dizzy, and that evokes in me the corresponding belief that I am feeling dizzy; and so
forth. Reason and experience evoke in us what we in the twentieth century have called
“immediate” or “basic” beliefs—in contrast to mediate beliefs, which are those formed in
us on the basis of other beliefs.
It is crucial to realize that “reason” is being used ambiguously in the above discussion: as
the name for the faculty of rational intuition, whereby we come to believe necessary
truths immediately, and as the name for the faculty of reasoning from premises to
conclusions, whereby we come to believe certain propositions mediately.
The points just made will prove useful later in our discussion; the immediate occasion for
making them, however, was to clarify what it was that Locke wanted to say about
believing for reasons. It sounded as if it was his view that we ought never to believe
anything but for good reasons. That was not his view. We're all entitled to believe
immediately that 1 + 1 = 2; likewise, we're all entitled to believe immediately that we're
dizzy (when we are). About religious faith it definitely was his view, however, that it
“cannot be afforded to any thing, but upon good reason.” I have already mentioned that
the word “faith,” in Locke's traditional terminology, was used to stand for assent to
propositions of revealed religion. Locke's view as to the relevance of reasoning was the
same, however, for natural religion as for revealed religion: a person ought not to believe
propositions of natural religion except for good reasons.
Why so? If it's not true for beliefs in general that they must be formed (and held) for good
reason, why is that the case for religious beliefs? Why isn't it permissible to hold at least
some of these immediately?
Two considerations came together to drive Locke to his conclusion. In the first place,
neither reason nor experience gives us direct cognitive access to the facts corresponding
to our religious beliefs. Take the most fundamental of all beliefs in any theistic religion,
namely, that God exists. This is neither a necessary fact, self-evident to us, to which
rational intuition gives us access, nor, Locke
end p.252
claims, is it a fact to which introspective or perceptual experience gives us access. That is
one consideration.
We can get at the other consideration by asking why it's not acceptable to believe that
God exists by accepting what others tell one, or because one finds the conviction just
welling up within one. Both positions had their devotees in Locke's day, the former, in
the person of defenders of tradition, the latter, in the person of the so-called enthusiasts.
Well, says Locke, religion is a matter of maximal concernment, “concernment” being his
word. For everyone of us, there's nothing more important than getting our religious
beliefs right; our salvation depends on it. And if it's of maximal importance to us that we
get it right, then we have to do our best by way of the use and governance of our belief-
forming faculties—“to the best of [our] power,” as Locke puts it in the passage quoted.
And doing our best will consist of rationally grounding our religious beliefs in the
deliverances of reason and experience. For it is reason and experience, introspective and
perhaps perceptual—in contrast to tradition and beliefs that just well up in us—that give
us direct cognitive access to certain of the facts of reality. Starting from the deliverances
of reason and experience, we do the best job we can of drawing inferences.