Transcript Reading: Locke Part 5

We resume our study of Locke. We have briefly covered his theory of ethics, and now we turn to his transition to ontology. We’ve spent a lot of time on his epistemology because that’s where his main focus was, but he does transition to a theory of reality. To put it briefly, Locke thinks there are three kinds of things we can know for sure: the existence of ourselves, bodies, and God.

Locke says we can know the existence of ourselves through an intuitive kind of knowledge. He means that we can introspect and become aware of our thoughts, actions, and mental operations, such as abstracting concepts, calculating, or making logical inferences. He assumes that the way to start philosophy is by describing what the mind does when it perceives, thinks, and wills. Everything we know, he claims, is in the mind—whether it’s perception or concept—and he calls these things “ideas,” meaning anything that exists in our minds.

Locke argues that we can know the real existence—external to the mind—of three things: ourselves, bodies, and God. These are the same three that Descartes argued for. According to Locke, we know ourselves by intuition and introspection, we know bodies in the world through perception, and we know God through reason. But as we’ve already seen, perception poses a significant problem for Locke’s epistemology. If perceptions are just things that happen inside our minds, how can we be sure they correspond to real objects outside? Couldn’t it all just be an internal reality show? Maybe there’s no external world at all, or perhaps there is, but it’s nothing like our perceptions of it. Locke has to address this problem, especially when it comes to knowing bodies in the external world.

Locke also claims that there is proof of God’s existence, much like Descartes before him, and we’ll explore that today.

Let’s start with the first: Do we know intuitively, through introspection, that our minds operate in certain ways? It seems we do. However, what we don’t know this way is whether other people have minds. Descartes raised this problem: How do we know that other people aren’t cleverly constructed robots, walking and talking like us, but without minds? This question is even more pressing today, with the rise of artificial intelligence and robots capable of amazing things. It’s almost eerie that Descartes used this example before 1650, but Locke also has to address it, since he likely read Descartes.

Locke claims that we know ourselves through introspection, and we infer that other beings have minds based on their similarity to us—they look, act, and respond like we do. We can enter into conversations with them, and all of that assumes they have minds. The next thinker we’ll cover, George Berkeley, will analyze this in more depth. Alvin Plantinga, in his book God and Other Minds, also showed that none of the arguments for proving that other beings have minds like ours truly succeed. Yet, we all believe that other people do have minds. I think that’s one of the things that is self-evident to us in our experience of others. But Locke doesn’t raise this issue in depth—he just asserts that we know there are selves because we intuitively know our own minds.

Now, when it comes to how we know that perceptions correspond to real, physical bodies outside our minds, Locke’s answer might surprise or even disappoint you. He says that while some people may pretend to doubt the existence of real objects, he doubts their sincerity. The perceptions we have are so realistic and fit together so well that it seems we are perceiving a real, organized world outside ourselves. However, he concedes that the objects outside of us don’t have colors, sounds, tastes, smells, or tactile sensations—those are only in our minds. The objects outside only have physical properties like space, movement, force, mass, weight, and solidity. This view mirrors Galileo’s hypothesis that the external world is purely physical, and our perceptions are sensory copies of it.

But if what’s inside our minds is purely sensory and what’s outside is purely physical, how can the two correspond? If they don’t share any properties in common, the perceptions in our minds can’t be copies of external objects. George Berkeley will later make a big deal out of this, arguing that even God couldn’t make perceptions in our minds be copies of external physical objects if they don’t share any common properties. Miracles, Berkeley says, are things that God can do beyond our abilities, but they don’t violate the law of non-contradiction.

Even Locke’s admirers, who think he got us back on the right track compared to the continental rationalists, admit that he didn’t fully solve this problem. How do we know that perceptions represent real, physical objects? Descartes at least gave an argument, claiming that normal sense perception must be reliable because God wouldn’t deceive us.

He didn’t explore how something purely physical can be known by something purely sensory. He didn’t bring that up. However, he did argue that God, being all-good, must be maximally honest, possessing every perfection. In that case, God cannot be deceiving everyone into thinking there’s a world when there isn’t, or into believing the world is completely unlike what we perceive. But this idea warrants closer scrutiny, especially because of Locke’s naivety here. He essentially says, “People can pretend to doubt, but I don’t think they’re sincere. We all believe there’s a world as we perceive it.” But that’s not a philosophical argument—it’s merely an assertion.

Believing in the external world could be as natural a mistake as believing that heavier objects fall faster. Ask any child to place two objects before them and ask which will fall faster—they’ll choose the heavier one. This is a natural mistake that Galileo corrected, proving that objects fall at the same rate regardless of mass, due to the immense mass of the Earth. The heavier object may fall slightly faster, but the difference is so small we can’t measure it. In Galileo’s day, conducting experiments on this meant going up into a mountain or a tall building—though back then, tall buildings were nowhere near what we’re planning today. Some skyscrapers in planning stages are expected to be a mile high! I think I’ll be watching from the ground.

