LOCKE ON ATHEISM

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J.K. Numao1,2
Abstract: Although it is well-known that Locke denied toleration to atheists, relatively little has been said in the scholarship about what exactly this denial amounted
to. This article attempts to fill this gap by considering, amongst others, Lockes writings on education and the conduct of the understanding. It first analyses Lockes definition of atheism. It then shows how in fact Locke distinguished different strands of
atheism and how he thought one becomes an atheist. Finally, the article sketches out
Lockes views about how to deal with these different strands. In offering an extensive
discussion of Lockes response to atheism, the article portrays both the philosophers
calmness and his consistency.
Keywords: Locke, toleration, atheism, punishment.

It is well known that in his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), Locke

denied toleration to atheists. He writes: Those are not at all to be tolerated
who deny the Being of a God. Promises, Covenants, and Oaths, which are the
Bonds of Humane Society, can have no hold upon an Atheist. The taking
away of God, tho but even in thought, dissolves all.3 While some commentators argue that this denial was less genuine than tactical, most others are
agreed that Lockes denial is better supposed genuine than spurious.4 Beyond
this point, however, discussions of Lockes denial by those believing it to be
genuine have tended to be short and dismissive, often criticizing the philosophers shortsightedness.5 Opposed to this tendency, there have been illuminating in-depth discussions attempting to explain and to understand why

Keio University, Japan. Email: lordjohnkay@hotmail.com

For insightful comments, I am grateful to Dr Jon Parkin, Dr Timothy Stanton, the
two anonymous HPT referees, and also participants of workshops and study groups at the
University of York, Keio University, Otago University and Gakushuin University, to
whom various parts of the article were presented at various stages of the research and
writing leading up to the present version.
3 J. Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, ed. J.H. Tully (Indianapolis, 1983), p. 51.
4 Straussian commentators have traditionally seen Lockes denial as a strategic
move. See, for example, M.S. Rabieh, The Reasonableness of Locke, or the Questionableness of Christianity, The Journal of Politics, 53 (1991), pp. 93357; P. Josephson,
The Great Art of Government: Lockes Use of Consent (Lawrence, 2002), pp. 25760.
5 See, for example, M. Cranston, John Locke and the Case for Toleration, in John
Locke: A Letter Concerning Toleration in Focus, ed. J. Horton and S. Mendus (London,
1991), p. 85; A.J. Simmons, On the Edge of Anarchy (Princeton, 1993), p. 127; J. Rawls,
A Theory of Justice (Oxford, rev. edn., 1999), p. 190; A. Tuckness, Rethinking the
Intolerant Locke, American Journal of Political Science, 46 (2002), p. 290; R. Dees,
Trust and Toleration (London, 2004), pp. 11011.
2

HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT. Vol. XXXIV. No. 2. Summer 2013

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LOCKE ON ATHEISM

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Locke was committed to denying toleration to atheists and to see what this
might mean for us today.6
Yet a question that remains under-explored so far in Locke scholarship is
what Lockes denial amounted to or, in other words, what exactly a denial of
toleration implied for atheists. This is an important question in understanding
how Locke responded to what he saw as a grave, if not the gravest, intellectual
and practical threat to civil society, particularly vis--vis his own claims about
the futility of coerced belief. The primary concern of this article is to fill in
this gap. However, as one commentator deplores, [w]e just dont know . . .
what he [i.e. Locke] thought not tolerating atheists entailed, exactly and
conclusions based upon inference are contestable.7 One major reason for this
lacuna is due not least to Lockes own reticence in the Letter. Thus, one recent
approach has been to search beyond the Letter for material which might help
to shed light on this question.8
Following this lead, I dig deeper into the question of Lockes response to
the problem of atheism by considering, amongst others, Lockes writings on
education and the conduct of human understanding, thereby adding an important footnote to the existing literature. I try to show that Lockes response differed in manner according to the cause or nature of ones atheism or, in other
words, the type of atheist one was. In this context, I draw particular attention
to the crucial role public opinion and shame played in his response. The portrait of Locke offered in this article does little, if anything, to change the fact
that Locke barred atheists from the benefits of toleration; but showing that
there was a sophisticated intellectual story behind his denial will help us to
appreciate an aspect of the consistency of Lockes thought and to reappraise
the almost universal belief that Locke thought very little about the problem of
atheism.9

6 J. Dunn, The Concept of Trust in the Politics of John Locke, in Philosophy in

History, ed. R. Rorty et al. (Cambridge, 1984), p. 288; J. Dunn, What History Can Show:
Jeremy Waldrons Reading of Lockes Christian Politics, The Review of Politics, 67
(2005), pp. 4489; J. Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality (Cambridge, 2002),
pp. 21743.
7 R. Vernon, The Career of Toleration (Montreal and Kingston, 1997), p. 147.
8 Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, pp. 2315.
9 What is remarkable is that even John Dunn, who acknowledges the significance of
Lockes assessment of atheism, remarks that there is no reason to believe that Locke
thought very carefully about this question [i.e. the problem of atheism]. J. Dunn, What
is Living and What is Dead in the Political Theory of John Locke?, in Interpreting
Political Responsibility (Cambridge, 1990), p. 19. Cf. A. Schulman, The Twilight of
Probability: Locke, Bayle, and the Toleration of Atheism, Journal of Religion, 89
(2009), pp. 32860. Schulman suggests that Lockes views on atheism in the Letter
might reveal inconsistencies even though he may have thought very hard.

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I
Relatively little has been said in Locke scholarship concerning what Locke
thought we ought to do about atheists, apart from the last chapter of Jeremy
Waldrons God, Locke, and Equality which considers this problem at some
length.10 Waldron notes that the atheist problem poses something of an
embarrassment for Lockes account, because Lockes most powerful argument in the Letter is that force cannot produce authentic belief and that there is
little, if any, point in hypocritical conformity.11 In some places, Locke seems
to suggest that the existence of God is so obvious that it is simply a matter of
forcing people to look and see and consider, whereas elsewhere he takes a
less sanguine view of the problem, observing that there have been many
serious thinkers in the past who have denied the existence of God. Yet while
this line of inquiry does not offer us anything conclusive, Waldron picks
up another thread from Lockes Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1690), namely a suggestion that the law can suppress atheism, that is prevent it from being proclaimed and ensure that it doesnt acquire the sort of
wildfire popularity that might follow if its public avowal did not have to be
furtive. Toleration for Locke, Waldron argues, is a multifaceted ideal: one
aspect involves refraining from attempts at forcible imposition of beliefs
while the other is not prohibiting speech or gatherings or organizations, and
not disqualifying those of minority religions from public life. It is toleration
in the second sense, Waldron suggests, which Locke seems to have been
denying the atheists.12
Although Waldrons account offers a useful starting point for an inquiry
into Lockes response to the atheist problem, I want to draw attention to two
problems in his account and in so doing bring to light other important aspects
of Lockes response. The first problem comes up in the context of registering
the point that although everyone is at one point ignorant of the existence of
God, many, if not most, people become aware of His existence at a later point
in life. Here, Waldron rather casually comments, [a]fter all, we were all atheists once, says Locke: this is a fault which we were every one of us guilty
10

Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, pp. 2315.

