John Locke. Adversaria Theologica 94

Abstract

The following is the Russian translation of several notes put down by John Locke after 1694 in his notebook named “Adversaria Theologica 94”. These notes allow a clearer view of the evolution of Locke’s theological standing and make more certain his design to write a treatise on soteriology containing polemics with John Biddle and Jean Calvin. More positive ideas are rooted in Locke’s mortalism and his Biblical hermeneutics. The concept of mortalism, sometimes named materialism in XVII century, presupposes that death takes the whole man, not only his body, and consequently the whole man is what to be raised, though in a changed state. Locke also introduces a new mode of argumentation relying on paraphrasing the texts of the Bible, primarily Epistles of St. Paul, and revealing the original sense of fundamental Biblical as well as philosophical notions. Locke suggests that matter is disposed to receive from God, if that be His wish, the faculties of perception and understanding or a substance with such faculties. This notion of disposition is also used in discussion of tabula rasa and ideas as primary matter of understanding after the Fall, and of restoration of Man to the state of ante lapsum.