some of the clergy in France and among the Jesuits – missionary to China Matteo Ricci, in particular. Further, The Jansenist movement eventually emerged speaking out against such a theology and the casuistry that came to be associated with it. Peter N Miller (2000), Peiresc’s Europe: Learning and Virtue in the Seventeenth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press): 102-29.

547 Grotius directly addressed theological issues in two works, Defensio fidei Catholicae de Satisfactione Christi and De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra, both written in 1617 in the midst of the Arminian controversy, though only the former was published at that time, Richard Tuck (1991), “Grotius and Selden,” in Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1750 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press): 511-14.

548 Hugo Grotius (2005 [1625]), The Rights of War and Peace, Richard Tuck, ed. (Liberty Fund). The famous line of the Prolegomena is known as the etiamsi daremus sentence, which translated means “even if we should concede…”, here meaning that even if we should concede that God did not exist. It should be noted that Grotius was not the first author to present such an inherently heretical argument. The Spanish Scholastics had also considered such a question, not to mention the rising neo-Stoical movement, both of which had an influence of Grotius’ arguments, Schneewind 68.

549 Richard Tuck (1979), Natural Rights Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press):76-77.

550 God did not reveal these Laws to man, but man was compelled by his nature to use his reason to understand and obey these Laws. However, some people would not obey these Laws. Thus, civil governments had been created to compel those people to obey.

551 Knud Haakonssen (1998), “Divine/Natural Law Theories in Ethics,” in Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, vol. II, Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 1317-1357.

552 This idea had also been used in a similar way by the sixteenth-century Spanish Scholastics (Molina, Suarez, and Vitoria) in the early years of colonization, though these theories depended more on the direct authority of God than Grotius’s did.

553 It is for this same reason that Grotius’ theory succeeded at the international level, at least among European political units. Each political unit possessed individual rights against the others in an international society. Political units outside of Europe were not seen to possess the same rights as European political units. Edward Keene (2002), Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). This is also the reason why Grotius’ theories have experienced a revival in the late-twentieth century as they closely mirror concepts of Universal Human Rights and global organizations such as the United Nations.

554 Noel Malcolm (1991), “Hobbes and Spinoza,” in The Cambridge History of Political Though, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 550.

555 Baruch de Spinoza (1951 [1670]), A Theologico-Political Treatise (New York: Dover Publications): 10.

556 Ibid., 8.

557 “Men must necessarily come to an agreement to live together as securely and well as possible if they are to enjoy as a whole the rights which naturally belong to them as individuals,” Ibid.,202.

558 Optimistically, Spinoza said that it was almost possible for the ideal world to exist if a government successfully held the real world at bay. Of course, he also recognized that governments frequently acted in such a way to prevent a person from pursuing his best way of life. In particular, a government could impose one religious confession on all the people and try to coerce them to believe a particular set of doctrines. When it acted in this way, government became self-defeating and unstable, Michael A Rosenthal (2001), “Tolerance as a Virtue in Spinoza’s Ethics,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 39(4): 535-57. Still, this was not a justification to disobey the government, “for, if government be taken away, no good thing can last, all falls into dispute, anger and anarchy reign unchecked amid universal fear,” which was clearly worse, Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, 249.

559 God’s decrees “do not receive immediately from God the force of a command, but only from those, or through the mediation of those, who possess the right of ruling and legislating. It is only through these latter that God rules among men,” Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, 248.

560 Ibid., 249.

561 Samuel J Preus (1989), “Spinoza, Vico, and the Imagination of Religion,” Journal of the History of Ideas 50(1): 71-94.

562 “We all know what weight spiritual right and authority carries in the popular mind: how everyone hangs on the lips, as it were of those who possess it,” Spinoza, Theologico-Political Treatise, 252.

563 Ibid.

564 Ibid., 249; 118-19.

565 Roger Scruton (2002 [1986]), Spinoza: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 95-102.

566 There was also a further psychological advantage for the educated elite: by understanding and following Spinoza’s theory, one became the superior in society, thereby affirming and perpetuating the already existing hierarchical arrangement. Applying different theories of political authority to different classes of society became generally accepted among Conservative movements in Europe over the next two centuries, Don Herzog (1998), Poisoning the Minds of the Lower Orders (Princeton: Princeton University Press): 89-139.

567 God designed human nature and gave man reason – this is all man needed to follow . For Hobbes, Grotius’ argument that God both designed and enforced Laws was redundant. Scientific methodology demanded starting with the most basic premises and no more. Hence, God did not need to be involved in worldly affairs for this theory of political authority to be valid.

