| Political philosopher Peter Augustine Lawler responds to Michael P. Zuckert in the essay "Religion, Philosophy, and the American Founding," which is published in Protestantism and the American Founding. In the lead essay of the anthology, "Natural Rights and Protestant Politics," Zuckert (one of the book's two editors) writes that the Christian understanding of freedom and government, especially as it was known at the time of America's founding, is similar to the understanding of freedom and government that philosopher John Locke (1632-1704) held. Lawler, however, contends with Zuckert's thesis, explaining that the two systems of thought cannot be considered complementary. "Christian Lockeanism" is an unstable philosophy, he states, because the two components are incompatible with each other. While Lockean thought defines people as a-social beings and government as a human institution established for the purposes its subjects deem worthy, Christian thought describes people as communal beings and government as a God-ordained institution established to achieve God-given ends. |
Protestantism and the American Founding (Notre Dame, 2004) |
