Tocqueville On Liberty Analysis

Create a discussion on the ways in which Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is seen throughout John Stuart Mill’s work On Liberty. The prospective outcome is that On Liberty wil prove to present the fears of a conforming middle class which may have been instigated by Tocqueville’s survey of American democracy.

In class we discussed that Judaism is a monotheistic religion and, as such, the idea of the holy trinity causes a serious problem. Contrary to this, Christian life is upheld by such an idea. The idea that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost operate independently from each other yet for the same purpose is what is found here. The Holy Spirit, in Christian life, is held in the sacraments. Spirit, thus, is central to Christian life because it is felt by the faithful, it is a way in which you can personally experience God.

Spirit is spoken of in a variety of ways in itself, which in itself raises other questions about how the trinity can be a single entity yet consist of three different persons which can each be described as something varying.

How, then, is it possible to refer to God as three separate entities but still be unified in the same breath? The immergence of the doctrine of the Trinity was a development within the movement of Christianity rather than a sudden occurrence.

God as a single entity had been thoroughly debated in the ancient world. Gnostic critics had argued that the God who created, and the God who redeems are two separate beings. Accordingly; “Marcion of Sinope argued that the Old Testament God was merely a creator God, and totally different from the redeemer God of the New Testament.” Because of this argument, Christians were supposed to shun the Old Testament and instead follow solely the New Testament, and the “redeemer God” contained

therein.
This is one point which I found difficult to understand within this chapter. It wasn’t difficult in terms of the actual concept being explained but rather in the attempt to comprehend that it would be possible to convince people that the God of the Old and New Testaments are not the same simply because they perform different tasks. According to Christianity; God is omnipotent, thus he should be able to fill both roles easily and without being doubted. If God was not able to create, as he is the redeemer God, then that would imply that there is something that God can’t do, which clearly goes against the rest of Christian thought.
It is necessary to talk of the doctrine of the Trinity when speaking of Christianity because it explains so many things about Christian religions which wouldn’t make much sense without it. Without the existence of the Holy Spirit as an entity, how else would you explain being overcome with something similar to the Holy Spirit? The event would be almost impossible to explain as nothing like the Holy Spirit existed prior (at least not keeping with Christian doctrine). Without the existence of this entity human language would never be able to express, adequately, the divine reality which is to be filled with the Spirit of God.
As God is complicated to begin with, it is logical that the different ways in which we speak of him are just as complicated, varied, and ever-changing much as the rest of Christian doctrine is constantly being reinterpreted. The ways in which we speak of the trinity are different than the ways which we speak to the trinity and these are both very different to the way which we visualize the trinity, showing again that human conception cannot reach the divine realities.