568 Hobbes, Leviathan 109. The articles of this agreement would be considered by other philosophers as “Natural Laws.” Hobbes did not view these as “laws” in the traditional sense, but merely precepts that reason has shown individuals were necessary for their own security, Quentin Skinner (2002 [1990]), “The Proper Signification of Liberty,” in Visions of Politics, Volume III: Hobbes and Civil Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 217. Although they were human inventions, they did not depend on individual personalities. These precepts applied to all people at all times, thus they should be considered “natural.”

569 Hobbes, Leviathan 139.

570 Ibid., 142.

571 Ibid., 142-43.

572 Hobbes, Leviathan, 142; Quentin Skinner (2002 [1999]), “The Purely Artificial Person of the State,” in Visions of Politics, Volume III: Hobbes and Civil Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 196-208. The contract may be voluntary, but once the dotted line was signed, there was no going back. In fact, a multitude of men was only a community (or “one” instead of many) “when they are by one man or one person represented,” Hobbes, Leviathan, 135. Remove the ruler, and the community no longer existed. Arguably, Hobbes did not consider the State of Nature and the ensuing contract an historical event, but only a mental exercise, or reason at work, despite the fact that there were several contemporary empirical examples of conditions that paralleled the State of Nature, such as tribes in the Americas and the international community itself, Richard Tuck (1999), The Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 135-39. Since there was no actual moment of commissioning a sovereign, this meant that there could be no actual moment of de-commissioning. The creation of a society required that each person abrogate his right to nullify the contract. If any person were allowed to retain this right, the contract would have collapsed, since everyone at some point had an incentive to get out of it.

573 Quentin Skinner (2002 [1989]), “The State of Princes to the Person of the State,” in Visions of Politics, Volume III: Hobbes and Civil Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 404.

574 Hobbes, Leviathan, 118. For Hobbes, governmental fear and coercion were not limitations on individual liberty (after all much of a person’s liberty had been voluntarily ceded in the contract), but operated as useful means of preventing complete social collapse – a far greater threat to individual liberty.

575 JB Schneewind paraphrases Hobbes in this way: “Our mortal god decides what is good and bad and what is to be believed about the immortal god,” 99.

576 Hobbes, Leviathan, 50.

577 Hobbes, Leviathan: 142-43. It has been argued that Hobbes was an atheist and inserted God and Biblical citations so that his work would not be rejected outright, Leo Strauss (1953), Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago): 202-32.

578 See, for example, the arguments of Richard Cumberland (1632-1718), Ralph Cudworth (1617-88), Bishop Samuel Parker (1640-88), and Nathaniel Culverwel (1618-1651); JGA Pocock (1990), “Thomas Hobbes: Atheist or Enthusiast? His Place in a Restoration Debate,” History of Political Thought 11(4): 737-49.

579 Skinner (2002 [1998]), “The State of Princes to the Person of the State,” in Visions of Politics, Vol. II: Renaissance Virtues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 394. Skinner is referring in this passage to the “monarchomachs,” but explicitly lists two Calvinist monarch sources: the Vindiciae contra tyrannos and Johannes Althusius’s Politica.

580 John Calvin (1991 [1559]), “On Civil Government,” in On Secular Authority, Harro Hopfl, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 76.

581 Philippe du Plessis-Mornay (1969 [1579]), “Vindiciae contra tyrannos,” in Constitutionalism and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century, Julian H Franklin, ed. (New York: Pegasus Books): 158. The king is an employee of the people. The Vindiciae uses the analogy of the pilot of a ship to illustrate the point. While aboard a ship, the owner will obey a pilot only while he looks out for the good of the ship. When the pilot no longer can or will do his job properly, he is quickly fired. The same is true for a king who is not “looking out for the public good.” Thus, the people, if faced with a king who ceases to fulfill the job he was hired to do, are also represented by a parliament or “an assembly with a kind of tribunal authority,” who may justly remove the king.

582 In particular, the right (responsibility) of resistance fell to the local or inferior magistrates. However, the Huguenots tended to be geographically concentrated, thus their local magistrates also tended to be the elected of the elect, Robert M Kingdon (1991), “Calvinism and Resistance Theory, 1550-1580,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 214; Spellman (1998), 82.

583 This concept of a political community was used successfully in a few smaller experiments in Europe – most notably by Theodore de Beza in Geneva and Heinrich Bullinger in Zurich. Likewise, it helped provide justification for political resistance among a persecuted church. However, as a practical political theory for a territory larger than a city it fell fall short.

584 If the basis of authority rested in the larger state (ala Bodin), the United Provinces had unjustly broken away from the Holy Roman Empire; however, if authority resided with the people, resistance of the various provinces to the larger United Provinces could be legitimately supported.

585 Spellman (1998): 76-78; Howell A Lloyd (1991), “Constitutionalism,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 287-92; Johannes Althusius (1964), The Politics of Johannes Althusius, Frederick S Carney, trans.(London: Beacon Press).