There is a growing literature supposing Lockes main argument in the Letter to be
based on the irrationality of coerced belief. J. Waldron, Locke, Toleration, and the
Rationality of Persecution, in John Locke, ed. Horton and Mendus, pp. 98124;
P. Bou-Habib, Locke, Sincerity and the Rationality of Persecution, Political Studies,
51 (2003), pp. 61126; M. Schwartzman, The Relevance of Lockes Religious Arguments for Toleration, Political Theory, 33 (2005), pp. 678705; R. Pevnick, The
Lockean Case for Religious Tolerance: The Social Contract and the Irrationality of Persecution, Political Studies, 57 (2009), pp. 84665; J.W. Tate, Locke, Rationality and
Persecution, Political Studies, 58 (2010), pp. 9881008. However, cf. T. Stanton,
Locke and the Politics and Theology of Toleration, Political Studies, 54 (2006),
pp. 84102.
12 Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, pp. 2335.
11

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LOCKE ON ATHEISM

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of .13 However, there is a problem in calling humanitys inevitable ignorance of God in nonage atheism as if to suggest that this was qualitatively
the same as the atheism of an adult who seriously denies the existence of God.
This loose use blinds us to the possibility that there are different strands of
atheism and, if so, also to the possibility that there may be different ways of
dealing with each strand. I shall therefore be arguing that Locke implicitly
distinguishes between these different species of atheists and also that his
treatment amongst them differs.
The second problem arises from Waldrons omission of references to public opinion and shame in his discussion of Lockes response to atheists. The
omission might be understandable given Waldrons interest in Lockes legal
response, that is, what the magistrate may or may not do faced with the problem of atheism. Yet this focus forecloses both the wider investigation of how
Locke thought we ought to deal with the problem of atheism and the possibility that the idea of Lockean legal punishment could be multifaceted. In
response to this problem, I shall be arguing that a consideration of the role of
public opinion and shame is crucial to understanding Lockes response to
atheism and also to the problem of the impracticability of using force as a
means of conversion.
The two problems here relate and unfold in a series of broader questions:
what defined Lockes atheists? how does an atheist become an atheist? what is
the nature of the different stages of atheism? how should atheists be treated at
different stages of their atheism? My first claim, that there are different levels
of atheists according to Locke, relates particularly to the first three questions.
In what follows, I shall be taking these in turn.
It is a question rarely asked, but what defined Lockes atheists? Looking
once again at Lockes statement in the Letter, we see that Lockes definition
of atheists are those who deny the Being of a God. Despite its seemingly
uncontroversial nature, the definition is significant in two respects. The first,
which has been noted by Justin Champion, is the definition as denying simply
the Being of a God. Champion notes that the language of atheism in the seventeenth century was used in a very imprecise manner. An atheist could
refer to someone who did not necessarily deny the existence of God. Used
polemically, an atheist could refer to someone who subscribed to a heterodox
Christian doctrine, such as Socinianism, Arianism and Deism.14 Thus, tellingly defending the authenticity of Scripture was central to all of the major
13 Ibid., p. 234. J. Locke, The Works of John Locke (10 vols., Aalen, 1963), VI, p. 233
(henceforth Works, cited by volume, page number).
14 See, for example, J. Marshall, John Locke, Toleration, and Early Enlightenment
Culture (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 25663, 694 f.; D. Wootton, New Histories of Atheism, in Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, ed. M. Hunter and D. Wootton (Oxford, 1992), pp. 256. Locke himself was accused by John Edwards, an Anglican
clergyman of intemperate disposition, of being all over Socinianized, and so tending

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J.K. NUMAO

acts of legislation against blasphemy between 1648 and 1697. Given such a
context, Champion argues, Lockes succinctness can be seen as an attempt to
broaden the category of speculative opinion that could be embraced within
legitimate belief by limiting what counted as atheism.15
Does the clause Being of a God, which seems to suggest a commitment to
monotheism, then mean that polytheism is beyond the pale of toleration? The
existing literature is indeterminate on this point but tends towards the claim
that it does merit toleration in a Lockean polity. Greg Forster, for example,
argues that what is required for toleration is not Gods rewards and punishments but divine rewards and punishments (emphasis added). Polytheism
did not require such a denial and therefore, as Lockes comments about
pagans in the Letter suggest, toleration extends to polytheists.16 Likewise
Waldron observes that there are passages in the Letters Concerning Toleration about tolerating pagans, which seem to suggest that Greek and Roman
polytheism should be tolerated. However, Waldron also notes that we can
infer from Lockes comments elsewhere that there will always be serious
moral deficiency unless there is an acknowledgement of one invisible God.17
A careful rereading of Lockes various writings suggests that Waldrons proviso comes closer to Lockes own sentiments: polytheism is not to be tolerated precisely because it destroys the concept of divineness. First, pace
Waldron and Forster, there is no positive indication that the pagans Locke
refers to are polytheists. As far as the Letter is concerned, Lockean pagans
worship God, not gods, and so the term pagan theist may be more appropriate in this context.18 By contrast, as the Essays on the Law of Nature
(16634) plainly indicate, in Lockes mind Greek and Roman polytheists are
towards atheism. See J. Edwards, Some Thoughts Concerning the Several Causes and
Occasions of Atheism (London, 1695), p. 113.
15 J. Champion, Le culte priv quand il est rendu dans le secret: Hobbes, Locke et les
limites de la tolrance, lathisme et lhtrodoxie, in Les fondements philosophiques de
la tolrance, ed. Y.C. Zarka, F. Lessay and J. Rogers (3 vols., Paris, 2002), I, pp. 2357.
The translation is based on the English draft available at http://personal.rhul.ac.uk/
uhra/026/TOLERATE.pdf.
16 G. Forster, John Lockes Politics of Moral Consensus (Cambridge, 2005),
pp. 1756.
17 Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, p. 229.
18 Locke, Letter, pp. 43, 54. See I. Harris, Tolrance, glise et tat chez Locke, in
Les fondements philosophiques de la tolrance, ed. Zarka, Lessay and Rogers, I, p. 216.
That Locke should have referred to a pagan God is not so surprising considering he
owned a copy of Gabriel Sagards book on the Canadian Hurons. In this book, Sagard
reports that the Hurons believed in one creator God, which might help to explain Lockes
source for a God-worshipping pagan. G. Sagard, Histoire Du Canada (Paris, 1636), ch.
30; See also Le Grand Voyage Du Pays Des Hurons (Paris, 1632). J. Harrison and
P. Laslett, The Library of John Locke (Oxford, 2nd edn., 1971), nos. 2526 and 2527. For
Locke as a reader of Sagard, see A. Talbot, The Great Ocean of Knowledge (Leiden,
2010), p. 176.

