Religion as Enlightenment - Notes on Religious and Christianity Understanding of John Locke (1632-1704)

The article reconstructs John Locke's conception of religion in his "Reasonableness of Christianity" (1695). In this text he grounds the function of supernatural revelation for genesis of common cognition, application und motivation of ethical and religious basic verities. Georg Raatz places this theory in line to his previous "Essay concerning human understanding" (1690). In historical regard Christianity, especially the person of Jesus, has three functions: 1st Message of a monotheistic conception of God, of moral sense and recompense. 2nd Accreditation of these messages' divineness via miracles. 3rd Ethical motivation through recompense's accreditation via Jesus' raisings from dead und his own resurrection. With this conception Locke initiates a historical development which leads to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's "Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts" and Immanuel Kant's "Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloaen Vernunft".