The third thing Locke claims we can know for sure is the existence of God, and he offers a proof for this. I’m going to read it to you because it’s important to understand his words and thought process. Before we do, let’s summarize what we’ve covered so far: Everything we know is inside our minds—ideas. Ideas come in two forms: perceptions and concepts. We know the real existence of three kinds of things, with "real" meaning external to the mind: selves, bodies, and God. We know selves intuitively by introspection, we know bodies by perception, and while some people claim to doubt their perceptions reveal a real world, Locke argues they don’t really mean it.

I would say this is because normal sense perception is a kind of self-evident truth. But why didn’t Locke claim that? Because Aristotle and Descartes had placed restrictions on what could be called self-evident, requiring that it be universally agreed upon, infallible, and a law. When I look around and see objects like books on a shelf, it seems self-evident that they’re really there. But even self-evidence isn’t infallible—nothing we know is infallible, as if we had a faculty that could never make a mistake.

Consider the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible. Their temptation wasn’t merely about dietary concerns; it wasn’t just about eating a piece of fruit. The real temptation was the promise that by eating it, they would know things as God does—possessing infallible knowledge. When Eve saw that the fruit was desirable for gaining knowledge, she ate it. What’s at stake in the story is the desire for infallible knowledge. Our ancestors violated God’s law and covenant because they wanted to know things as God does.

I believe we should leave infallibility to God. Now, let’s look at Locke’s proof for the existence of God.

Locke argues: “Man knows by an intuitive certainty that a bare nothing cannot produce real being, any more than two right angles can be exceeded in a triangle. Therefore, if we know there is some real being, and that non-entity cannot produce any real being, that’s an evident demonstration that something has existed from eternity.”

There’s a better way to phrase this, but Locke has a real point up to this juncture. Consider the sum total of reality: the sum of all that exists would have to be self-existent, either in part or in whole, because there’s nothing else for it to depend on. Some religious traditions say that the self-existent part is the divine, and that this divine is the whole of reality. These traditions are Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. In Hinduism, it is Brahman-Atman, out of which everything is generated. The world we live in may appear finite and temporary, but it’s considered Maya, or illusion, because everything is made of Brahman-Atman—the eternal, self-existent divine being.

According to these traditions, standing in the right relation to the divine involves mystical practices that help ensure that, upon death, one is not reborn into another life of suffering but is instead absorbed into Brahman-Atman, like a drop of water into the sea.

Three major religions, however, say that it’s not a wholeness, but one being—God—who brought everything else into existence. There is a real world of finite things, not made of God’s being but called into existence by God. We are part of that world, and standing in the proper relationship to God is what promises us everlasting life. Though we die, we will all be raised again and live forever in God’s kingdom. These three religions are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Locke is onto something here: since things exist now and none of them appear to be eternal, there had to be something in existence in the past. But then Locke makes a leap he isn’t entitled to: he claims that this something must have always existed, because something cannot come from nothing. But that doesn’t necessarily show that it has always existed. Some people today argue that the universe came from nothing, and while we don’t know why, they reject the idea of a creator.

Thus, we have three ways of understanding this:

1. Pantheism, which says there is an eternal divine being that generates the world out of itself. Finite creatures come into being and pass away, but the eternal divine remains. Humans, as conscious beings, can be good or evil, and if they are good, they can escape the cycle of rebirth and suffering by being reabsorbed into the divine.
2. The view of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which says that a single God created the world and that we stand in relation to Him, with the promise of eternal life.
3. The modern view held by some today, which says that the universe popped into existence from nothing, without a creator.

On the other side, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all assert that there is only one self-existent being, and everything else depends on that being—God, the Creator and Redeemer. These three religions not only hold that God is eternal, meaning independent of time, but also that He created the universe, and a feature of the created universe is that it is temporal, existing in time and space. Moreover, God is also the Redeemer. He cares about people, and in fact, He visits and redeems His people. Christianity takes this quite literally, as it believes that God incarnated Himself as a human being and came into the world to rescue humans from sin and punishment.

In all three religions, the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead can be found, originating in Judaism and fully endorsed by both Christianity and Islam. There is a "Day of the Lord" when God will call history to a close, judge all people, and so on. Not all branches of Judaism hold to this belief, but the Orthodox and some conservative branches do.

Let’s continue with our reading. I didn’t mean to have such an extended interruption. From eternity, there must have been something, since nothing can come into being out of nothing. This ancient saying is captured in the Latin phrase, ex nihilo, nihil fit—"out of nothing comes nothing." So, from eternity, something has existed, since everything that is not eternal had a beginning, and what had a beginning had to be produced by something else. Locke then argues that there must be a self-existent reality, and that eternal being must be most powerful. He reasons that what had its being and beginning from something else must receive everything that is true of it, including its powers, from that source. This eternal source, then, must also be the source of all power, so the eternal being must also be most powerful.

