Revolutionary Ideas, Transforming Politics

Revolutionary Ideas, Transforming Politics

Of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

            The history of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is one of strife, internal conflict and total war. Beginning with the French Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century, revolutionary changes in European religion acted as a powerful catalyst for major conflicts like the Dutch War for Independence, the Thirty Years War, and the English Civil War. Out from the violence, instability and continent-wide anxiety came radical political ideas that transformed the face of human politics and permanently shaped development of human civilization for centuries to come. These changes, revolving around concepts of man’s relationship to nature, equality and liberty, and the legitimacy of the state, assisted in a strong break from the so-called “top-down” political traditions of the past and served as the basis for reforming many existing governments, as well as leading to the creation of entirely new nations. 

            As much as the politics of the early modern period had foundations in the violent religious and civil conflicts of the immediately preceding period, they also owed their formation to a particularly provocative trend in natural philosophy that attempted to understand man’s own nature and the disposition of his relationship to nature-at-large. One of the direct results of this trend was the development of a whole new concept of natural law and man’s existence in the so-called “state of nature.” One of the very first political theorists and state-crafters to engage this idea was English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes. Writing in the aftermath of the English Civil War, his Leviathan was one of the first comprehensive discussions on modern statecraft in European history. In Leviathan, Hobbes argues that the “laws of nature are immutable and eternal,” in effect elevating them to the status previously attributed to the divine, and further claimed that the science of the laws of nature are the only true moral philosophy in the world.[1] Hobbes’ claim represents a clear jump along a trend begun with previous European philosophers like Sir Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes, but it is a claim echoed not only by his political allies and students, but by his rivals as well. Baruch Spinoza, a contemporary rival of Hobbes, similarly claimed that in order to understand God, one must study the face of nature and the natural law.[2]

            Despite the prominent place it is given as a basis for their respective political theories, natural law itself is not a political concept but comes, rather, from a series of scientific and philosophical observations about the orderly operation of the cosmos. Whereas these observations in the medieval period were dominated by Church-authorized cosmology and religious considerations, the evolution of divine law into natural law demonstrates a clear weakening of the clergy’s ability to influence philosophy in the early modern period. This claim is, perhaps, best demonstrated by the peculiar argument made by Jean-Jacques Rousseau that men, in the state of nature, behave amorally because morality is a convention that owes itself to human sociality. In essence he is arguing that outside of human society there are no true morals.[3] This is a clear break from the doctrines of institutional Christianity which claim that morality – including the inevitable ideas of right, wrong, good and evil – are eternal realities that are imported from God’s divine law. What’s more is that the ethical core of humanity, according to Spinoza’s Ethics, is not the aptly named “Sermon on the Mount” preached by Jesus but, rather, self-preservation alone.[4] Perhaps even more provocative was John Locke’s Newtonianistic claim that it is the laws of nature, not God himself, which binds men together, undermining the millennia-old tradition of the Divine Right of Kings.[5] Indeed because it is the laws of nature that act as a governing force over man – ostensibly at the expense of the existing religious and political institutions – it stands to reason that all men, in the state of nature, are both free and equal.[6]

