"Enlightenment Philosophy"
— Philosophy of the Enlightenment
[German] Ernst Cassirer (Ernst Cassirer)
Gu Weiming Yang Guangzhong Zheng Chuxuan Translation
Shandong People's Publishing House ; 1988-1.
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·The text is over 15,200 words long, not summarized, it is too long.
·Bold words are the editors, which does not mean recognition, but is just worth paying attention.
·Catative: Yang Yuanping.
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Chapter 4 Section 2
The foundation of tolerance and natural religion
P149
Enlightenment philosophy repeatedly reiterates a general rule in various modifications: the most serious obstacle to exploring the truth is not our lack of knowledge. It is true that all our knowledge is compromised by such flaws, and with each step we take, we are painfully aware of the uncertainty and loopholes of this knowledge. But once we notice this obstacle, it is no real danger. Mistakes in science can be corrected by science itself in its internal development path; those fallacies that entangle us in science will be eradicated by science, as long as we allow science to go its own way freely. The deviation from truth, which has far-reaching influence, does not arise from a mere lack of knowledge, but because we distort the direction of knowledge. What is most worrying about is not so simple negation, but rather a misinterpretation of . Once we attempt to anticipate the goal that knowledge must achieve and establish this goal in advance before we start research, the real standards of knowledge will be tampered with. The most terrible enemy of knowledge is not doubt, but dogma; the power that causes knowledge to be fatally traumatized is not ignorance itself, but ignorance that claims to be truth and wants to pretend to be truth. Because the problem here is not fallacy but deceit; it is not an unintentional illusion, but a kind of self-deception of reason. The reason why reason falls into this self-deception and falls into its net and cannot extricate itself is entirely due to the fault of reason. The principle applies not only to knowledge, but also to faith. The true basic opposite of faith is not disbelief, but superstition; because superstition erodes the true foundation of religion and makes religion dry up and dry up from the source of its origin. Therefore, superstition is the common enemy of knowledge and faith, and opposing superstition is their primary and most urgent task. They can and should unite to accomplish this task, and on the basis of this union, an agreement can be reached between knowledge and faith, and the boundaries between the two can be determined.
Pell [1] is the first thinker who wholeheartedly supports this truth. His "Historical Critical Dictionary" laid the foundation for all subsequent attempts to defend and realize this truth. (p150) His skepticism originated from this insight, and it is precisely because of this insight that his skepticism has achieved fruitful results and showed particularly eye-catching positive significance. " I don't know why we cannot say that the obstacles that prevent us from correctly examining things are not so much a lack of knowledge in the mind, but rather a full of prejudice. " This statement, seen in the "Historical Criticism Dictionary", can be regarded as a proverb in the entire work of Peer. He does not want to disturb the content of his faith and strives to avoid any clear criticism of it. But he fiercely attacked the view that any means of , as long as they are beneficial to faith, as long as they help achieve the main goal of maintaining Christian doctrine in any sense, then, even if they confuse truth with strange thoughts, insightful opinions with partial truth, reason and desire, is legitimate and useful. But in this way, the content of faith is not only not saved, but is destroyed, because faith can only survive by faith. In Peer's view, the main sin that should be attacked is not atheism but superstitious . This criterion of Peer foreshadows the main arguments of the French encyclopedia's religious critique. Diderot often resorts to Peer. He said in the entry " Pilangism " in "French Encyclopedia" that in terms of reasoning, Peer is unprecedented in the art of . Although he just raised doubts, he always moved forward in an orderly manner; every entry in his dictionary is like a living polyps , which splits itself into other polyps, which are all living and can produce each other. Similarly, Diderot often repeats the following statement: Compared with atheism, superstition is a more serious misunderstanding and worse insult to God; prejudice is farther from the truth than ignorance. ① To grasp the meaning and essence of this statement, we must remember the methodology on which it depends and the premise of epistemology . These premises can be clearly seen in the rational theory foundation laid by Descartes . Descartes imagines that a person's understanding is deceived by many kinds of things, but if it allows himself to be deceived from the path of truth by these deceptions, it is his own fault. Because the root of being deceived lies in the senses or imagination, and fallacy means mistakes in judgment. Judgment is a free act of reason, and reason must be independently responsible for this act.
