John Locke on Monoteism. A Dispute with Johannes Hudde

Locke’s theological knowledge was forged on Scholastic texts : during his first years at Christ Church College, Oxford, he read Aquinas, Scotus, Suarez, as well as authors influenced by the Scholastic tradition such as Hooker and Sanderson. Later his thought became more independent, especially after being introduced to Reformed theology in Holland, nonetheless Scholastic influences are apparent even in Locke’s mature writings. Probably the solid Scholastic rationalistic framework which backed his first theological studies elucidates why Locke never questioned the uniqueness of God seriously : in his view, polytheism corresponded to heathens’ idolatries and superstitions, which had been far surpassed by Christianity. Locke’s interest in this subject seems to have been purely historical, as some manuscript notes of his own would confirm; the concern for the Trinitarian dispute which characterizes the last years of his life is not related to the issue of polytheism. Nevertheless, Locke had to face this issue; in a sense, he was obliged to deal with it, because of his friendship with the Reformed theologian Philip van Limborch. This paper aims to reconstruct Locke’s way of arguing for the uniqueness of God in his correspondence with Limborch ; as will emerge from this reconstruction, his arguments belong for the most part to the Scholastic tradition apart from one, the most convincing in his opinion, which is inspired by the new concept of an infinite, absolute space proper to Newtonian physics.