Locke and Proast: Religious Toleration
Proast's main criticisms of Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration are that the government does have a right and, indeed, a duty to use moderate force in order to compel its subjects to adhere to the one true religion -- which in Proast's view is the religion of the Anglican Church. This was in response to Locke's contention that by attempting to regulate religion, the State supported conflict, but that in adopting a policy of religious tolerance for religions that promoted tolerance as well (thus ruling out the Catholic Church in his view) the State could avoid promoting conflict. Locke also argued that the State had no mandate from God to oversee religion or religious development and that thus religious toleration was the only moral principle for the State to follow. Proast disagreed, asserting that the magistrate did have a duty to oversee the religious developments of its people and to keep the spread of false religion to a minimum so as to prevent spiritual and social harm coming to its populace. Moreover, the magistrate's mandate was obvious in the Anglican Church's mandate, which saw the king's role as head of the Anglican Church. Thus, with Anglicanism recognized as the true religion in England, the State had a clear mandate to support it and prevent false religions (i.e., Catholicism) from gaining an advantage.
These criticisms are only justified if one agrees with Proast's sense of Anglicanism being the true religion. If one follows the scholastic conception that truth has rights, errors has none, then it follows that the Anglican Church being the church of the true religion has the right to exert moderate force in its defense; such a strategy is consistent with the idea of militancy in defense of a doctrine or a of a culture/way of life. Without defenses, a culture, way of life or religion can be attacked, undermined and eventually subjugated or eliminated altogether. Proast's argument is valid on this point, because his aim is one of preservation. It is not, however, consistent with Locke's aim, which is not preservation but rather prevention: Locke's idea of religious toleration is meant to prevent the Catholic Church from spreading or gaining a foothold in Protestant England. The idea is that because Catholicism represents itself as the one true religion and does not promote religious toleration (at least, it did not in the 17th century), then it has no right to exist in a state that enforces religious toleration. Here, according to Locke, the principle to be enforced is religious liberty (which equates to no church asserting itself as the one true church). The problem for Proast is that he believes the Anglican Church is and should assert itself as the church of the true religion. Thus, Proast cannot support the doctrine of religious toleration as it is promoted by Locke, because ultimately Locke's sense of toleration would undermine the authority that the Anglican Church should seek to cultivate. In this...
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