            The subject of human equality has, possibly, been the most challenging problem of human history and the debate stretches all the way from antiquity to modernity, with no clear resolutions. The attempts by early modern philosophers and political theorists to come to a functional understanding of human equality produced answers and positions that spanned the entire range of the debate. Hobbes, one of the earliest – and, perhaps, most politically conservative – philosophers to address the question concluded that men have a kind of natural equality to them insofar as there is no one man that is clearly superior to any other man in every way imaginable.[7] In a sense, all men are equal in their natural inequalities. Spinoza saw the equality of man in a predominately ethical sense: the equality of men comes from each man’s equal right to preserve their own life at all costs and, in this sense, the equality of man is reduced – or, perhaps, elevated – by Spinoza to a place of moral ascendancy.[8] Two of the latest political theorists of the early modern period, Locke and Rousseau, both acknowledged, in different ways however, that there is a natural inequality to man but argued similarly to Spinoza that there is a moral equality to him. Locke’s argument was that humans are equal via their internal nature, perhaps hearkening to Cartesian ideas of the “rational soul”, even if there are small inequalities to them by way of merit, virtue, wealth, mental prowess or physical attributes.[9] Rousseau, however, does not seem to be interested in making that kind of distinction and stipulates that men are not equal naturally or politically.[10] Unlike his predecessors, this aggressive position allows him the freedom to stab at what he views as the heart of human inequality: social convention. Where previous philosophers and theorists found it expedient – and popular in many ways – to argue for the inherent equality of man, this position also limited their criticisms to anemic or dissatisfactory political conditions. This was not good enough for Rousseau as he intended to demonstrate that it was human sociality and society that not only exasperated whatever minor natural inequalities existed in man, but also stood to create many more new ones of its own.[11] In fact, Rousseau argues as a kind of proto-Marxist that, it is the extreme inequalities of the predominant social conventions of the “civilized” world that are responsible for the conflicts and horrors of human history, including those ones most recent to his time.[12] His conclusion, however, is similar to that of Locke’s in saying that it is the responsibility of the political establishment of a nation to be so perfectly equal that it has the power equalize whatever natural inequalities exist between men and to keep unnecessary inequalities from being produced within society.[13] It is clear that equality has meant many things to many people at many times in history, with many of those meanings being mutually exclusive to one another. Within the framework of the early modern period one might successfully argue that equality, with regard to the political state of men, took on its many forms in relation to a particular thinker’s ideas on sovereignty and to what extent a country’s population should enjoy political franchise. These considerations, along with the various imprecise definitions of freedom and liberty provided by these thinkers, continue to make the subject of human equality a very difficult question to answer.

            Whatever unresolved questions remained on the subject of human equality, the question of liberty and freedom within a state is no less ambiguous, if not also relatively predictable. Hobbes, writing in the aftermath of what some considered a free-for-all power grab by various factions within England, makes it clear that civil liberty is “absurd” because it requires that men be exempt from the laws of the commonwealth which, in turn, renders the commonwealth itself void.[14] This rule of law, embodied in his concept of a nearly all-powerful Sovereign of the commonwealth, is charged with the singular task of maintaining order at all costs, which seems to be Hobbes’ own definition of freedom: not an environment where one can exercise one’s own personal liberties but, rather, an environment that is free from the uncertainty and strife of the previous time period. It is in this light that Hobbes claims that a monarchy offers just as much freedom as a democracy.[15] Not surprisingly, Pufendorf takes Hobbes’ stance and builds slightly on the concept. In his work, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, Pufendorf claims that man does, indeed, have an inherent freedom or liberty to do as he pleases, but upon departure from the “state of nature” and entrance into a community, society or a state, that liberty is forfeit and subject to the will of the authorities.[16] Taking issue with such a seemingly narrow – and negative – interpretation of liberty, Locke explains that liberty is not a license to do as one pleases but, in fact, a state of being where one’s rights to life, liberty and property are protected and guaranteed.[17] Perhaps most radical of all is Rousseau’s claim that liberty is not, itself, a reality but also a manufactured convention – like morality – sprung from human society. Where he seems to find common ground with his predecessors is his argument that it is the leader of a state that is tasked with the guarantee of the liberty and freedom of his/her citizens.[18] It is the nature of this leader, however, that occupies much of the discussion about the nature of political organization in the early modern period.