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LOCKE ON ATHEISM

257

nothing but disguised atheists on account of their anthropomorphism and

plurality: to increase the number of gods means to abolish divinity.19 Likewise Lockes correspondence with Philippus van Limborch indicates that, for
Locke, the concept of deity or divinity implies one and only one God, a Being
who is supreme in terms of attributes that would be better to have than not;
and so, polytheism the idea that there is a plurality of divines is conceptually impossible.20
There is a further issue about the definition as the denial of the Being of a
God. The problem with polytheism is that it destroys the notion of the
divineness of the deity by its plural conception of deity and its anthropomorphism. But then, what of other so-called wrong notions of God? How else
might one be denying the concept of deity? In the Second Vindication of the
Reasonableness of Christianity (1697), Locke states that he that believes one
eternal, invisible God, his Lord and King, ceases thereby to be an atheist,
suggesting that eternity and invisibility are two definitive features of the
deity.21 In a similar vein, the Essay suggests that those who believe in an eternal, cogitative, and immaterial Being do not do away with the being of a
God.22 Furthermore, there is an interesting manuscript dated 1696 in which
Locke considers Descartes proof of a God and most likely Hobbess objections against it. In this manuscript, Locke refers to the Cartesians as Theists
and Hobbesians as Atheists, and observes that neither side is objecting
that there is an eternal being, but rather that whether the Eternall being
that made and still keeps all things in that order, beauty and method in
which we see them, be a knowing immateriall Substance or a Sensless
material Substance.23 Locke is consistent in calling the Hobbesian notion
atheistic because being material the Hobbesian eternal being is not invisible.
As we shall see later, atheism by virtue of having the wrong notion of God
becomes important when trying to understand the stress Locke puts on timely
education as a response to atheism.
Turning now to the second way in which Lockes definition is significant, I
want to draw attention to the word deny. For Locke to suggest that one could
deny the existence of God was significant because intellectuals in the seventeenth century usually argued that it was impossible genuinely to deny Gods
19

J. Locke, Essays on the Law of Nature, ed. W. von Leyden (Oxford, 2002), no. 5,
p. 175.
20 J. Locke, The Correspondence of John Locke, ed. E.S. De Beer (8 vols., Oxford,
197689), VI, L2340, pp. 2436; L2395, pp. 3206; L2413, pp. 3636; L2443, pp.
4056; L2498, pp. 4947. A partial English translation of these letters is available in
John Locke: Selected Correspondence, ed. M. Goldie (Oxford, 2002).
21 Works, VII, p. 229.
22 J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. P.H. Nidditch (Oxford,
1975), IV.xx.18, p. 628.
23 See Deus, MS Locke c.28, fols. 11920. This is also available at Digital Locke
Project. See, http://www.digitallockeproject.nl/

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existence, or in other words, to be a speculative atheist.24 By the impossibility of speculative atheism, writers often meant it was either conceptually
impossible or simply irrational. In the latter sense, Ralph Cudworth, most
notably, devoted the entire voluminous fourth chapter of his True Intellectual
System to demonstrating that atheism was built upon contradictory propositions.25 Robert Boyle also wrote in Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Naturall Philosophy that the atheists paradoxes have
been looked upon as so irrational, that, as soon as they have been proposed,
they have been disdainfully rejected and condemned by all the rest of mankind, who have looked upon the patrons of them as monsters, rather than philosophers.26
On the other hand, one major reason for its purported conceptual impossibility was the belief that the idea of God was innate. For example, Pierre
Nicole (whose work Locke had translated) writes: What pains soever atheists
take to rase out of the minds of men that general apprehension of a deity,
which the very view of the world naturally imprints there, they have not been
able to extirpate, or wholly efface those characters that are stamped so clear,
and are sunk so deep.27 Likewise, commenting on the text of Psalm 14, The
fool hath said in his heart, there is no God, Richard Bentley notes in the first
of his Boyle Lectures, The Folly of atheism, that he did not know any Interpreters that will allow it to be spoken of such as flatly deny the being of God.
Bentley surmises that these interpreters were induced to this conclusion from
the commonly received notion of an Innate Idea of God, imprinted upon every
Soul of Man at their Creation, in Characters that can never be defaced. Thus,
it followed for these interpreters that
Speculative Atheism doth subsist only in our Speculation: whereas really
Human Nature cannot be guilty of the crime: that indeed a few sensual and
voluptuous Persons may for a season eclipse this native Light of the Soul;
but can never so wholly smother and extinguish it, but that at some lucid
intervals it will recover it self again, and shine forth to the conviction of
their Confidence.28

Bentley therefore concludes that, on this understanding, there can only be

practical atheists, that is, those who believing his Existence, do yet seclude
24

See generally, D. Berman, A History of Atheism in Britain (London and New York,
1988), ch. 1.
25 R. Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe (London, 1678), passim.
26 R. Boyle, Some Considerations Touching the Usefulnesse of Experimental Naturall
Philosophy (Oxford, 1663), Essay 5, p. 101.
27 P. Nicole, Discourses on the being of a God (London, 1712), I.5; J. Marshall, John
Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility (Cambridge, 1994), p. 136.
28 R. Bentley, Eight Boyle Lectures on Atheism (New York, 1976 [16923]), p. 4.

