Until the recent discovery of a page of Isaac Newton's observations on John Locke's Paraphrase and Notes on St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, it was not known whether Newton had received or remarked upon Locke's work or, in turn, whether Locke had ever received Newton's comments. Since its discovery, however, it is possible to trace Locke's corrections and speculate on the extent and direction to which Newton may have influenced Locke. This article first establishes the theological relationship between Newton and Locke and, second, argues that Locke's revisions in light of Newton's suggestions reveal an anti-trinitarian spirit to his discussion. A previously unpublished transcription of Newton's manuscript fragment is also included.

Conventional wisdom describes Locke as an “optimist” about human nature; some scholars go further and say that he denied the Christian view that human beings are naturally sinful. But Locke's works, including the Two Treatises, clearly and firmly hold that human nature has a consistent tendency to desire selfishness and evil. Locke's view of the origin of human sinfulness is unorthodox – he dissents from the traditional doctrine of “original sin” – but on the question of whether human nature is in fact sinful his views are perfectly orthodox, and are in harmony with the Calvinism of the Church of England in his time. Understanding this is crucial to grasping the fundamental problem of the Two Treaties, which is the need to cope with humanity's selfishness. Locke argues that the persistent moral corruption of human nature is the primary reason government exists.

According to recent literature, the crisis of modernity owes much to an uncritical acceptance of the ‘Enlightenment metanarrative’. The Enlightenment, with its sanctification of reason, privileged technological progress and personal advancement and created the illusion that human potential and happiness was unlimited. All one had to do was to free oneself from superstition (for example, religion) and the world would be a better place. Modernity has, correspondingly, emphasized individual rights, personal power, and wealth. In spite of the promise of modernity, however, the wars, famines, poverty, and inequality of the modern world have made it all too obvious that the end result of the Enlightenment's goal to alleviate the miseries of the human condition applies only to a small portion of the population. In this respect, the contradiction between the universality of the Enlightenment project and its application to a minority of the population lies at the heart of many of the critiques of modernity.