            The question of whom, within the state, is legitimately allowed to make policy on behalf of the whole is a dominant subject in the political theory of the early modern period. This office, generically referred to as the “sovereign”, was traditionally synonymous with the aristocratic or royal landlord of a country. With the emergence of the first republican and mixed governments in northern and western Europe came a heated debate about the nature of sovereignty within a state and who, if anyone, should possess it. While, again, some of the ideas offered by each of the most influential thinkers of the time are not entirely unpredictable, they are revealing and noteworthy. Hobbes, being one of the first theorists in Europe to broadly define sovereignty, claims that the sovereign is the individual, or assembly, that holds ultimate – and some might argue absolute – power within a commonwealth. This sovereign is, himself, above the laws of the state, is charged with protecting the state and keeping social and political order, and controls all three traditional branches of government as well as the state religion.[19] The sovereign, in Hobbes’ vision, must be supreme and alone in power. No challengers and no parties of interest, or factions, are to be allowed.[20] Locke, mistrustful of any government where the power is too concentrated in one man, argues that the sovereign power of a state must be endowed to the legislative body. This body, being greater than the sum of its own parts, may be the supreme power in the state but unlike Hobbes’ idea of sovereignty, no one person is ever above the law in state.[21] Ever the progressive, Rousseau seems unwilling to place sovereign power in the hands of any individual or assembly. Rather, it is into the hands of the so-called “general will” that the ultimate power of a state rests. Rousseau does a surprisingly poor job of explaining what the “general will” actually is, with some commentators explaining that it is the majority of a democratic electorate and others likening it to the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith’s economic theory. Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality does provide one clue as to the anatomy of the general will when he claims, right at the outset of his essay, that the interests of the sovereign can never be the same as the interests of the people unless they are, in fact, the same.[22] Furthermore, this general will has no shortage of attributes assigned to it, most notably among them being: indestructibility, indivisibility and inerrancy.[23] What is certain, however, is that he agrees with Locke on the nature of any law produced by this general will: all men within a state, even princes, must be beholden to it.[24] As one might be able to see without much trouble, the various ideas of sovereignty presented by early modern philosophers and political theorists seem to have quite a bit to do with the particular thinker’s expectations for a successfully administered government. If, for instance, a conservative thinker believes that the most important job of a sovereign or of the government is to protect the people from war and internal conflict, then he seems to be more predisposed to a strong, centralized form of sovereignty. If, however, the theorist believes that the biggest threat to a nation’s people is a homegrown tyrant then it seems reasonable for the theorist to conclude that sovereignty should be disseminated broadly among the constituents of the nation. This potentially central question of “who poses the greatest threat to the state” appears not only to influence ideas about sovereignty but also concepts about how states should be – and are – formed, what purpose they serve and how – if ever – they should be dissolved.

            The task of today’s anthropologists in determining the origins of civilizations and societies may, in many respects, be easier than that of early modern theorists who – due to the strong presence of Christian cosmology and the dominating medieval tradition of viewing the most ancient of histories through a mythical worldview – were probably not as free to explore the beginnings of civilization in a more scientific or forensic way as their modern counterparts. With those considerations in mind, it is not difficult to see how early modern ideas about the formation of societies and states were developed in a way that was both practical in advancing their particular ideas about the ends of the state as well as staying away from any idea that would be considered flagrantly offensive to those socially and religiously conservative elements in Europe. In that sense, those few theorists that did attempt to explain, in precise terms, how societies and states develop, seem to derive those conceptual notions from their own ideologies about the ends of the state. For instance, Samuel Pufendorf argues that states form because men, wanting to protect themselves and their interests, gather together in a large assembly to decide on the formation of the state.[25] Coupling that idea with his belief that the purpose of the state is to protect the lives and the interests of the constituents, one is able to draw a clear backwards path from one idea to the other.[26] To Pufendorf, like Hobbes before him, the greatest threat to a state is usually an external one, thus, the beginning and purpose of the state is one that protects the people from the brutal “state of nature” and those elements within it that are harmful or hostile to human interests. In the writings of Locke, however, one finds that the greatest threat to someone’s private interests is the unchecked greed, corruption and power that usually comes with the enfranchisement of a few political and social elites. Thus, it is not only the lives of the constituents of a state that require protection but also their property and interests. It is in that light that Locke argues that the ends of government are to protect and preserve the people’s property – of which, life and liberty are part – from threats both internal and external.[27] The difference between these two political camps is, perhaps, illustrated best with the question of when, if at all, it is permissible for a state to be dissolved. Where theorists like Hobbes and Pufendorf vehemently oppose the idea of dissolving a state, others like Locke and Rousseau argue that it is not only possible – and even necessary at times – but also inevitable. To the more conservative thinkers like Hobbes and Pufendorf, the state of nature is so brutal and so incompatible with human interests that the state can never be dissolved. Since the state, in their worldview, is charged with ensuring the wellbeing of the populace, a return to the perilous state of nature is out of the question. To men like Locke and Rousseau, however, a violent and sudden return to the natural state of perfect liberty and equality – regardless of the potentially scathing implications – is preferable to living under an all-powerful tyrant.[28] It should be noted, however, that Locke did not take the notion of revolution lightly, claiming that such violent overthrow of government should be considered only in the wake of a “long train of abuses”, a phrase famously borrowed by Thomas Jefferson and etched into the American Declaration of Independence.[29]

