Description
John Locke's religious interests and concerns permeate his philosophical production and are best expressed in his later writings on religion, which represent the culmination of his studies. In this volume, Diego Lucci offers a thorough analysis and reassessment of Locke's unique, heterodox, internally coherent version of Protestant Christianity, which emerges from The Reasonableness of Christianity and other public as well as private texts. In order to clarify Locke's views on morality, salvation, and the afterlife, Lucci critically examines Locke's theistic ethics, biblical hermeneutics, reflection on natural and revealed law, mortalism, theory of personal identity, Christology, and tolerationism. While emphasizing the originality of Locke's scripture-based religion, this book calls attention to his influences and explores the reception of his unorthodox theological ideas. Moreover, the book highlights the impact of Locke's natural and biblical theology on other areas of his thought, thus enabling a better understanding of the unity of his work.
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. The context and background of Locke's biblical theology; 1.1 Rejecting antinomianism and deism; 1.2 Searching for the foundations of morality; 1.3 Reason, revelation, and morality; 2. Engaging with scripture and heterodoxy; 2.1 Socinianism and Arminianism; 2.2 Scriptural authority and historical method; 2.3 The way of fundamentals; 3. A scripture-based moralist soteriology; 3.1 Natural theology, biblical theology, and natural law theory; 3.2 Law of nature, law of Moses, law of faith; 3.3 Original sin, satisfaction, and atonement; 4. The soul and the Last Judgment; 4.1 Death and resurrection; 4.2 Personal identity and moral accountability; 4.3 Consciousness, repentance, and salvation; 5. The Trinity and Christ; 5.1 The Trinitarian controversy; 5.2 Locke's messianic and non-Trinitarian Christology; 5.3 The debate on Locke and the Trinity; 6. Religious toleration and Christian irenicism; 6.1 The theoretical framework of A Letter concerning Toleration; 6.2 Locke's omissions and exceptions to toleration in the letter and other writings; 6.3 Salvation and toleration in Locke's theological writings; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