However, many people today would not find this argument convincing. While it's possible that something self-existent exists, as the sum total of reality must be self-existent in part or in whole, they could argue that the self-existent part is the natural world—space, time, quantum gravity, or something similar. From that, the universe develops naturally, with no need for deliberation by a personal, supreme being. Locke tries to assert that the eternal being must also be the most knowledgeable, but he doesn’t substantiate this claim. Today, there are more plausible ways to deny this than there were in his time.

Locke continues by arguing that because humans possess perception and knowledge, there must be a knowing, intelligent being. Either there was a time when there was no knowledge and it began to be, or there has been knowing from eternity. If we claim there was a time when no being had knowledge, when the eternal being was void of understanding, Locke argues it’s impossible for knowledge to have arisen. A being void of knowledge cannot produce a knowing being. Just as a triangle’s interior angles cannot exceed their inherent properties, something without knowledge cannot produce something with knowledge.

What Locke is addressing here is the naturalist perspective—the belief that the natural world, or some part of it, is the divine being. He dismisses this as impossible, claiming that if you start with just space, quantum gravity, and perhaps a bit of matter, and from that, stars and galaxies eventually form, leading to the evolution of life, that scenario is simply not possible. Locke doesn’t explain why it must be impossible; he simply asserts it, which isn’t a strong argument.

He goes on to conclude that, from considering ourselves and what we infallibly know about our constitution, reason leads us to the certain and evident truth that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing being. Whether you call it God or something else doesn’t matter—the thing is evident. From this idea, Locke believes we can deduce the attributes we should ascribe to this eternal being.

But notice what Locke doesn’t attempt to prove: he doesn’t try to show that this being is good rather than evil, or that this being cares about humans, rather than being indifferent or even taking delight in their destruction. He doesn’t prove that this being has any of the moral attributes associated with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic conception of God. He only proves that there must be something that caused the existence of other things. Everything in the world comes into being and passes away, but there must be something that does not.

I offered a slightly different argument earlier: the sum total of reality must, in part or whole, be self-existent, since there’s nothing else for it to depend on. But even that argument doesn’t prove whether the self-existent being is good, evil, knowledgeable, or ignorant. It doesn’t show whether it’s a natural force, Brahman-Atman, or anything else. And it certainly doesn’t prove that it’s the God of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam—the Creator who deliberately made humanity, whether through evolution or other means, and loves the human race, wanting to save it and give it eternal life in His kingdom.

As the New Testament says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” There’s no comfort in finding a self-existent something that started the universe, but is indifferent to or incapable of caring about us. Why would we care about it? The Christian understanding is that we love God because He first loved us. There’s much to be lost by rejecting God—all the promises He makes to those who acknowledge His power, are thankful to Him, and try to live according to His will.

Locke’s argument points toward something potentially valid, but he seems to think he’s getting more out of it than he actually is. In summary, Locke’s argument does not prove the existence of God as revealed in Scripture. It only proves that something self-existent exists. We can’t infer that this something is the God of the Bible.

That's the summary of this talk, and the main focus has been Locke's proof of God. Sorry, Charlie, but it doesn't work. As I suggested earlier, we shouldn't be surprised that none of these attempts to prove God's existence succeed. According to Scripture, God created everything, visible and invisible, including the laws that govern His creation and the things governed by them. If God created the laws of math and logic, we shouldn't expect Him to be subject to them. The logical laws don’t apply to God in a way that would allow us to infer His existence from any premises—whether they be perceptions or ideas. No, God is beyond proof for the simple reason that He is the creator of the laws of proof, so they don’t apply to Him. When we attempt to apply them anyway, even with good intentions—to show others the wonderful truth we’ve found—we end up diminishing God, lowering Him from being the Creator of all things to a creature subject to the laws of the cosmos.

Sometimes people say to me, “That's an extreme position! Don’t you realize that means God can violate the law of non-contradiction? Could He make five-sided triangles or cause 101 to equal eight and a half? Could He be infinitely wise and yet totally ignorant?” But no, that’s not what I’m saying. God created the laws of logic and mathematics, but those laws hold for His creation, not for Him. Creatures are subject to these laws because they are real laws governing reality, but saying that they don’t apply to God doesn’t mean He can break them—it means they simply don’t apply to Him. God can’t break laws that don’t govern Him. We can’t break them because they do apply to us. There’s nothing nonsensical about that. Amen.

Now, let’s leave that topic and introduce a new one. We only have time today to introduce it. It has to do with winding up Locke’s theory—specifically, where Locke ends up and where he wants to end up, which aren’t always the same things.