            One can be certain that the ideas addressed here were not the only substantial questions debated in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Great advances in concepts revolving around private property, justice and civil religion not only happened concurrently with those of sovereignty, the state, natural law, equality, liberty and the state of nature, but also interacted with each other seamlessly in the early modern period of western history. What makes the latter topics “key” to early modern political theory is the highly radical and revolutionary nature of the advancements of the latter group compared to the more organic and evolutionary changes of the former group. It was the advancements of these key concepts that so heavily aided in the creation of the modern liberal state, reshaping both the political face of the West and the future with it.

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[1] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 99-100

[2] Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, pp. 50-58

[3] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p. 52

[4] Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, p. 211

[5] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, p. 13

[6] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, p. 8; Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, chapter 7

[7] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 74

[8] Baruch Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, p. 220

[9] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, p. 31

[10] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p. 38

[11] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, pp. 58, 67

[12] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, pp. 79

[13] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p. 124; On the Social Compact, p. 153

[14] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 138

[15] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 140

[16] Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, p. 132

[17] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, pp. 9, 32

[18] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Compact, p. 141; Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p. 72

[19] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 109, 119, 174, 179, 305, 316, 377

[20] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, p. 218

[21] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, pp. 51, 77

[22] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, p. 26

[23] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Compact, pp. 153, 155, 198

[24] Discourse on Political Economy, p. 117

[25] Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, pp. 135, 137

[26] Samuel Pufendorf, On the Duty of Man and Citizen, pp. 151-152

[27] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, p. 47

[28] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, pp. 107, 109, 124

[29] John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, p. 113

Revolution!

Revolution: Science, Politics, and Religion in the Seventeenth Century

            There was nothing particularly spectacular about the cold October morning in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the front door of the Castle Church in protest to perceived doctrinal errors of the Catholic Church. While incredibly bold for one man, it amounted to a simple pinprick in the face of the Church’s monolithic power over European life. What it accomplished, however, was nothing short of revolution. From the subsequent Protestant Reformation came the increasingly symbiotic, inter-dependent, and highly progressive relationship between the development of empiricism, rationalism, experimental Newtonian philosophy, natural rights, and “enlightened” theology which would revolutionize the social fabric of the world for centuries to come.

            It was thanks to the Protestant Reformation of the seventeenth century that men became bold enough in Europe to challenge the Catholic Church’s hegemony on all matters of issues, but most specifically those of theology, religion, economics, politics, and science. In generations past the Church had governed with an iron fist over all manners of thought and knowledge. Nearly all of the cosmology of the medieval world was based on a literal interpretation of the Christian Bible and the Church, through its powers of excommunication, execution and the Inquisition made it very difficult for progressive thinkers of the time to challenge the prevailing worldview. It was only when reform-minded Protestants began to weaken the foundation of the Church with accusations of corruption and incorrect interpretation of the Bible did it become possible for political thinkers and scientists to defy Roman domination of their arenas as well. One of the major advancements of the time was the protestant practice of putting Bibles into the hands of the laity instead of restricting ownership of Bibles to clergymen and priests alone. This allowed anyone who could read to search the Holy Scriptures for their own answers on the nature of God and the world around them.

While this may seem, on the surface, like a simple theological matter it affected a wide range of behavior in Europe. By allowing people to read the Bible for themselves it allowed people to form their own ideas about the values systems that prevailed in their time. A man could choose for himself if God, through the Bible, truly outlawed the use of corpses in medicine, or if the Bible truly told that the Sun revolved around the Earth, or if the world truly was created in seven days or, perhaps most important of all, whether or not God truly gave the Pope complete discretion in the affairs of Christendom. Not only did this empower the common man to act in regard to his individual conscience over the instructions of his priest, but it also emboldened many princes of Europe to break ties with Rome and establish their lands as new homes for thoughts and notions not approved of by the Pope. It was through this princely rejection of Catholicism as a state religion and the establishment of protestant states that allowed for the influx of thinkers and ideas that were previously banned by Catholic authorities.

