Part III | Expanded Analysis
Category B | Principles
Topic 5 | Civil sphere versus religious sphere
One of English philosopher John Locke’s key contributions to political theory and our understanding of religious freedom was his categorical demarcation between the civil sphere and the religious sphere, and the importance of setting “the just bounds that lie between the one and the other.” According to Locke, the civil sphere should focus on the “care of the commonwealth” and the religious sphere on “a concernment for the interest of men’s souls.”179
Introduction
German theologian Martin Luther (1483–1546) famously called for a separation of religion and state into “two kingdoms”: “One to produce piety, the other to bring about external peace and prevent evil deeds.”180 More than a century later, this concept was further developed by John Locke. In A Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) Locke cogently argued for a clear demarcation between the civil sphere and the religious sphere and the importance of setting “the just bounds that lie between the one and the other.”181 The civil sphere should focus on the “care of the commonwealth” and the religious sphere on “a concernment for the interest of men’s souls.”182
Locke’s Letter developed five major principles relative to the proper roles of religion and the state.183
- Civil power does not extend to the religious sphere.
- Religion is not entitled to assert civil power.
- The state is not competent to ascertain religious truth.
- Plurality is a source of stability.
- There are limits on tolerance (i.e., there is no obligation to tolerate intolerance).184
Locke’s principles of religion-state relations
1. Civil power does not extend to the religious sphere.
Locke reasoned,
"The care of souls is not committed to the civil magistrate . . . . because it appears not that God has ever given any such authority to one man over another as to compel anyone to his religion . . . . [since a]ll the life and power of true religion consists in the inward and full persuasion of the mind; and faith is not faith without believing."185
In other words, government has no authority to compel belief and, therefore, the forum internum (the private realm of thought, conscience, and belief) enjoys absolute protection from government coercion or interference. This principle was revolutionary at a time when “established” state churches were common and rulers often claimed a divine right to govern and compel religious belief and church membership. It has particular appeal to people of faith who consider religion-state separation necessary to protect religion from government interference and potential government corruption.
2. Religion is not entitled to assert civil power.
Locke explains that, just as civil authorities cannot and should not assert their power on the religious sphere, the reverse is also true:
"[W]hencesoever [the authority of clergy] be sprung, since it is ecclesiastical, it ought to be confined within the bounds of the Church, nor can it in any manner be extended to civil affairs, because the Church itself is a thing absolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth: The boundaries on both sides are fixed and immovable."186
In other words, religious organizations have authority to govern their internal affairs, but that authority does not extend to state affairs. This principle has particular appeal to people who consider religion-state separation necessary to protect government from religious interference and potential religious “corruption.”
These first two Lockean principles influenced U.S. founding figures in justifying the prohibition of laws establishing religion, contained in the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause.187
3. The state is not competent to ascertain religious truth.
Locke maintains that only God, not government, has competence and authority to judge religious truth:
"[Any] controversy between . . . churches about the truth of their doctrines and the purity of their worship is on both sides equal; nor is there any judge, either at Constantinople or elsewhere upon earth, by whose sentence it can be determined. The decision of that question belongs only to the Supreme judge of all men . . . ."188
4. Plurality is a source of stability.
Locke states that “seditions are very frequently raised upon pretense of religion,” but he argues that the true cause of civil unrest is oppression, not religion: “Just and moderate governments are everywhere quiet, everywhere safe; but oppression [of non-state churches] raises and makes men struggle to cast off an uneasy and tyrannical yoke.”189 The key to government security and stability, Locke posits, is equal treatment of religious groups in a pluralistic society:
"[H]ow much greater will be the security of government where all good subjects, of whatsoever Church they be, without any distinction upon account of religion, enjoying the same favor of the prince and the same benefit of the laws, shall become the common support and guard of it."190
5. There are limits on tolerance (i.e., there is no obligation to tolerate intolerance).
Although plurality is a benefit to societies, Locke concedes there are limits to the ideas and actions society should tolerate:
"[Those] who attribute unto . . . themselves, any peculiar privilege or power above other mortals, in civil concernments; or who upon pretense of religion do challenge any manner of authority over such as are not associated with them in their ecclesiastical communion, I say these have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate; as neither those that will not own and teach the duty of tolerating all men in matters of mere religion."191
In short, society and government have no obligation to tolerate the intolerant.
In his “paradox of tolerance,” twentieth-century philosopher Karl Popper echoed Locke’s warning on the dangers of tolerating the intolerant: “If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”192
Modern-day religious articulations of Locke’s principles
In more modern times, both Catholicism and Neo-Calvinism, among other religious traditions, have articulated and been guided by Lockean principles.
The Second Vatican Council’s “Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae” (1965) marked a new era for the Catholic Church, in officially recognizing the universal right to religious freedom and the need for separate church-state spheres.193 This constituted a dramatic departure from the Catholic Church’s history of maintaining close church-state relations. Significantly, the Declaration tacitly acknowledges the Church’s past errors in suppressing religious freedom and discusses its eventual awakening to the importance of religious freedom.194
In the Declaration, the Catholic Church asserts “that constitutional limits should be set to the powers of government, in order that there may be no encroachment on the rightful freedom of the person and of associations.”195 While allowing that “special civil recognition [may be] given to one religious community in the constitutional order of society,” the Church calls on governments to treat citizens equally before the law, without discrimination, and to safeguard religious freedom “by just laws and other appropriate means.”196 It condemns state “coercion in matters religious” and asserts the rights of religious communities to be self-governing.197 Professor Michael J. Perry posits that Dignitatis Humanae arose, at least in part, out of the Catholic Church’s growing Locke-like “distrust . . . of government authority to adjudicate questions of religious truth.”198
Abraham Kuyper was a Calvinist theologian and prime minister of the Netherlands (1901–05), who expressed his ideas about separation of church and state through the concept of “sphere sovereignty,” which maintained that the church and state are separate spheres that exist side by side but are both accountable to God. Kuyper’s metaphorical description of sphere sovereignty hearkens back to Locke:
"There is a domain of nature in which the Sovereign exerts power over matter according to fixed laws. There is also a domain of the personal, of the household, of science, of social and ecclesiastical life, each of which obeys its own law of life, each subject to its own chief. . . .
