Calvin and the Whigs

Angebote / Angebote:

The relationship between Calvinist political theory and John Locke'sTwo Treatises on Civil Government has been debated for some time, andthe consensus is that Locke's theory constitutes the furtherdevelopment of Calvinist theory. But upon closer analysis, thatconclusion proves entirely flawed. Calvinism proves to be worlds apartfrom the political philosophy of John Locke. It proves to be the maturefruit of the medieval "two swords" form of government, in which churchand state share public power, rather than an early stage on the road to thedissociation of church and state, a road which Locke put us firmly uponwith his own formulation of political power. Indeed, upon closerinspection Calvinism proves to be the product of a thousand-yeartradition of Western political thought commencing with Augustineand moving through the Carolingian Renaissance and the PapalRevolution. That history is rediscovered and outlined in this book, asthe preliminary means for recovering the true meaning of politicalCalvinism and its utter discontinuity with the modernism thatcommenced with Locke's paradigm. It also helps disabuse us of thenotion that history is linear, and that progress is straightforward. Rather, it helps us to understand the deformational period of history in whichwe live, and the need for a return to a confessional understanding of law, the state, and constitutionalism.