Let it be said, however, that independence from Rome did not come cheaply for those nations. Nearly all of the major wars of the seventeenth century in Europe revolved, among other things, around the struggle between Catholics and Protestants over the dominant state religion. From the English war with Spain and the Dutch Revolution that led to the Thirty Years’ War and ended in the Peace of Westphalia, to Catholic France’s civil war with the protestant Huguenots, to the War of the Triple Alliance, and the War of Spanish Succession Europe spent more than a century fighting over religion. It must be noted, however, that no nation had a clear-cut distinction in the religion of the native population. Catholics lived in protestant countries and vice versa. In fact one of the most significant treaties to come out of the seventeenth century was the Peace at Westphalia. This peace established the Dutch Republic as an independent protestant nation – no longer under the rule of Spain, set territorial borders for the victors, recognized Calvinism as a legitimate Christian denomination and, perhaps most telling of all, cemented the rights of religious minorities in principalities where the majority of the people – or even just the prince! – established an alternate state religion. In other words Catholics living in a protestant nation and Protestants living in a Catholic nation could not be persecuted for their beliefs. It could be said that this treaty is among the first official documents advocating religious tolerance in Europe. In more ways than one could it be argued that this notion of inter-denominational Christian tolerance was the foundation of eighteenth century notions of freedom of religion found – most specifically – in the American Bill of Rights.

In no way should one conclude that the theological and religious reforms of the seventeenth century stopped at theology and religion. As I alluded to before, the relationship between the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution was, and perhaps still is, incredibly symbiotic. In other words, the benefits and growth of one movement had foundational effects upon the other without a truly distinct indication of dominance. In this paper I argue that the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century acted as a catalyst for the subsequent revolutions in science and politics, but I cannot argue that the Protestant Reformation was sparked in a theological or religious vacuum. While the argument is outside the scope of this discussion, it may be argued that some aspects of the Protestant Reformation were predicated on perceptions of injustice in Europe with the persecution of Copernicus, a sixteenth century scientist, and his followers by the Catholic Church thus illustrating an interdependent relationship.

What can and should be argued is that many of the scientists of the seventeenth century were so disillusioned by the Catholic Church and its perceived abuses of power that they spent much of their scientific effort to further weaken the Church and make it less influential in the affairs of secular and natural sciences. The Catholic Church intrinsically tied its own legitimacy to the cosmology it created. As mentioned before, this cosmology was based on literal interpretations of the Bible as well as the writings of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. To the natural philosopher and scientist of the seventeenth century the opportunity to prove the Church as a liar was perhaps too great to let slip. This is not to say, however, that whatever liberty provided by protestant states to explore new ideas and schools of thoughts was the same as complete license. While the protestant states protested the hegemony of the Catholic Church, they themselves were still fairly religious and the progressive agendas of contemporary natural philosophers did have limitations. Protestant states did have censors of their own, but those states were arguably far more open to progressive notions than Catholic states. It is no coincidence that the most prominent figures in the scientific and political revolutions were either born, lived in, or were published in protestant countries. Sir Francis Bacon and Sir Isaac Newton were influential members of English nobility. John Locke was also an influential English philosopher. Rene Descartes, while a Catholic Frenchman, spent his final twenty years in the Netherlands. Baruch “Benedict” Spinoza, a Sephardic Jew from Catholic Spain, also wrote his influential works in the Dutch Republic. It is in the writings of these men that I intend to demonstrate the inter-dependent and progressive nature of the relationship between religion, politics, and science in the seventeenth century.

