podcast 53 – John Locke’s The Reasonableness of Christianity, Part 2

This week I start with a long and insightful listener comment. Among other things, he asks how one’s theology as unitarian or trinitarian affect one’s discipleship, or how one follows Jesus as Lord. I give a short answer from my own experience here, confessing how my own confusions hindered my spiritual life.

The listener also asks: doesn’t Locke require too little? In particular, mustn’t a Christian also, minimally, believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, and that he is now ruling as Lord?

I argue that Locke, correctly, thinks that belief in Jesus as Messiah implies those beliefs as well, and I argue that he doesn’t properly separate matters of belief (to what one must be committed in one’s mind) from the issue of confession (what one must be willing to sincerely and publicly assert). Of course, to sincerely confess Jesus as Lord (or as Messiah) requires having certain beliefs, and I go through a long, and surely not exhaustive list of those here. Then we briefly compare this list to the famous “Apostles’ Creed”.

Finally, we hear more from Locke, including the last portion of his book, a well-crafted plea that we should believe that God must have revealed as required for salvation only beliefs which ordinary folk are capable of understanding, and so, believing.

Next week, we’ll hear the very words of Locke’s vehement critic, the Calvinist Anglican divine John Edwards. (1637-1716) We’ll also hear a little of Locke’s replies.

You can also listen to this episode on youtube.

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