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① Diderot: "Letters of the Blind"; you can also refer to his "Collection of Philosophical Thoughts" Section 12.
(p151) The rational intelligence makes a decision for itself: does it want to follow sensory impulses or surrender to imagination, or reject these two approaches? It can and should retain its own decisions if the available materials are not enough to truly form judgments and achieve perfect certainty. Only when reason makes decisions too early and when it allows itself to make judgments on the premise that it is not necessary at hand, will it become a victim of fallacy and uncertainty. The problem now is not a simple mental defect, but a fault of will. 's task is to guide the path of cognition; this functional ① has the power to prevent knowledge from going astray because it puts forward such a universal and unshakable requirement to cognition: unless it is based on a clear and clear concept, it will never make judgments. Enlightenment philosophy adopted this principle of Descartes, which led Enlightenment to a criterion, which Kant regards this criterion as the true nature of in the Enlightenment era . " Enlightenment is the liberation of a person from his own custody. The so-called guardianship means that a person cannot use his own sensibility if he does not have the guidance of others. A kind of guardianship, if the reason is not the weakness of his understanding, but the fact that a person is indecisive and lacks courage when using reason, it is the guardianship of his own sensibility. 'Dare to know' (sapere aude)! Use your own sensibility bravely; this is the motto of the Enlightenment. "② The different attitudes and evaluations of the individual conditions that cause fallacies can be explained by this motto. Not every mistake recognized means failure, because those that only indicate our limitations are inevitable and inevitable. Since God has added some absolute limitations to a creature, how can he insist on being responsible for staying within the limitations of his own designated ? We are not responsible for such limitations of our understanding; on the contrary, it is no different to go crazy to go beyond our limitations and to take the liberty of making dogmatic judgments about the universe and its origins. Therefore, doubt is not true disbelief; rather, doubt is a humility that shows reservations and the simple and uprightness of knowledge. Unbelief manifests itself as superficial certainty, which only tolerate one's own opinions and not all other opinions.
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① The "this function" here refers to the will. —Translator
②Kant: "Answer to the Question of What is the Enlightenment", published in Cassille: "The Complete Works of Kant", Volume 4, page 169.
(p152) On the issue of God, the loopholes in our understanding and the flaws in our thoughts themselves are irrelevant in the ethical and religious sense. Diderot said: "The Creator of nature will neither reward me for being a smart man nor punish me for being a fool." ① What is important and can be judged by ethical standards is blindly believing in , which deliberately rejects all inquiry and opposes all inquiry. Such beliefs not only limit the content of knowledge, but also negate the essence, form and principle of knowledge.
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① Diderot: "Section of Philosophical Thoughts, Section 11", see "Selected Works of Diderot" page 37.
P152
Therefore it is obvious that if the tolerance requirement proposed by Enlightenment philosophy is only given a purely negative explanation, this requirement is completely misunderstood. Tolerance can mean anything, but it does not mean that it advocates carelessness and insensitiveness of basic issues of religion. Only among individual unimportant thinkers do we find a defense that is often cold tolerant. However, throughout, the dominant tendency is the opposite tendency; 's principle of freedom of belief and freedom of conscience is a manifestation of a new and positive religious force, a unique feature of the Enlightenment . This principle embodies a new religious consciousness that has defended itself clearly and confidently since the beginning of the Enlightenment. This new religious consciousness can indeed be the result of a complete reform of religious purposes and religious sentiment. This decisive transformation occurred at a moment when a pure religious temperament replaced the accidental religious factor that was the cause of religious debates for centuries before. From then on, the question is not whether religion should be accepted, but that religion should be created with actions and make action a characteristic of religion. People should not be simply dominated by the strange power of religion, overwhelmed by it, but should in turn influence and shape religion from within religion. The creation of religious belief is neither supernatural power nor divine grace; man must rise to religious belief and maintain this belief by himself. All the conclusions drawn from this theoretical principle in the Enlightenment Age, and all the specific and practical requirements put forward by the Intrinsic Necessity of .