In 1620 Sir Francis Bacon finished his great work for James I, king of England, called Novum Organum along with the accompanying preface, The Great Instauration. In The Great Instauration Bacon lays out the purpose of his new instrument (novum organum), its scope, the needs that bred its creation and a stalwart defense of a budding new cosmology based on empiricism. This work helped introduce the notion that much, if not all, of human knowledge could be derived through the practice of observation. In order to understand nature and the universe-at-large one simply needed to observe it in its natural state. To understand it further a natural philosopher could also remove the object from nature – as much as was possible – and place it in a state of isolation for further observation. While Bacon vigorously argued that the realm of the sacred could not be held to this empirical standard (GI, p.15) he did make a veiled attack upon the Aristotelian mode of thought, backed by the English Church and universities, when he argued that those scholars had “usurped a kind of dictatorship in the sciences” and had fallen to complaints of “the weakness of the human mind… seeing that they will rather lay the blame upon the common condition of men and nature than upon themselves.” (GI, p.10) We can see that despite his most obvious admonitions about giving “to faith that which is faith’s” (GI, p.15) how easy it might have been for many of his later readers to apply his empirical view of nature to the realm of the supernatural. If one cannot observe the supernatural in any way, why should one believe that the supernatural – God included – exists at all? The effect this had on the religious community in subsequent generations must have been immense: a proverbial “bell” which could not be un-rung. In this work Bacon also argued that deriving all knowledge simply from human reason as others, such as Descartes, had argued was folly when he states that: “As for those who have given the first place to Logic, supposing that the surest helps to the sciences were to be found in that, they have indeed most truly and excellently perceived that the human intellect left to its own course is not to be trusted”. (GI, p.12) Man, according to Bacon, could not simply reason himself into knowledge. Knowledge had to come either by observation – with the aid of new instruments (GI, p.13) – or by revelation, which Bacon does not seem to endorse either but makes mention of. It is toward the end of his introductory piece that Bacon seems to direct his most pointed instructions. Science, as he saw it, needed to pass a strict ethical test before man could implement it. New advancements and new knowledge should not, at any point, be made simply for personal gain or private profit. Whatever scientific gains could be made should be applied to the greater aid of all mankind in an attempt to understand and exert control over nature. (GI, p.16) It was in this reprimand that Bacon seems to draw most heavily from Christian Scripture when he reminds his readers that “it was from lust of power that the angels fell, from the lust of knowledge that man fell; but of charity there can be no excess, neither did angel or man ever come in danger by it.” (GI, p.16) It was in The Great Instauration that we see the most bold and most pointed attempts to deconstruct all previous notions provided by Aristotelians, discard them, and develop a new instrument of knowledge rooted solely in scientific process. (GI, pp.5, 8) It was in this solid beginning that we are not only able to see the developing roots of Newtonian philosophy and experimentation later in the century, but also to gaze back to the Reformation that made his challenge of Aristotelianism and careful examinations of Biblical passages possible.

If Francis Bacon was most concerned with the process of the new sciences, Rene Descartes seemed most engaged with the source and the end of this knowledge, arguing that it was man’sreason that enabled them to understand the world. In his Discourse on the Method For Conducting One’s Reason Well and For Seeking Truth in the Sciences, Descartes notes that the empirical faculties do well to help in observation but that man’s sensual faculties, unlike reason, are both too weak and ill-equipped to understand the mysteries of the universe-at-large. (DM, p.18) Yet while Bacon and Descartes seemed to follow different paths, they both began and desired to end at the same place. Whereas Bacon would complain over the lack of serious achievements in the Aristotelian model, Descartes found it much easier to simply ignore it altogether by intellectually deconstructing everything he had learned in his prior education (DM p.18.32). Descartes, coming from a very Catholic upbringing in France, dared not apply this deconstructionist model to God maintaining that since he recognized himself to be imperfect, his notions of perfection must have come from something that was perfect – and that perfection must be God. (DM, p. 19.34) What was perhaps most scandalous were his two main assertions in Discourse on Method: first that all certain knowledge came from reason. It was in this argument that Descartes, knowingly or not, opened up a full-frontal attack upon the prevailing belief system that human understanding of the world was and should continue to be based on the Bible its divine revelations, and other authoritative texts (e.g., Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle). By leaving no room for revelatory knowledge Descartes is canceling out any way to incorporate Biblical understandings of God and creation into this method.

