Compare And Contrast Locke And Absolutism

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The late sixteen-hundreds were a time of absolute monarchies, budding representative governments, and revolution (the Revolution in 1688 in particular). The people of this time, of course, had opinions about the ways things should be done and what kind of government should, and could, really work for the people. Even the idea of the government being a system that ultimately should work for the benefit of the people was a point of conflict in some circles. Two examples of men with strong opinions about absolutism were Bishop Jaques-Bénigne Bossuet, Louis XIV’s court preacher and tutor to Louis XIV’s son, and John Locke, arguably the most prominent English philosopher in his day. While Bossuet and Locke differed greatly in their views of what …show more content…

This is not to say that Locke did not defend his opinion with religion, because he did, but he was more logistical than Bossuet was on this particular matter. John Locke wrote his second Treatise of Civil Government in the year 1690 which advocated a smaller government ruled by the people and for the people. He believed that the governed should be the focal point in government, and without them as such the government cannot feasibly function. This is why one of the points he made was that in an absolute government where the monarchy has all the power, it is logically improbable that there will be any way that the people are capable of making just appeals, and that indeed, there will not even be impartial judges if the king is the sole judge. He called the idea of absolutism uncivilized, based on his stance that we are born with the right to unbridled freedom, which in his opinion would have been a redundant statement, because as Locke expressed, bridle the people (from governing themselves) and they cannot be free by definition! He made himself clear: men are equal, so even though Bossuet defended his ideas with the Bible, to John Locke, Bossuet’s ideas were unbiblical, because an absolutist government favors the king above all men, and “God is no respecter of persons,” (Acts

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