"The cogwheels of all these spheres engage each another, and precisely through that interaction emerges the rich, multifaceted multiformity of human life. Hence also rises the danger that one sphere in life may encroach on its neighbor like a sticky wheel that shears off one cog after another until the whole operation is disrupted. Hence also the raison d’être for the special sphere of authority that emerged in the State. It must provide for sound mutual interaction among the various spheres, insofar as they are externally manifest, and keep them within just limits. . . . But within these spheres that does not obtain. There another authority rules, an authority that descends directly from God apart from the State. This authority the State does not confer but acknowledges."199
Put simply, Kuyper’s “cogwheels” metaphor echoes the Lockean principle that, while state authority is necessary for civil governance between social spheres, such authority does not extend within the religious sphere.
In addition to advocating for limited state sovereignty, Kuyper advocated for related principles such as state “agnosticism” or neutrality in religious matters,200 a “free church in a free state,”201 and parental—rather than state—responsibility for children’s education, which Kuyper believed should be “shaped distinctly by faith.”202
Conclusion
John Locke’s concept of separate civil and religious spheres, and the principles underlying that concept, have had profound influence on individuals and institutions over the centuries—from U.S. founding figures to powerful religious institutions and thought-leaders in the late modern era. Individuals, institutions, and societies would do well to continue using Locke’s principles as a touchstone in questions of religion-state relations.
References
179. Toolkit Topic 5 (Civil sphere versus religious sphere) was originally drafted by Tyson Wilson, 2023 ICLRS Summer Fellow.
180. ROBERT LOUIS WILKEN, LIBERTY IN THE THINGS OF GOD: THE CHRISTIAN ORIGINS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 56 (2019).
181. JOHN LOCKE, A LETTER CONCERNING TOLERATION 8 (William Popple trans., 1689), https://www.google.com/books/edition/A_Letter_Concerning_Toleration_Written_b/L9jYMVtd7vsC?hl=en&gbpv=0 (spellings and capitalization modernized).
182. Id.
183. W. COLE DURHAM, JR. & BRETT G. SCHARFFS, LAW AND RELIGION: NATIONAL, INTERNATIONAL, AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES 14–16 (2d ed. 2019).
184. Id.
185. LOCKE, supra, at 9.
186. Id. at 18.
187. See U.S. CONSTITUTION, amend. I, § 2; see also, e.g., James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, [ca. 20 June] 1785, NATIONAL ARCHIVES: FOUNDERS ONLINE, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-08-02-0163 (last visited Dec. 2024) (articulating Madison’s vision of religion-state relations four years before the Bill of Rights was introduced); Thomas Jefferson, V. to the Danbury Baptist Association, 1 January 1802, FOUNDERS ONLINE: NATIONAL ARCHIVES, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-36-02-0152-0006 (last visited Dec. 2024) (describing the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause as “building a wall of separation between Church & State”).
188. LOCKE, supra, at 16.
189. Id. at 41.
190. Id. at 42.
191. Id. at
192. 1 KARL R. POPPER, THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES 226 (1947).
193. Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae on the Right of the Person and of Communities to Social and Civil Freedom in Matters Religious Promulgated by His Holiness Pope Paul VI on December 7, 1965, THE HOLY SEE, https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651207_dignitatis-humanae_en.htmll (last visited Dec. 2024).
194. Id. § 12 (“In the life of the People of God, as it has made its pilgrim way through the vicissitudes of human history, there has at times appeared a way of acting that was hardly in accord with the spirit of the Gospel or even opposed to it. Nevertheless, the doctrine of the Church that no one is to be coerced into faith has always stood firm. Thus the leaven of the Gospel has long been about its quiet work in the minds of men, and to it is due in great measure the fact that in the course of time men have come more widely to recognize their dignity as persons, and the conviction has grown stronger that the person in society is to be kept free from all manner of coercion in matters religious.”)
195. Id. § 1.
196. Id. § 6.
197. Id. § 4.
198. See Michael J. Perry, Liberal Democracy and the Right to Religious Freedom, 71 THE REVIEW OF POLITICS 621, 621, 626–27 (2009).
199. Abraham Kuyper, Sphere Sovereignty, in ABRAHAM KUYPER: A CENTENNIAL READER 461, 467–68 (James D. Bratt ed., 1998).
200. See James R. Wood, How Abraham Kuyper Lost the Nation and Sidelined the Church, AD FONTES (Aug. 22, 2023), https://adfontesjournal.com/church-history/how-abraham-kuyper-lost-the-nation-and-sidelined-the-church/#post-28125 (citing Ruben Alvarado, The Kuyper Option: Kuyper’s Concept of the Church in the Context of Strategic Christian Action, in FOR LAW AND LIBERTY: ESSAYS ON THE TRANS-ATLANTIC LEGACY OF PROTESTANT POLITICAL THOUGHT 157 (Brad Littlejohn ed., 2016)).
201. ABRAHAM KUYPER, LECTURES ON CALVINISM 99 (1931).
202. Shaun Stiemsma, The Presence of the Past: A Review of Abraham Kuyper’s On Education, 49(1) PRO REGE 43, 44– 45 (2020), https://digitalcollections.dordt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3105&context=pro_rege.