586 Each level of association can more effectively fulfill separate tasks, each of which is necessary to the citizens. The only powers that should be delegated to higher levels are ones that cannot be exercised as effectively or efficiently at lower levels. This is the same as the principle of “subsidiarity” the European Union added to Article 3b of the Maastricht Treaty. Larry Cata Becker (1998), “Forging Federal Systems Within a Matrix of Contained Conflict: The Example of the European Union,” Emory International Law Review 12: 1361-62.

587 Which magistrates were empowered to act was an important question for Althusius, again, because he was developing a theory where only some groups possessed this power. “In his terminology the term magistrate applies to any office-bearer of the res publica, with terms such as magistratus summus, ephors, optimates and senators used to distinguish various office-holders from emperor via territorial nobility to urban council. His writings addressed primarily inferior magistrates like him,” Robert von Friedeburg (2005), “The Problems of Passions and of Love of the Fatherland in Protestant Thought: Melanchthon to Althusius, 1520s to 1620s,” Cultural and Social History 2(1): 94.

588 Friedeburg (2005), 92.

589 J Wayne Baker (2000), “Faces of Federalism: From Bullinger to Jefferson,”Publius 30(4):33.

590 Local congregations were associations that came together to form local colloquies and so on, until reaching the national synod at the apex. Each level was crucial and each played a different role. The structure was intended to allow local congregations to control themselves as much as possible. Yet, at the same time, the structure also protected itself from heresy.

591 It is also possible to read Lawson as an elitist who argued that “political power devolves back not to the people but to their natural representatives: the original forty counts of the forty counties, that is, to the local gentry,” James Tully (1991), “Locke,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 622. Whether Lawson based ultimate political power in the “people” or in the “local gentry” is indicative of the inconsistency of portions of his theory – one reason why history remembers Locke rather than Lawson.

592 Lawson was not a Calvinist, but was a clergyman in the Church of England who adjusted his position to whatever government happened to be in power, Stuart or Puritan. This proved to be an effective survival strategy in the English upheavals of the mid-seventeenth century. It is precisely this“accommodating attitude” that allowed Lawson to transform and adapt the dominant theories of political authority in vital ways that John Locke later adopted, Conal Condren (1992), “Introduction,” in Lawson: Politica Sacra et Civilis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): xv.

593 George Lawson (1992 [1660]), Lawson: Politica Sacra et Civilis, Conal Condren, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 41-75.

594 Lawson, writing in the Restoration, designed his theory to examine the past three tumultuous decades. The people of England created a government possessing multiple branches, a monarchy and a parliament. If either of these branches were eliminated, the whole government ceased to exist. According to Lawson, parliament did not have the authority back in 1648 to abolish the monarchy because there could be no parliament without a monarchy. The people could choose to adjust the structure of government, but neither branch could make such a decision single-handedly. Note how Lawson attempted to take a middle position. The execution of 1648 was illegitimate because parliament lacked the power to make such a decision. However, both the Cromwell government and the newly-restored Stuart monarchy were legitimate because the people chose to implement each.

595 Julian H Franklin (1978), John Locke and the Theory of Sovereignty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). On the other hand, the most prolific George Lawson scholar suggests that Lawson should be studied as something more than just an anticipation of Locke’s theory, Conal Condren (1981), “Resistance and Sovereignty in Lawson’s Politica: An Examination of a Part of Professor Franklin, His Chimera,” Historical Journal 24(3): 673-81.

596 Lois G Schwoerer (1990), “Locke, Lockean Ideas, and the Glorious Revolution,” Journal of the History of Ideas 51(4): 531-48.

597 Part of the subtitle of Locke’s First Treatise is “The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, and His Followers, Are Detected and Overthrown.” See also Johann Sommerville (1991), “Introduction,” in Filmer: ‘Patriarcha’ and Other Writings, Johann P Sommerville, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): ix-xxiv.

598 Filmer supported this idea biblically, arguing that Adam was the first king and Charles I was Adam’s eldest heir. Granted, this last addition was slightly strained, but the king-as-father analogy was easily understood in English society and carried a lot of weight among many, Johann P Sommerville (1991), “Absolutism and Royalism,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 357-58.

599 The child could consent to transfer authority to the father, but he could also refuse to consent to this. The father had the right to hold inheritance as a hostage to generate consent, but otherwise he had no legitimate power to compel the fully reasoning adult to submit to his authority. The parent’s duty to God was fulfilled once the child was raised.

