Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-w95db Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-13T17:08:16.102Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 6 - Locke and Catholicism

The ‘Roman Leviathan’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 February 2020

Jeffrey R. Collins
Affiliation:
Queen's University, Ontario
Get access

Summary

Chapter 6 examines the particular question of John Locke’s position on the toleration of Catholics. This, the chapter argues, was the major area in which his views did not significantly evolve. Recent scholars have tried to establish that Locke softened his position on the intolerability of Catholics by appealing to a ‘loyalist’, oath-taking minority tradition within the Catholic chapter. This chapter refutes this claim and demonstrates Locke’s lifelong refusal to countenance such Gallican (or, in the English context, ‘Blackloist’) solutions to the Catholic question. When these views of Locke are set in their full context, they emerge as another variation on his rejection of the ‘Hobbesian politique’. Loyalist Catholics after the civil war were strongly influenced by the sovereignty theory of Hobbes and on that basis appealed for toleration as an act of monarchical prerogative. Locke’s hardening opposition to such forms of indulgence alienated him from such strategies. Catholics, he came to believe, were irretrievably dominated by either the papacy or the state and thus could not appeal for religious freedom as an inalienable right.

Type
Chapter
Information
In the Shadow of Leviathan
John Locke and the Politics of Conscience
, pp. 271 - 314
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Locke and Catholicism
  • Jeffrey R. Collins, Queen's University, Ontario
  • Book: In the Shadow of Leviathan
  • Online publication: 07 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108778879.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Locke and Catholicism
  • Jeffrey R. Collins, Queen's University, Ontario
  • Book: In the Shadow of Leviathan
  • Online publication: 07 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108778879.007
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Locke and Catholicism
  • Jeffrey R. Collins, Queen's University, Ontario
  • Book: In the Shadow of Leviathan
  • Online publication: 07 February 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108778879.007
Available formats
×