Editing Separation of church and state (section)

===John Locke and the Enlightenment===
[[File:John Locke by Herman Verelst.jpg|thumb|right|[[John Locke]], English [[political]] [[philosopher]] argued for individual conscience, free from state control.]]
The concept of separating church and state is often credited to the writings of English philosopher [[John Locke]] (1632–1704).<ref name=AFP>Feldman, Noah (2005).  ''Divided by God''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pg. 29 ("It took [[John Locke]] to translate the demand for liberty of conscience into a systematic argument for distinguishing the realm of government from the realm of religion.")</ref> [[Roger Williams]] was first in his 1636 writing of "Soul Liberty" where he coined the term "liberty of conscience". Locke would expand on this. According to his principle of the [[social contract]], Locke argued that the government lacked authority in the realm of individual conscience, as this was something rational people could not cede to the government for it or others to control. For Locke, this created a natural right in the liberty of conscience, which he argued must therefore remain protected from any government authority. These views on religious tolerance and the importance of individual conscience, along with his social contract, became particularly influential in the American colonies and the drafting of the [[United States Constitution]].<ref>Feldman, Noah (2005). ''Divided by God''. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 29</ref>

In his ''[[A Letter Concerning Toleration]]'', in which Locke also defended religious toleration among different Christian sects, Locke argued that ecclesiastical authority had to be distinct from the authority of the state, or "the magistrate". Locke reasoned that, because a church was a voluntary community of members, its authority could not extend to matters of state. He writes:<ref>{{cite web |last1=Locke |first1=John |title=A Letter Concerning Toleration |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Letter_Concerning_Toleration |access-date=7 June 2021 |date=1689 |archive-date=13 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413105812/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Letter_Concerning_Toleration |url-status=live }}</ref>

{{Blockquote|It is not my business to inquire here into the original of the power or dignity of the clergy. This only I say, that, whencesoever their authority be sprung, since it is ecclesiastical, it ought to be confined within the bounds of the Church, nor can it in any manner be extended to civil affairs, because the Church itself is a thing absolutely separate and distinct from the commonwealth.}}

At the same period of the 17th century, [[Pierre Bayle]] and some [[Fideism|fideists]] were forerunners of the separation of Church and State, maintaining that faith was independent of reason.<ref name=Bayle11>{{cite book |last=Tinsley |first=Barbara Sher|title=Pierre Bayle's Reformation : conscience and criticism on the eve of the Enlightenment|year=2001|publisher=Susquehanna University Press |location=Selinsgrove, Pa. |isbn=1575910438}}</ref><ref name=Bayle22>{{cite book |last=Bayle |first=Pierre |year=2000 |orig-date=1st ed 1682 |title=Various Thoughts on Occasion of a Comet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UueopQAmgzUC&pg=PR23 |publisher=SUNY Press |page=332 |isbn=978-0791492734 |access-date=2016-08-14 |archive-date=2020-08-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820001204/https://books.google.com/books?id=UueopQAmgzUC&pg=PR23 |url-status=live }}</ref> During the 18th century, the ideas of Locke and Bayle, in particular the separation of Church and State, became more common, promoted by the philosophers of the [[Age of Enlightenment]]. [[Montesquieu]] already wrote in 1721 about religious tolerance and a degree of separation between religion and government.<ref name="DarienMcWhirter">{{cite book|last=McWhirter|first=Darien|title=Exploring the separation of church and state|year=1994|publisher=Oryx Press|location=Phoenix, Ariz.|isbn=978-0897748520|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/separationofchur00mcwh}}</ref> [[Voltaire]] defended some level of separation but ultimately subordinated the Church to the needs of the State<ref>{{cite book |last=Masters|first=Voltaire. Transl. by Brian|title=Treatise on tolerance [and other writings]|year=2000|publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press|location=Cambridge [u.a.]|isbn=978-0521649698}}</ref> while [[Denis Diderot]], for instance, was a partisan of a strict separation of Church and State, saying "''the distance between the throne and the altar can never be too great''".<ref>{{cite book |last=Mason |first=Denis Diderot. Ed. by John Hope |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LdUHUTTq_l8C&q=the+distance+between+the+throne+and+the+altar+can+never+be+too+great&pg=PA83 |title=Political writings |author2=Wokler, Robert |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2005 |isbn=0521369118 |edition=Reprint |location=Cambridge |page=225 |author-link2=Robert Wokler |access-date=2020-11-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210312045522/https://books.google.com/books?id=LdUHUTTq_l8C&q=the+distance+between+the+throne+and+the+altar+can+never+be+too+great&pg=PA83 |archive-date=2021-03-12 |url-status=live}}</ref>