(p153) So there was a result that those who had traditional views on the Enlightenment would definitely find it very strange at first glance. If there is any formula that can express the characteristics of the Enlightenment Age and can undoubtedly be attributed to the Enlightenment Age, then it seems that it can be said that the Enlightenment Age is an era of pure rationalism, an era that unconditionally supports the superiority of thought and pure theory. However, the formation and development of religious ideals in the Enlightenment era did not confirm this view. The dominant tendency in this process is obviously the opposite; because no matter how great the Enlightenment made it to discover a kind of "religion within the scope of pure rationality", on the other hand, it tries to liberate religion from the rule of enlightenment. This is precisely the Enlightenment's consistent accusation of the dogmatic theological system it opposes, which means that it accuses the dogmatic theological system of not understanding the key points of religious certainty, because the latter believes that so-called faith is simply accepting certain theoretical propositions and attempting to force faith not to exceed the scope of these propositions. However, this limitation is neither possible nor necessary, because it will turn religion into pure opinions, thus depriving religion of its true moral and practical power. As long as this power is active and pure, all differences in religious views and concepts are irrelevant. Never see these views and concepts as anything else, but only as external packaging of religious certainty. These packaging can vary greatly, but we don’t need to be desperate about the unity of religion because of this. Because this diversity is really just the diversity of sensory symbols, not the difference in the—although inevitably inadequate—of the super-sensory content that seeks to express in these symbols.In this way, the Enlightenment resurrected the principle that Nikola systematically explained three centuries ago. This principle of flatly declares . Despite the huge differences in religious rituals, despite various debates about religious views and opinions, religion is still the same. But the Enlightenment's vision is broader than that of the Renaissance movement, and the Enlightenment's efforts to inclusive religious phenomena under this principle are greater than that of the Renaissance. In fact, in , Kusa's book "On Peace of Faith" , those who participate in the debate on what is true religion are no longer limited to Christians, Jews and Islams; in the pagan world, the Tatars and Scythians, they also claim that they have true knowledge of God.
(p154) However, in the 18th century, the Eastern nations attracted particular attention, and they also asked people to recognize their religious beliefs equally①. Leibniz once called on people to pay attention to Chinese civilization; Wolf in a speech on China's wisdom praised Confucius , praised him as a prophet of pure morality and listed him after Christ . Voltai inherited this tendency and used it as its main evidence to prove that the core of religion and morality has little to do with certain special points of faith. Montesquieu compared the East and the West in " Persian Letters " , and the results of this comparison are not beneficial to the latter; the book uses a fair observation and criticism of Persian to reveal the truth: everything that Westerners regard as the most certain and sacred is full of arbitrary, inherited and accidental factors. The style created by Montesquieu in this work is often used by later generations to achieve the purpose of engaging in criticism and debate. The purpose of this controversial document is not to undermine the destructive critique; rather, it attempts to actively exploit destructive critiques. Contrary to the confinement of doctrine, this critical document from the 18th century strives for an all-encompassing freedom and a truly universal consciousness of God. Diderot expressed the basic attitude at that time most thoroughly in "The Book of Philosophical Thoughts" : "The people have expelled God from them; they confined him in a temple; the walls of the temple blocked their sight; he no longer exists outside. How stupid are you! Destroy these barriers that restrict your ideas; expand God; see him everywhere, or he does not exist at all. "②
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① Regarding the importance of Eastern thought to French culture in the 18th century, see Martino: "Oriental Thought in French Literature in Seventeenth and Eighth Century", Paris, 1906 edition.
② Diderot: "Collection of Philosophical Thoughts", see "Selected Works of Diderot", page 14.