While we see much of this thought in his critique of his Jesuit education (DM, p.3.5), it might even be more evident in the writings of Baruch Spinoza where we see the student going even farther than the master. In his Theological-Political Treatise Spinoza argues that the Bible can’t be trusted in the theopneustonian (Greek for “god-breathed” or “divinely inspired”) reverence that both Christians and Jews give it.  Among a great host of other arguments Spinoza resolved that the prophets of the Old Testament were not chosen because of their incredible wisdom but because oftheir unusual pliability and possible mental instability. In other words, the prophets weren’t oracles of God through intelligence but moved “in the Spirit” by their own passions and prejudices which they flavored God’s messages with. (TPT, p.5) Worse still for the Christian apologist was Spinoza’s criticism of Judeo-Christian religious rituals as “superstitious” and an exercise in the hatred of reason, “turning away from the intellect as naturally corrupt”. (TPT, p.4) This, however, should not be confused with an intentional assault on the whole of the sacred or divine as he argues that “everyone should be allowed the freedom of judgment and the right to interpret the basic tenets of his faith as he sees fit.” (TPT, p.6) Again, this may have been unintentional, but it certainly was substantial. To this day Spinoza’s arguments and skepticism is quoted when discussing the “inherent contradictions” and “inconsistencies” of the Bible. Arguments that for the last three hundred or so years have stuck in the minds of doubters that still demand a verdict. While this was a challenge to the authority of organized churches which determined the tenets of faith, we can also see these words as influential in the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution – most specifically the First Amendment. It is fairly evident that this declaration of Spinoza came directly from the first page of Discourse where Descartes states, “’reason’ is naturally equal in all men”. In this assessment Descartes is arguing against the belief that an extra dispensation of carnal wisdom or sacred grace could be found in the priesthood or the nobility extrapolated all the way to the Pope and the kings of Europe. The suggestion that anything could be equal in all men, let alone reason, had the potential to undermine the entire social, political, economic, scientific, and religious order of the world that was grounded in a strict hierarchy with most power concentrated at the top.

One of the most lasting impressions made on the religious developments of the eighteenth and subsequent centuries was this seemingly foundational formation of deism. Deists believe, as Descartes and Spinoza did, that there was a divine figure in the Universe but that it was not necessarily the one told of by sacred scriptures as much as attested to by Nature. This being is not the God of religion, but a god of reason. If one were to argue that Descartes’ theories have become obsolete over time they would be mistaken. It may be that Cartesian cosmology has been replaced in large part by the Newtonian model, but it is easy to see how Descartes’ groundbreaking work laid the foundation for Newtonian sciences and Lockean philosophy.

While some natural philosophers used their freedoms to argue against the Bible or abandon Biblical sources of cosmology, Isaac Newton was among the first of the 17^th century scientists to pursue the sciences vigorously while still reconciling those findings with Biblical data. (NPN, pp.60-61) Newton, more so than any of his predecessors, used Christian Scriptures as a baseline for understanding the “who” and “what” of the Universe and the sciences as an explanation of the “how”. Decrying atheism as both “senseless and odious”, Newton contends that behind the human effort of every scientific discovery lies the “counsel and contrivance of an Author.” (NPN, p.65) At some points in his writings Newton seems to use a very generic or even deist identity for God such as “Maker”, “Author”, “Deity” or “an intelligent Agent”. This, if looked at by itself, might lead some to believe that Newton did not endorse the idea of the Christian God and approached the divine with a more deistic approach like Descartes or worse yet, a radical one like Spinoza; but in his other writings Newton enthusiastically defends the identity of God as “The Lord” and reminds his readers that the Biblical narratives are still the best source by which man can understand “the Eternal of Israel”. (NPN, p.42) Newton’s largest contributions to the future of all human thought are, in a modern context, invaluable. His laws of motion, while difficult to comprehend for the untrained mind, revolutionized how people understand the way the world – and everything in it – moves. But the most striking aspect of these laws of motion is that they, like his supplemental law of gravity, are universally applicable. Newton scientifically proved what Descartes and Spinoza intellectually ascended to: the basic equality of all men. All men may not have been equal yet under human law, but Newton discovered that all men were equal under the state and laws of Nature. “Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward [bodily] shapes but from the counsel and contrivance of an Author?” Newton sees the truth of the universe in the perfection of light and of all earthly eyes that make use of that light to see, in the symmetry of all bodies (both earthly and celestial), in the power of perfect celestial orbits and even in the laws of motion. Such truth, to Newton, all comes from the mind of God: a God that is not available to the senses, but one whose reflection could be seen sensually in the perfect working order of the universe. This notion of equality in the universe may seem, to the modern reader, rather mundane and trivial but to the seventeenth century reader this theory had outrageous implications. One might even be able to see the train of thought that led to Locke’s shocking declaration that all men were entitled to rights in the state of nature. If God created all of Nature, and Nature has laws that apply to all men regardless of rank and station making all men equal under Nature, then all men must also be equal under God! If all men are, thence, equal under God then all men are, in fact, truly equal and the supposed divine right of kings to rule is an indignity to be immediately cast off. It was no less than this very argument that John Locke put forth.