Locke wants to reaffirm what Galileo proposed and Descartes adopted: that the external world around us is purely physical. Objects we perceive don’t have properties like color; they are purely physical and have only physical properties. I remember being taught this in junior high science class. The theory goes like this: objects around us don’t have color, but they have surface irregularities that absorb all wavelengths of light except for one (say, brown), which is reflected, hits our eye, affects our retina, and travels to the occipital lobe of the brain, where we perceive the color brown. The brown is in here, in our minds; the external object is purely physical. But this is not science—it’s a philosophical theory, specifically the theory of materialism.

There’s an equally good account of the external world that says objects not only have physical properties like weight, mass, and density, but also sensory properties like appearing brown in normal light to normal perception. That’s a real property of the object too. Wavelengths of light may play a role, but that doesn’t negate the object’s disposition to appear brown under normal conditions. The object has sensory properties as well as physical ones.

Moreover, objects also have what could be called passive properties. These include bionic properties, social-linguistic properties, and the capacity to be referred to in speech or thought. Objects have a multiplicity of kinds of properties, some of which are passive in relation to human capabilities. They exhibit certain properties when they interact with us. I won’t go into more detail, but Professor Herman Dooyeweerd from the Free University of Amsterdam has developed a comprehensive theory of reality that takes all these kinds of properties and laws seriously. He argues that this offers a better ontology than the ones that limit the external world to only physical properties or claim that it consists only of sense perceptions, or that it contains only physical and logical properties or physical and mathematical ones.

In Western philosophy, people have presented a wide range of theories about what constitutes substance—what produces everything else. But I’ve argued before that, if we are to be true theists—whether Jews, Christians, or Muslims—we should rid ourselves of the idea of substance altogether. Nothing in the universe is the substance that everything else depends on, only to have it in turn depend on God. It’s God who sustains everything and holds it all together, in addition to calling it into existence.

I don’t want to repeat everything I’ve discussed in my course on Christian philosophy, but for those of you who’ve taken it, I encourage you to apply those ideas here. For those who haven’t, I urge you to take that course. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of the theory of reality and knowledge from the perspective that God generates everything except Himself—including the laws of logic and mathematics, which we call necessary truths. These truths are necessary for creatures, not for the Creator who brought them into existence.

I think we’re pretty much done with Locke—at least with his philosophical work, aside from his political theory, which we haven’t yet covered. So while I’m tempted to say we’ve finished everything, we still have one more thing to address: his theory of the state.

The term “state” can cause confusion in the U.S., where it refers to a subdivision of the country. But elsewhere, and historically, "state" refers to the central government and its institutions—the political institution that creates an order of public justice, enacts laws, and provides a system to enforce those laws through courts and police. These courts also interpret the laws when disputes arise about their meaning.

In the ancient world, there were many states that didn’t fit this modern definition. For example, in ancient Egypt, the theory was that all the land, people, and resources of Egypt belonged to the Pharaoh. It was not a public political institution but the private property of the ruler. All the people were considered his slaves, and all the land and resources were his possessions.

Contrast that with ancient Greece, where cities developed, laws were passed, and ways to adjudicate them were established. These became true states, public institutions where the entire public was ruled by laws, and the public had input into the creation and enforcement of those laws. Real states, in the modern sense, have only existed for about 2,500 to 2,600 years. Before that, nations were often not states but rather private holdings of rulers.

Locke comes into the picture well after the idea of the state has become the norm. He begins by discussing humans in what he and his countryman, Thomas Hobbes, called the "state of nature." Both Locke and Hobbes contrasted the state of nature with the political state, but their views diverged.

Hobbes famously described the state of nature as "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." In Hobbes's view, people were solitary individuals in a constant struggle for survival, with only natural rights—the right to preserve their lives. According to Hobbes, morality and legal codes were human inventions created to mitigate the harshness of life in the state of nature.

Locke didn’t agree with Hobbes on this point. He didn’t think morality and legal codes were mere human inventions. In Locke’s view, people in the state of nature already possess ethical knowledge. They know intuitively that murder, theft, and lying are wrong. These moral truths are not only ethical but also have legal implications, forming the basis of laws enforced by the state.

In Locke’s view, people have natural rights, such as the right not to be murdered, robbed, or lied to. These are the flip side of moral duties. It’s wrong to kill, therefore I have the right not to be killed. It’s wrong to steal, so I have the right not to be robbed. It’s wrong to lie, so I have the right not to be lied to in public matters. This natural moral order forms the foundation for legal rights.

Locke’s theory of the state, then, is that it’s a public institution tasked with creating and enforcing a legal order based on these natural rights. It also has the responsibility of protecting the state from external threats, hence its control of military power.

I think that’s a more well-rounded view than Locke presents, and I take it to be a Christian view. We’ll close on that note and continue with Locke’s political theory in more detail next time. I look forward to it.