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LOCKE ON ATHEISM

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him from directing the Affairs of the World, from observing and judging the
Actions of Men.
Intellectuals were keen to stress the impossibility of speculative atheism
because its existence would undermine the naturalness of God and, in turn,
of morality and religion.29 To show that belief in God was natural to human
nature, there was a widespread tendency amongst philosophers and theologians to argue that the idea of God was innate; which, they argued, could be
proved by the universal consent of mankind. Edward Stillingfleet, a strong
proponent of universal consent, argued that one could prove That God hath
imprinted an universal character of himself on the minds of men by the fact
that the whole world hath consented in it. He maintains: we assert this universal consent of mankind, as to the existence of a Deity, to be a thing so consonant to our natural reason, that as long as there are men in the world it will
continue.30 The existence of a real, speculative atheist would undermine the
universal consent of mankind concerning the existence of God, thereby
threatening the innateness and naturalness of the idea of God.31
Locke, however, opposed this traditional intellectual framework which
relied on innate ideas. In so doing, he helped to create the conceptual problem
of the speculative atheist.32 Here, we come to the second and third questions
raised above, that of the nature of the different levels of atheism and of how
one becomes an atheist. Because Locke rejected innate ideas, he believed that
people were born without any ideas; famously, the mind was, as it were, a
white Paper.33 Given this premise, people were all born ignorant of the
knowledge of God, a fault (i.e. shortcoming), he later noted in the Third Letter for Toleration (1692), that which we were every one of us once guilty
29 H. More, An Antidote against Atheism (London, 1653), p. 19; E. Stillingfleet,
Origines Sacrae (London, 1662), p. 366; Cudworth, The True Intellectual System, p. 7,
and more generally, ch. 4.
30 Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae, pp. 3845.
31 Stillingfleet argues rather clumsily that even if speculative atheists did exist, this
would not disprove the universal acceptance of the idea of God: For I demand of the
greatest Atheist, Whether it be sufficient to say, that it is not natural for men to have two
legs, because some have been born with one. Stillingfleet, Orgines Sacrae, p. 392. However, if there was universal consent concerning the existence of God, who was he arguing
against? Besides, wasnt it question-begging to say that disbelief in God was unnatural
when trying to prove that belief in God was natural? These considerations have led David
Berman to conjecture that there was a repressive tendency amongst intellectuals; that
is, in denying that speculative atheists could exist, or even if they did, arguing that they
were brutes, intellectuals were repressing the thought that atheism was a rational belief
they could endorse, thereby defending the naturalness of a belief in God. Berman, A History of Atheism in Britain, esp. ch. 1.
32 John Marshall also notes the problem of the impossibility of speculative atheism
but fails to see that Locke opened such a possibility by rejecting innate ideas. See Marshall, John Locke, Toleration, pp. 694 f.
33 Locke, Essay, II.i.2, p. 104.

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of.34 Locke believed the people were all capable of eventually arriving at the
knowledge of a God through their natural faculties, but at the same time he
acknowledged that there would be a stage in their lives in which they would
be inevitably without the notion of God. Hereby, he firstly created the possibility of what I shall term the ignorant atheist, an atheist who has simply
not yet developed the notion of a God. I distinguish this kind of atheism from
speculative atheism. Although the ignorant atheists no less than the speculative atheists needed to be set on the track of theism, Locke clearly thought that
the former were qualitatively different from the latter, and also less threatening to religion and civil society. He writes:
It being less dangerous to religion in general to have men ignorant of a
Deity, and so without any religion, than to have them acknowledge a superior Being, but yet to teach or allow them to neglect or refuse worshipping him in that way that they believe he requires, to render them acceptable
to him: it being a great deal less fault . . . to be ignorant of him, than,
acknowledging a God, not to pay him the honour which we think due to
him.35

In contrast to speculative atheism, which is a grave threat to religion and civil

society, ignorant atheism is seen as far less threatening, much less than hypocritical worship. Thus it is misleading when Waldron writes, [a]fter all, we
were all atheists once, says Locke, as if Locke had suggested that the two
kinds of atheism were the same.36
If Lockes rejection of innate ideas had created the space for ignorant
atheism, it in turn created the possibility of speculative atheism. Although
Locke maintained that people were capable of coming to the knowledge of
God through sense experience and reason, precisely because there was reasoning involved there was also scope for error. Agents could reason themselves into believing that God did not exist, and because they could reason
themselves into believing so, they could obstinately adhere to their view.37 Of
course, it was possible on earlier accounts to suggest that agents could err and
even deny Gods existence. However, innatists were able to respond by claiming that whatever such agents may have been saying aloud, deep in their
hearts they had the notion of God imprinted and thus could not have been seriously denying the existence of God.38 No longer able to adduce innate ideas,
Locke was faced with the problem of the speculative atheist.
34

Works, VI, p. 233.

Ibid., emphasis added.
36 Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, p. 234.
37 Cf. Schulman, The Twilight, pp. 3512, and also n.75.
38 J. Milner, An Account of Mr Locks Religion (London, 1700), p. 8. John Milner,
one of Lockes early critics, argued against Locke that Locke could not claim that there
were atheists (as he had, resorting to travel literature) unless he could assure us (which
he cannot) that their Atheistical Discourse is the Language of their Hearts, as it is too
35

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II

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We have seen how speculative atheism becomes possible conceptually. I next

want to examine how atheists actually become atheists in Lockes view, and
to this end I draw attention to two works in particular, both of which have not
received due attention in a discussion about atheism: Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693), which was written from 1684 for Edward Clarke,
giving recommendations for raising and educating his young son, and Of
the Conduct of the Understanding (1706), which was written from 1697,
intended as a chapter for the Essay.39 The general story that can be extracted
from these works suggests that Locke thought that atheists were simply people
who were intellectually lazy and did not use their natural faculties properly.
1. Of the Conduct of the Understanding
In the Conduct of the Understanding, Locke argued that besides ones professional calling, everyone has a concern in a future life which he is bound to
look after.40 Religion is mans calling as he is a man in the world.41 Thus, it
mightily lies upon him to understand and reason right: he cannot be excused
from understanding the words and framing the general notions relating to
religion right.42 Locke believed that everyone has enough to get as much
knowledge as is required and expected of him, and he that does not that is in
love with ignorance and is accountable for it.43 Locke saw no reason for the
meaner sort of people to give themselves up to a brutish stupidity in their
nearest concernment. He noted that the Huguenot peasantry whose plight
he reckoned to be much worse than the day-labourers in England demonstrated splendid competence to learn to understand their religious duties, possibly surpassing those of a higher condition among the English population.44
plainly the Language of their Lips and Lives. For any thing that he knows, their Hearts
may give their Tongues the Lye, and there may be inward Fears and Whispers that there
is a God, at the same time that they most stoutly deny it: or if not at the same time, yet
afterward Sickness, or the Approach of Death, may awake the Sense of a Deity, which
they hopd they had laid asleep, never to awake; and make the Notions and Characters
which they had labourd to obliterate, as legible as ever.
39 J. Locke, Some Thoughts concerning Education, ed. J.W. Yolton and J.S. Yolton
(Oxford, 1989) (henceforth STE, cited by section, page number) and J. Locke, Of the
Conduct of the Understanding, ed. F.W. Garforth (New York, 1966) (henceforth, CU,
cited by section, page number).
40 CU, 8, p. 55.
41 Ibid., 19, p. 71.
42 Ibid., 8, p. 55.
43 Ibid., 37, p. 109.
44 Ibid., 8, p. 55; J. Dunn, Bright Enough for All Our Purposes: John Lockes Conception of a Civilized Society, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 43 (1989),
p. 143.

