Locke and Leibniz on Religious Faith
British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (4):703 - 721 (2012)
| Abstract | In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke maintains that ?Reason must be our last Judge and Guide in every Thing,? including matters of religious faith, and this commitment to the primacy of reason is not abandoned in his later religious writings. This essay argues that with regard to the relation between reason and religious faith, Locke is primarily concerned not with evidence, but with consistency, meaning, and how human beings ought to respond to their inclinations, including their inclinations to believe. Leibniz, on the other hand, stakes out an alternative conception of the relationship between faith and reason that assigns to faith the role of a primary truth. For Leibniz, some religious propositions can be believed immediately and without an additional examination and evaluation by reason. The essay maintains that the differences between the two regarding faith and reason are tied to a broader disagreement about how much of the human understanding is due, in Locke's words, to ?Labour, Attention and Industry? | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,701 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesPaul Lodge (2002). Leibniz, Bayle, and Locke on Faith and Reason. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (4):575-600.
Maria van der Schaar (2012). Locke on Judgement and Religious Toleration. British Journal for the History of Philosophy 20 (1):41 - 68.
Wioleta Polinska (1999). Faith and Reason in John Locke. Philosophy and Theology 11 (2):287-309.
Donald A. Crosby (2011). Faith and Reason: Their Roles in Religious and Secular Life. State University of New York Press.
Nicholas Jolley (2007). Locke on Faith and Reason. In Lex Newman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding". Cambridge University Press.
Ed L. Miller (1970). Classical Statements on Faith and Reason. New York,Random House.
J. L. Schellenberg (2009). The Will to Imagine: A Justification of Skeptical Religion. Cornell University Press.
Kristen Irwin (2011). Amyraut on Reason and Religious Belief. The Modern Schoolman 88 (3-4):191-200.
Richard Swinburne (1981). Faith and Reason. Oxford University Press.
Laurence Paul Hemming & Susan Frank Parsons (eds.) (2002/2003). Restoring Faith in Reason: With a New Translation of the Encyclical Letter, Faith and Reason of Pope John Paul Ii: Together with a Commentary and Discussion. University of Notre Dame.
Sebastian Rehnman (2011). Graced Response: John Owen on Faith and Reason. Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 53 (4).
David Grumett (2005). The Enlightenment of the Magi: Faith and Reason in Matthew 2:1–12. Philosophy and Theology 17 (1/2):3-16.
John Paul (ed.) (1999/1998). Encyclical Letter, Fides Et Ratio, of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul Ii: To the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Relationship Between Faith and Reason. United States Catholic Conference.
Terence Penelhum (1995). Reason and Religious Faith. Westview Press.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2012-06-22Total downloads6 ( #145,673 of 549,122 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,361 of 549,122 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