Most scholars recognize John Locke as a very deliberate political revolutionary. He may be best known in America for being the chief influence on Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. What many scholars fail to recognize about Locke, however, is that he was also a very unintentional theological revisionist. Locke was, in every sense of the word, a rationalist. His writings are nothing short of a comprehensive synthesis for rational thought. His Second Treatise of Government was and still is one of the most provocative revolutionary documents ever produced by human hands. In one fell swoop Locke argues to cast off the shackles of assumed dominion, to establish – at the tip of a sword if necessary – the “natural rights” of all men, and to replace the tyranny of absolutism with the hope and prosperity of a government that is accountable to its citizenry. What was not so equally recognized in his time was this argument of natural rights, based on his notion of tabula rasa (Latin for “clean slate”). It argued that men were born with no innate notions except those that were introduced to them by education and environment. This was a radical new theological argument, though I doubt very much that Locke treated it as such. This apparently simple doctrine of tabula rasa flew in the face of centuries of dogma that built upon the notion that all men were born into a state of sinfulness and needed to be cleansed through baptism: a belief that both protestants and Catholics agreed upon. In America and dozens of other nations across the globe this theory of tabula rasa and natural rights is now the law of the land and does not come as much of a surprise to a modern mind. As has been stated before, however, such was not the case in the seventeenth century: there was no substantial notion of natural rights nor was there any government that applied such a notion so universally as to empower its citizenry to form a “social compact” with it for the safety and security of those rights. It was to this end that law and government existed according to Locke. (STG, pp.32.57, 66.124) He states with great confidence that this equality in the state of nature is evident (STG, p.8.4) and that the “laws of nature, do bind men absolutely” in a state of nature and liberty (STG, p.13.15). It is here that we so clearly see the influences of Newton as he also elaborates the point in claiming that “absolute monarchs are but men” and the “natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth… to have only the law of nature for his rule.” (STG, p.17.22)

There can be no doubt about the political ramifications of these brazen and bold declarations, but what of the religious consequences? He agrees with his religious contemporaries that God both gave the world to mankind to rule over and gave reason to mankind to rule the world judiciously. (STG, p.18.26) What is unique and different about his conclusions of that dominion is that all the earth is held in common between all men for the fulfillment of needs and the enjoyment of the race. (STG, pp.18.25, 24.37, 20.31) It is from that central point that his theory begins to diverge from Scripture and takes on a different role. Whereas Locke argues that all men are endowed with natural rights, to be defended from encroachment with violence (STG, p.105.207), the New Testament places unending responsibility on its adherents (Matthew 5:39-48), makes no mention whatsoever of rights and accepts that violence will be visited upon the followers of Jesus but that it should not in any situation be returned (Luke 22:49-51). What might be most interesting about this difference arethe effects of Locke’s argument. In so many ways does Locke make statements about human rights that starkly contrast New Testament rebukes concerning human responsibilities, and yet so many Western evangelical Christians (especially those in America) will take the word of John Locke over Jesus Christ. In this way does it seem that Locke had just as much of an effect on religious culture as he did on politics and through this it is apparent that he was both a deliberate political revolutionary and unintentional theological revisionist.

By no means should any reader assume that the relationship between science, politics, and religion is limited to these thinkers and the theories that they published for us. Scores of volumes could (and perhaps should) continue to be written on the subject without overlapping. What I’ve hoped to demonstrate is how these five individuals entered into such a sacred relationship and succeeded so completely in laying the foundation of a comprehensive social revolution, which has forever altered the course of human events and will continue to do so for centuries to come.