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The English and Europeans were particularly fortunate, on Lockes account,

because Christianity was very much a part of their everyday life. The one day
of seven, besides other days of rest allows enough time for people to set their
mind on their religious duties, if they would but make use of these vacancies
from their daily labour and apply themselves to an improvement of knowledge with much diligence as they often do to a great many other things that are
useless, and had but those that would enter them according to their several
capacities in a right way to this knowledge.45 In short, Lockes point was that
any human being who cared enough about the goal and took sufficient trouble could reconstruct themselves to do so.46
As with the expectation that all should be religious, Locke had the same
expectation for people doing theology, that is, natural theology. Theology, a
science incomparably above the rest, contains the knowledge of God and
His creatures, our duty to Him and our fellow creatures and a view of our present and future state. It is the comprehension of all other knowledge directed
to its true end, i.e. the honour and veneration of the Creator and the happiness
of mankind. This is that noble study which is every mans duty and everyone
that can be called a rational creature is capable of.47 Locke was suggesting
that one who could not gather the minimal knowledge of ones natural duties
to God was simply not using his faculties properly. We are born to be, if we
please, rational creatures, Locke says; but it is use and exercise only that
makes us so, and we are indeed so no further than industry and application has
carried us.48 As Geraint Parry notes, proper use, for Locke, implies consistency and industry.49 Thus, the problem with the atheists on Lockes account
is that they are lazy when it comes to the care of their souls.
Locke identifies three miscarriages of which people could be guilty in
relation to the use of their reason.50 First, there are those who hardly reason at
all and follow the paths laid down by others. This was a fault Locke observed
in Catholics.51 Second, there are those who put passion in the place of reason.
This was a fault the enthusiasts made.52 Third, there are those who sincerely
attempt to reason, but are nonetheless misled because they lack a full view of
all that pertains to that which is the subject of inquiry. This partiality to opinions is prejudicial to knowledge and improvement.53 Because everyone in his
private affairs uses some sort of reasoning, he tends to be denominated as
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53

CU, 8, pp. 556; see also, Locke, Essay, IV.xx.3, pp. 7078.
Dunn, Bright Enough, p. 143.
CU, 23, p. 77.
Ibid., 6, p. 49.
G. Parry, John Locke (London, 1978), p. 42.
CU, 3, pp. 3441.
Locke, Letter, pp. 4951; Locke, Essay, IV.xx.10, pp. 71213.
Locke, Essay, IV.xix, pp. 697706.
CU, 22, pp. 767.

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being reasonable. However, that one who is found reasonable in one thing
is reasonable in all was, for Locke, a false inference. Locke remarks: it is as
true that he who can reason well today about one sort of matters cannot at all
reason today about others, though perhaps a year hence he may. But wherever
a mans rational faculty fails him and will not serve him to reason, there we
cannot say he is rational, how capable soever he may be by time and exercise
to become so.54 Impartiality in ones enquiry was not easy, Locke admits, but
it was the right way to truth, which people must follow who will deal fairly
with their own understandings and their own souls.55
The timing of the Conduct of Understanding suggests that it was this third
miscarriage that Locke thought the atheist was guilty of committing. It is
well-known that Locke took particular interest in the case of the Scottish student Thomas Aikenhead the Atheist, who was executed for blasphemy on
8 January 1697.56 Reflections upon this incident may well have prompted
Locke to write the Conduct of the Understanding in early April 1697.57 We
know from his correspondence with James Johnston, Secretary of State for
Scotland from 1691 to 1696, that Locke avidly collected documents and
papers pertaining to this trial.58 His collection included the Paper, which
gave an account by Aikenhead himself of how he had arrived at his sceptical
opinions. Importantly, the Paper stressed his insatiable inclination to
truth. Contemporary witnesses also testified that Aikenhead was not vicious,
and extreamly studious.59 Aikenhead allegedly derived his thoughts by
the reading of some atheistical books, perhaps provided by his colleague
Mungo Craig. Lockes comments in the Conduct of Understanding suggest
that he had someone like Aikenhead in mind, who had a strong passion
for truth yet nonetheless reasoned himself into atheism. The Conduct of
54

Ibid., 6, pp. 4950.

Ibid., 35, p. 108.
56 M. Hunter, Aikenhead the Atheist: The Context and Consequences of Articulate
Irreligion in the Late Seventeenth Century, in Atheism from the Reformation to the
Enlightenment, ed. M. Hunter and D. Wootton (Oxford, 1992). Another marginal case of
heterodoxy in which Locke took an interest was the German Balthasar Bekker, a minister
of the Public Church in Amsterdam, who was accused of undermining the authenticity of
Scripture and being an advocate of atheism for denying the influence of evil spirits.
Locke, Correspondence, IV, L1409, pp. 294301.
57 Locke, Correspondence, VI, L2243, p. 87 (10 April 1697). I have lately got a little
leisure to think of some additions to my book, against the next edition, and within these
few days have fallen upon a subject that I know not how far it will lead me. I have written
several pages on it, but the matter, the farther I go, opens the more upon me, and I cannot
yet get sight of any end of it. The title of the chapter will be Of the Conduct of the Understanding, which, if I shall pursue, as far as I imagine it will reach, and as it deserves, will, I
conclude, make the largest chapter of my Essay.
58 Locke, Correspondence, VI, L2207, pp. 1719 (27 February 1697). See list of
documents on p. 17.
59 Hunter, Aikenhead the Atheist, p. 230.
55

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Understanding suggests that Locke would have applauded Aikenheads courage to investigate the truth and fight against received opinions and dogmatism.60 But he writes: We should contend earnestly for the truth, but we
should first be sure that it is truth, or else we fight against God, who is the God
of truth; and the reason why some men of study and thought that reason right
and are the lovers of truth do make no great advances in their discoveries is
because they converse but with one sort of men and they read but one sort
of books.61 The lack of impartiality was, for Locke, a fault, and a fault which,
as the Aikenhead case showed, could lead to atheism.

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2. Some Thoughts Concerning Education

As with the Conduct of the Understanding, Lockes Some Thoughts Concerning Education equally provides us with important clues to answer the question of what the cause of atheism was. For Locke, the mind was something
that needed to be set right, so that on all Occasions it may be disposed to
consent to nothing, but what may be suitable to the Dignity and Excellency of
a rational Creature.62 From this claim, we might expect some kind of causal
story of the development of misguided minds, that is, of the atheists. But one
feature of a growth theory that Locke does little to delineate, as John and Jean
Yolton, the modern editors of Lockes Some Thoughts, observe, is the acquisition of beliefs.63 However, a closer examination of his writings on education reveals how he thought atheists might have acquired an unfavourable
habit of reasoning.
In Lockes view, the education children receive from their parents plays a
significant part in the beliefs they acquire and the ways in which they learn to
reason. In the Two Treatises, Locke argues that parents have a duty to take
care of their children during their imperfect state, and to inform the Mind
and govern the Actions of their yet ignorant Nonage, till Reason shall take its
place.64 However, after the child reaches the age of reason, he is free and is on
equal status as his father.65 To let the child yield to an unrestraind Liberty,
before he has Reason to guide him is not to make him free, but contrariwise,
to thrust him out amongst Brutes, and abandon him to a state as wretched,
and as much beneath that of a Man, as theirs.66
It is important to register the point that, for Locke, [t]o guide ones self by
the law of nature and reason is not merely to live an orderly and virtuous life:
60

CU, 11, pp. 601.

