John Locke (1632-1704)

Major works

•          Essay Concerning Human Understanding

•          Reasonableness of Christianity

Importance

•          English philosopher and early modern empiricist

•          Believed human mind is a tabula rasa (“blank slate”)

•          The two foundations of knowledge are sense-experience and self-reflection

•          Discarded Descartes’ Platonic concept of “innate ideas”

•          Reason is the final criterion in ascertaining the truth of the Bible

•          Believed the essence of Christianity is the acknowledgment of Christ as the Messiah

•          Held that Christianity was reasonable and argued for God’s existence

•          His ideas were a bridge to deism