600 Spellman (1998), 94-97.

601 Filmer had implied that because Adam was made the first king, government was natural. There could have been no State of Nature because there were no people before Adam and, hence, no time when people lacked government. Locke responded: “Supposing we should grant, that a Man is by Nature Governor of his Children, Adam could not hereby be Monarchas soon as Created; for this Right of Nature being founded in his being their Father, how Adam could have a Natural Right to be Governor before he was a Father, when by being a father only he had that Right, is, methinks, hard to conceive.” John Locke, First Treatise of Government, paragraph 17, Locke: Two Treatises of Government, Peter Laslett, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 153.

602 Locke, Second Treatise, section 14: 276-77.

603 For Filmer, both sovereignty and property were given to Adam and passed down through inheritance.

604 Locke, Second Treatise, section 25: 286.

605 What made the contract language of Locke and other English Whigs so important was that it gave the people the right to decide when a contract was violated. Thus, the events of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 could be considered the choice of “the people,” James Farr and Clayton Roberts (1985), “John Locke on the Glorious Revolution: A Rediscovered Document,” Historical Journal 28(2): 385-98. This “radical” position was contrasted with the position of moderates and conservatives who argued that there was no “revolution” at all: either William legally conquered England (William’s choice) or James II deserted his throne (James’ choice), Tim Harris (1999), “The People, the Law, and

606 “Whenever the Legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the Property of the People,(1991), “Introduction,” in Filmer: ‘Patriarcha’ and Other Writings, Johann P Sommerville, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): ix-xxiv. 598 Filmer supported this idea biblically, arguing that Adam was the first king and Charles I was Adam’s eldest heir. Granted, this last addition was slightly strained, but the king-as-father analogy was easily understood in English society and carried a lot of weight among many, Johann P Sommerville (1991), “Absolutism and Royalism,” in The Cambridge History of Political Thought, 1450-1700, JH Burns, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press): 357-58.

607 One shouldn’t expect a mass meeting or a vote on whether to resist the government, however. When people were treated unjustly or the government continually breached the public trust, people would fight back whether this was right or wrong, legitimate or not. The fact that the people were so roused to action that they would fight was a pretty good indication that the government had broken its trust with the people and deserved dissolution: “The People…are not apt to stir…. But if they universally have a perswasion, grounded upon manifest evidence, that designs are carrying on against their Liberties…who is to be blamed for it?... Are the People to be blamed, if they have the sence of rational Creatures, and can think of things no otherwise than as they find and feel them?” Locke, Second Treatise, section 230: 418. This amounted to a very pragmatic (though circular) solution for the sovereignty of the people: the people rightfully reclaimed their sovereignty when they reclaimed their sovereignty. This would rarely happen, according to Locke, so when it did we should take special notice.

608 Tully (1991): 638-39; William Barclay (1954 [1600]), The Kingdom and the Regal Power (Chevy Chase, MD: Country Dollar Press).

609 “When a King has Dethron’d himself, and put himself in a state of War with his People,what shall hinder them from prosecuting him who is no King, as they would any other Man,” Locke, Second Treatise, section 239: 424-25.

610 “God in Heaven is Judge: He alone, ‘tis true, is Judge of the Right. But every Man is Judge for himself, as in all other Cases, so in this, whether another hath put himself into a State of War with him,” Locke, Second Treatise, section 241: 427.

611 Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, section 241.

612 Locke scholarship over the past two decades has emphasized the importance of religion in his epistemological and political systems. This is a response to two interpretations of Locke in the 1960s and 1970s that marginalized Locke’s Christianity. Straussians argued that Locke was really just a Hobbesian; see, for example, Leo Strauss (1953), “Modern Natural Right,” in Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press); Thomas L Pangle (1988), The Spirit of Modern Republicanism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). CB Macpherson contended that Locke was more concerned about capitalism and private property than he was about religion, (1962), The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press). There has been a significant shift in the 1990s and 2000s toward following John Dunn’s suggestions and returning Locke’s religious background and beliefs to the center of his political theory: John Dunn (1969), The Political Thought of John Locke: An Historical Account of the Argument of the Two Treatises of Government’ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); James Tully (1980), A Discourse on Property: John Locke and His Adversaries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Mark Goldie (1983), “John Locke and Anglican Royalism,” Political Studies 31: 61-85; Richard Ashcraft (1986), Revolutionary Politics and Locke’s ‘Two Treatises of Government’ (Princeton: Princeton University Press); John Marshall (1994), John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Kirstie M McClure (1996), Judging Rights: Lockean Politics and the Limits of Consent (Ithaca: Cornell University Press); BW Young (1998),Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford: Clarendon); Jeremy Waldron (2002), God, Locke, and Equality: Christian Foundations in Locke’s Political Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press) According to these scholars, Locke’s theory depended on God. Removing Him would undermine his arguments regarding equality, property, contract, and consent. Thus, Locke’s project was very different from Hobbes’s.

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