Ibid., 11, p. 61; 3, p. 36.
62 STE, 31, p. 103.
63 Yolton and Yolton, Introduction, in STE, p. 39.
64 J. Locke, The Two Treatises on Government, ed. P. Laslett (Cambridge, 1988),
II.58, p. 306.
65 Ibid., II.59, p. 307.
66 Ibid., II.63, p. 309.
61

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it is to have the very essence of humanity.67 God was the author of the law of
nature and reason, and so being a man in his terms implied that one acknowledged His existence. Thus, in A Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of
Christianity, Locke asserts: As men, we have God for our King, and are
under the law of reason; and so he that believes one eternal, invisible God,
his Lord and King, ceases thereby to be an atheist.68 In this light, we see that
education, that is, teaching how to reason properly, humanizes the child.69
Therefore much responsibility lies with parents and educators. How did
Locke suggest they should educate their children?
In Some Thoughts, Locke recommends that the true Notion of God that
is, as of the independent Supreme Being, Author and Maker of all Things,
from whom we receive all our Good, who loves us, and gives us all Things
should be imprinted on the childs mind at an early stage to secure the foundation of virtue.70 He advises parents that on this occasion the child need only
be told that God made and governs all Things, hears and sees every Thing,
and does all manner of Good to those that love and obey Him.71 He warns that
unseasonably teaching more may be damaging: the nature of the infinite
Being being incomprehensible, those who have not strength and clearness
of Thought, to distinguish between what they can and what they cannot know,
run themselves into Superstition and Atheism, making God like themselves,
or (because they cannot comprehend any thing else) none at all.72 The child
must be taught only as far as his Age is capable.73 Adults, like children, were
also prone to falling into atheism by being taught things above their strength:
as early as 1667, Locke had conjectured that the defineing & undertakeing to
prove severall doctrines which are confesd to be incomprehensible & to be
noe otherwise knowne but by revelation, & requireing men to assent to them
in the termes proposd by the Doctors of your severall churches, must needs
make a great many atheists.74

67

Yolton and Yolton, Introduction, p. 25.

Works, VII, p. 229 (emphasis added).
69 Yolton and Yolton, Introduction, p. 25; see also J.W. Yolton, Locke: An Introduction (Oxford, 1985), p. 37.
70 STE, 136, p. 195.
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid. Similar ideas can be found in the additional chapter Of Association of Ideas
in the Essay: Let custom from the very Childhood have joind Figure and Shape to the
Idea of God, and what Absurdities will that Mind be liable to about the Deity?. Locke,
Essay, II.xxxiii.17, p. 400.
73 STE, 139, p. 198.
74 J. Locke, An Essay Concerning Toleration, ed. J.R. Milton and P. Milton (Oxford,
2006), p. 302.
68

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As with teaching basic natural theology, Locke advises parents to take caution with the method of teaching Christianity, lest it leads to irreligion.75 Children should learn the Lords Prayer, the Creeds and Ten Commandments
perfectly by heart.76 They should also read the Bible (and perhaps only the
Bible until they are ready to read Ciceros On Duties).77 However, Locke goes
so far as to say that the promiscuous reading of it [sc. the Bible] through, by
Chapters, as they lie in order, is so far from being of any Advantage to Children for principling their Religion, that perhaps a worse could not be found.
He speculates that this in some Men has been the very Reason, why they
never had clear and distinct Thoughts of it all their Life-time.78
To summarize the main claims in the passages we have just been considering, Locke is suggesting that excessive attempts to reason about Gods nature
(i.e. engaging in complicated natural theology) at a premature stage could
lead to a false notion of God or even atheism itself. Locke intimates that there
are internal and external causes of this excessive reasoning in relation to the
individual. The internal cause was curiosity. Concerning curiosity, Locke
remarks that it should be as carefully cherished in Children, as other Appetites suppressed.79 On Lockes account, therefore, parents have a great
responsibility to inform their children of what they want to know, but not to
give them more than they can take in. Excessive curiosity may be one of many
biases in the childs natural tempers, which he or she may be unavoidably
born with; and either to take off, or counter-balance these natural inclinations was the Business of Education.80 By contrast, the external cause was
the religious and educational environment in which the child happened to be
placed. Parents, tutors and local priests may overzealously introduce religious
doctrines to a child.
We may infer from the above considerations that on Lockes account the
inquisitive but ignorant reasoning of a child, aided by untimely teaching
methods, could become the arrogant and stubborn reasoning of an adult.
Because his beliefs were instilled in childhood, and riveted there by long Custom and Education, he was inclined to think that these beliefs were innate principles. Once this has happened, Locke observes, it was beyond all possibility
of being pulld out again.81 Because such a person has absolute faith in his
reasoning, he will abandon the passion for truth and further inquiry, and will
fail to see that his knowledge is partial. At this point, he becomes a stubborn
speculative atheist, one that is truly menacing to civil society. His false
75
76
77
78
79
80
81

STE, 158, p. 213.

Ibid., 157, p. 212.
Ibid., 185, p. 239.
Ibid., 158, p. 213.
Ibid., 108, p. 167.
Ibid., 139, p. 198.
Locke, Essay, IV.xx.9, p. 712.

LOCKE ON ATHEISM

267

reasoning, his failure to come to the knowledge of God and the law of nature
renders him a madman and one who ought never to have been set free from
parental government.82

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III
Having now identified different levels of atheists and their causal stories on
Lockes account, we are in a position to consider Lockes treatment of atheists. In considering this question, we should distinguish between the ignorant
atheists that is, atheists by virtue of their unavoidable ignorance in nonage
or by virtue of not yet having seriously contemplated their religious duties
and the speculative atheists. As we saw above, from what Locke said in the
Third Letter, the ignorant atheist was less damaging to religion and less faulty
than a hypocritical worshipper, and so by implication a speculative atheist.
The Conduct of the Understanding advanced a view consistent with this.
Locke writes: it being of worse consequence to steer ones thoughts by a
wrong rule than to have none at all, error doing to busy men much more harm
than ignorance to the slow and sluggish.83 For Locke, it was imperative that
one guided oneself by the right rule, namely the law of nature and reason.
Those transgressing the law of nature declared themselves to live by another
Rule, than that of reason and common Equity, which is that measure God has
set to the actions of Men, for their mutual security; and thus, a man becomes
dangerous to Mankind.84 The speculative atheist did just this. The speculative atheist was one who rationally reached the wrong conclusion that God
does not exist, and obstinately held fast to this view. This was the atheist as
such and the truly intolerable atheist. As we shall see, Locke differentiated the
ways in which we should treat the ignorant atheist and the speculative atheist.
Here, obstinacy is the keyword.
Lockes response to children and very mean people, that is, those who fit
the description of the ignorant atheists, was characterized by its patience. In a
discussion of correcting the child in Some Thoughts, he remarks: Nor is that
hastily to be interpreted obstinacy, or wilfullness, which is the natural product
of age or temper. In such miscarriages they are to be assisted, and helped
towards amendment, as weak people under a natural infirmity; which though
they are warned of, yet every relapse must not be counted a perfect neglect.85
In the case of the very mean people, Locke considerately argues: they
would be found not to want understanding fit to receive the knowledge of reli-

82 Ibid., II.xi.13, II.xxxiii.4; Works, VII, p. 162; Locke, Two Treatises, II.60,
pp. 3078.
83 CU, 13, p. 65.
84 Locke, Two Treatises, II.8, p. 272.
85 STE, 80, p. 141.

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gion, if they were a little encouraged and helped in it as they should be.86 Ignorant atheists merited a patient response because what they needed
was a learning opportunity; they could be directed towards theism, if done
carefully.
However, Lockes comments suggest a more impatient response to the
stubborn speculative atheist. These atheists have essentially closed the doors
to theistic learning. Because they were convinced that their own rule was
right, they were of much worse consequence than those who were merely
ignorant of the rule of reason. In the Essay, as Waldron has noted, Locke suggested that it was commendable that the magistrate should suppress atheism:
we should have too much Reason to fear, that many, in more civilized
Countries, have no strong, and clear Impressions of a Deity upon their Minds;
and that the Complaints of Atheism, made from the Pulpit, are not without
Reason. And though only some profligate Wretches own it too barefacedly
now; yet, perhaps, we should hear, more than we do, of it, from others, did not
the fear of the Magistrates Sword, or the Neighbours Censure, tie up Peoples Tongues; which, were the Apprehensions of Punishment, or Shame
taken away, would openly proclaim their Atheism, as their Lives do.87

This way of dealing with the atheist is strikingly similar to the way he deals
with the obstinate child in Some Thoughts.88 Locke was famously against
whipping as a means of education. But there was one Fault for which he
thought it appropriate to whip the child: Obstinacy or Rebellion. Stubbornness, and an obstinate disobedience must be masterd with Force and Blows:
For there is no other Remedy.89
However, Locke insisted that the shame of Whipping, and not the Pain,
should be the greatest part of the Punishment.90 Locke was well aware of peoples inclination to seek the approbation of others while shunning that which
might bring shame upon them. Lockes approval of the use of shame against
atheists is no coincidence. It is at this point that we can see how Waldrons
deleting of the references to public opinion and shame and his exclusive
focus on the magistrates sword does a great disservice to our understanding
of Locke.91 If toleration is understood as the removal of force aimed at conversion, a denial of toleration would then allow of its use.92 However, as is well
known, one of Lockes arguments in the Letter is that force cannot change

86
87
88
89
90
91
92

CU, 8, p. 56.
Locke, Essay, I.iv.8, p. 88.
STE, 7880, pp. 13842.
Ibid., 78, pp. 1389.
Ibid., 78, p. 138.
Waldron, God, Locke, and Equality, p. 234.
Works, VI, p. 62.

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269

peoples inward persuasion.93 Though Locke later conceded through his

exchange with Jonas Proast that force could have an effect on belief, he still
resolutely believed that it was likely only to produce hypocrisy. This is where
public opinion played a crucial role. The uniqueness of Some Thoughts was
with its use of the agents desire for approbation as a means to create virtue
within the agent.94 Although reputation is not the true Principle and Measure
of Vertue, it is nevertheless that which comes nearest to it.95 By deploying
shame, Locke tried to motivate the atheists to turn their eyes to their primary
duty as men. The fact that people were moved by esteem was distasteful for
Locke, but he took this disposition to his advantage and used it for his purpose.96 For coercion, in the end, may only make the atheist a hypocrite.97
Unless atheists were genuinely brought out of their misconception, there
remained a grave danger to civil society.98 Locke seems to have taken seriously the idea that A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump (Galatians 5:9).
He would have been all the more certain about this when he immersed himself
in the study of Pauls epistles. In this work, he paraphrases: the influence of
one man enterteind among you may mislead you all.99 That there were people
who sincerely denied Gods existence tho but even in thought was an alarming situation. The atheist needed either to be corrected or hindered from voicing his opinion in public more so, if his argument had the appearance of
rationality, or perhaps even more so, if he was a gentleman. For Locke writes:
For if those of that Rank [sc. Gentlemen] are by their Education once set
right, they will quickly bring all the rest into Order. Surely this logic could
work for the worse.100
This last point about the gentlemans impact suggests an interesting possibility, namely that public opinion can have both a positive and a negative
93

Locke, Letter, p. 27.

I. Harris, The Mind of John Locke (Cambridge, rev. edn., 1998), ch. 9.
95 STE, 61, p. 119.
96 Harris, The Mind, p. 283.
97 A crucial point highlighted in the recantation of Daniel Scargill, a professed atheist
and Hobbist was that recanting Hobbists are intrinsically unreliable. Recantation was
always a flawed punishment for a Hobbist, because Hobbes had famously suggested that
under the order of the civil magistrate it was permissible to give an external profession
without actually internally subscribing to the view expressed. J. Parkin, Hobbism in the
Later 1660s: Daniel Scargill and Samuel Parker, Historical Journal, 42 (1999), p. 95.
98 Once oath taking is looked on as Formalities of Law, or once Custom of straining Truth has dipt Men in Perjury, and guilt with Temptation has spread it self very
wide, and made it almost fashionable in some Cases, it will be impossible for the
Society . . . to subsist. J. Locke, Locke on Money, ed. P.H. Kelly (Oxford, 1991), p. 213.
99 J. Locke, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St Paul, ed. A.W. Wainwright
(2 vols., Oxford, 1987), I, p. 151.
100 Epistle Dedicatory, in STE, pp. 7981. Cf. D. Wootton, Introduction, in John
Locke: Political Writings, ed. D. Wootton (Indianapolis, 2003), p. 109.
94

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impact as an antidote to atheism. Locke seems to have been aware of this

double-edged aspect of public opinion, and so the importance of harnessing it.
This possibility is suggested in the fact that Locke said little about atheism in
the Letter. A quick survey of seventeenth-century writers on atheism suggests
that Lockes discussion was unusually short. Henry Mores An Antidote
against Atheism (1653), Charles Wolseleys The Unreasonableness of
Atheism (1669) and Ralph Cudworths The True Intellectual System of the
Universe: wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted and
its impossibility demonstrated (1678) are only a few of the most famous
examples of intellectuals writing against atheism at great length in the latter
half of the seventeenth century.101 Lockes brevity seems odd given the
importance he clearly attached to the problem of atheism.
This might be explained in connection with the problem of speculative
atheism. We have seen above that Lockes rejection of innate ideas created
the ignorant atheist and thereby the possibility of the speculative atheist.
Given that the idea of God was not innate, there was a possibility that people
could genuinely reason themselves into atheism. Lockes own philosophical
commitment showed that speculative atheism was possible, but it would not
have been a problem to which he would want to draw attention. Opening up
the possibility of speculative atheism would cast doubt on the naturalness of
the notion of God and, with it, morality and religion. However, a serious refutation of atheism could have the unintended effect of militating against religion and theology. If Locke, a gentleman, took up atheism as an opinion
requiring serious refutation, it would give it undue attention and undesirable
respectability as a view that one could rationally and seriously entertain, or at
least something worth reflecting upon.102
This thesis is all the more plausible given the example of Ralph Cudworth.
Cudworth wrote the True Intellectual System wherein he refuted the reason
and philosophy of atheism. However, he desisted from publishing the second
part of the True Intellectual System because the first part had ironically
worked to fuel atheistic arguments in extensively discussing it.103 Indeed,
Henry Atherton, possibly with Cudworth in mind, observed that:
those very Arguments which have been made use of to confute one Atheist,
have made twenty; for the less curious and examining (which certainly are
101 More, An Antidote, and also, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness
(London, 1660); C. Wolseley, The Unreasonableness of Atheism (London, 1669);
Cudworth, The True Intellectual System.
102 Thus, Berman suggests that some intellectuals who did not support the idea of
innate ideas nevertheless denied that speculative atheism was possible in an attempt to
repress and to prevent it from proliferating. Berman, A History of Atheism, p. 34.
103 W. Warburton, Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated (2 vols., London, 1742),
II, pp. xxii; Berman, A History of Atheism, pp. 623; J. Parkin, Taming the Leviathan
(Cambridge, 2007), p. 334.

LOCKE ON ATHEISM

271

far the greater number) seeing learned persons start so many difficulties,
and spend so much time and labour in the Argumentative part to convince,
do from thence conclude that the thing is at least dubious.104

Thus, Cudworths True Intellectual System had earned a less welcome reputation as a book that was a little too effective in describing the arguments of
the atheist.105 If atheism was out for serious public scrutiny, Locke feared,
given the force of public opinion, it could gain currency. Therefore, atheism
must not be treated seriously.106

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IV
This article has concentrated on the problem of what (on Lockes account) a
denial of toleration implied for atheists. By way of concluding, I want to link
the preceding arguments with an assumption made throughout this paper but
referred to only in passing, so that we can see more clearly why it should have
mattered that Locke did have an effective response to atheism; that is, the
assumption that atheism poses a grave threat to Lockes way of thinking.
Atheists, in the broad sense, either lack or deny the idea of God. Regardless
of the nature of this absence, it must ultimately be corrected. But what exactly
is it about this absence that was so problematic? Lockes claim that the taking
away of God dissolves all should be taken at face value. Locke explained
humankinds moral, religious, political duties in terms of natural duties
derived from natural law. Natural law in turn depended on the existence of a
law-maker, God, for there is no law without a law-maker.107 The Lockean
God, who is omnipotent and omniscient, created humankind and moreover
created it for a purpose; this purpose, befitting its rational nature, included a
duty to worship God and to procure and preserve life in society with other
people.108 These duties are known by all human beings through their natural
faculties of sense and reason. Thus, natural law, which has a law-maker who
has willed certain things to be performed, and which are promulgated to all, is
binding.109 A denial of God then implied a denial of this entire natural order,
and hence all these natural duties. Particularly, Promises, Covenants, and
Oaths, which were the essential bonds of human society, and which had God
as a guarantor, would have no sanctity. It is not that a society of atheists never
104

H. Atherton, The Christian Physician (London, 1683), p. 4.

Parkin, Taming the Leviathan, p. 334. Locke possessed a copy of Cudworths
True Intellectual System. Harrison and Laslett, The Library of John Locke, p. 119,
no. 896. Locke was also familiar with Cudworths arguments. R.I. Aaron and J. Gibb,
An Early Draft of Lockes Essay (Oxford, 1936), p. 118. Locke was close to Cudworths
daughter, Damaris Cudworth, later to be Lady Masham.
106 Wootton, Introduction, p. 109.
107 Locke, Essays, no. 5, p. 173.
108 Ibid., no. 4, p. 157, and no. 7, p. 199; see also, Locke, Two Treatises, II.6, p. 271.
109 Locke, Essays, no. 6, p. 187.
105

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did nor could ever exist; it is rather that such a society would not have anything to guarantee its bonds beyond the self-interest of the individuals.110 And
that did not guarantee much.111 Without God, a normative natural order was
inconceivable. Godlessness was both an intellectual and a practical problem,
rendering atheism a crime.112
While the lack of the idea of God is inexcusable, we have seen that a lack
due to ignorance was less threatening in Lockes mind than an outright denial.
Ignorant atheists are, as it were, first-time or slow learners and can be seen
as being open to theistic learning. Thus, it was suggested that those involved
in their education be patient, and gradually train them in the skills of impartial
and broad inquiry, as education could be both the remedy and the problem of
fostering the notion of God. By contrast, speculative atheists are those who
have effectively put a stop to the learning process; they have concluded that
there is no God. Though this speculative denial in itself would dissolve all,
that some were outspoken in their view had the added evil of spreading their
practical doctrine, especially if they were of respectable social rank. Thus, it
was suggested that speculative atheists be treated as an obstinate child, but the
force of the punishment imposed on them stressed the shame, as opposed to
the pain, behind it, which would operate as a motive to restart the learning
process. However, public opinion could also work against Lockes cause.
Ironically, an extensive refutation of atheism might suggest that it was a view
that could be taken seriously. This possibility helps us to see Lockes brevity
about atheism as his response to it, a negative response that involved remaining silent about the specifics of atheism.
It would perhaps not be so surprising if one should meet what one perceived as a profound threat to ones most cherished value with a certain
degree of hysteria. Yet Lockes response to what he saw as the gravest challenge to human society atheism involved making careful distinctions
and calm assessments of the relevant threats. Perhaps one may disagree with
what he saw as the problem, but we can nevertheless appreciate how he
responded to it.
J.K. Numao

110

KEIO UNIVERSITY

Ibid., no. 5, pp. 173, 175; Locke, Essay, I.iv.8, pp. 878; MS Locke c.28, fol. 141,
also reprinted in J. Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge, 1969), p. 1.
111 Locke, Essay, I.iii.13, p. 75.
112 Works, VII, p. 162.