P154
Here it is impossible to describe in detail the struggle of the Enlightenment century with its full intellectual and moral power to expand the concept of God. We can only limit ourselves to outlining the main tendencies and general aspects of this struggle. The 17th century has forged a weapon for this struggle; in this struggle, it was again Perre's "Historical Criticism" that became the true arsenal of the entire Enlightenment philosophy . In his works against Louis XIV abolishing Nantes Edict , Pele first put forward a special requirement, (p155), that is, to recognize the freedom of faith and freedom of conscience of Protestants. But the explanation and defense of this claim goes far beyond the scope of his direct mission; they become so sharp that they angered the Peer's allies and make Curio, a leader of a Protestant theologian, his mortal enemy. Because Peer explicitly stated that his defense of religious freedom was not intended to serve any particular belief, but to establish a universal, purely philosophical goal, and to clarify a principle that is equally effective and binding on all forms of belief. , in the view of Peer, according to the standards of moral rationality, in a purely theoretical sense, coercion is absurd and should be blamed; therefore, it seems that cannot defend the use of violence for religious purposes at any time.Because there cannot and must never be fundamental differences between morality and religion. If the two conflict, if the evidence in the Bible conflicts with the evidence of moral consciousness, this dispute should be resolved in a way that respects the absolute superiority of moral consciousness. For if we abolish this superiority, it is equivalent to abandoning any standard of religious truth; then we have no more standard to measure whether a so-called revelation is certain, nor any standard to distinguish between the real and deceptive elements in religion itself. Therefore, all literal interpretations of the Bible must be discarded if they command us to act against the primary principles of morality. It is these principles, rather than simply conveying literal meanings, but truly unchangeable principles that should be followed in interpreting. We should not abandon these principles for the sake of judging words—no matter how conclusive it is——" would rather abandon critical evidence and grammatical evidence than rational evidence." Therefore, all commentary of the Bible must follow the rule that any explanation, as long as it undermines the supreme and most certain moral code, suggests that people commit sin or defend sin is wrong. " Any literal meaning, if it contains the obligation of crime, is false. "① To the content of this rule, Enlightenment philosophy does not need to add anything. All it needs to do is unfold the logical conclusions contained therein to achieve its basic goals.
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①Pell: "Philosophical Review on the Forced Engagement of the Gospels", published in "Pell's Collection of Writings", Volume 2, 1727 edition, pages 367 and 374.
(p156) But to achieve this goal, of course, there is another thing to do, and Voltaire's contribution lies in it. He unearthed a treasure trove buried beneath the vast historical and theological knowledge in Peer's Dictionary of History. Perre's principle of ethical criticism of the Bible caused heated debate in the 17th century and was refuted by Protestants and Catholics. Voltaire made it a public wealth in the treasure house of knowledge of his time. 1763, Voltaire reviewed this struggle in "On Tolerance" , be sure it will win the final victory. Voltaire said that we are living in an era where rationality is increasingly becoming frequent visitors to the palaces of princes and citizens and merchants’ shops. This progress is irresistible; the fruits of reason will be fully ripe and will surely be fully ripe. Reverence for the past should never prevent us from picking these fruits. Because one fundamental law of the spiritual world is that it can exist and last until we recreate this world every day. " It seems that every era in the past has never existed. It must always start from the heights people have stood on it and from the heights that all nations have reached. " Only Voltaire can express this idea so concisely; it concentrates all the spiritual beliefs and tendencies of the Enlightenment on one point. Another prominent feature of Voltaire's "On Tolerance" is the serious, serious and impartial attitude he held when exploring his basic issues, which is rare in Voltaire's religious works. At that time, it was a completely specific purpose that was to say that the paper was written by him for the retrial of Jean Cara , so his writing style had an unusual solemnity and persuasion. He completely suppressed his humor of laughter and scolding, and spent more time on debate purposes than usual. 's personal temperament that often triggers Voltaire's scolding is rarely as powerful as in the book he wrote when he was old. The religious blind believers dare to call it dangerous fallacy and peculiar demands of tolerance, which Voltaire called "the privilege of reason" (l' apanage de la raison). Tolerance is not a special requirement of philosophy, but a manifestation of the principles of philosophy ; tolerance is the true essence of philosophy . It expresses the resonance between philosophy and religion.If today - this era of religious war can end, If Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, Greek Orthodox, Calvin , Anabaptists and Sozinis can get along like brothers, (p157) and serves social welfare in the same way, that is the greatest victory of philosophy. "Philosophy, only philosophy, the sisters of this religion, disarmed the superstitious hands, which have long been dyed red with blood; the human spirit awakened from intoxication is surprised by the various excessive behaviors that it has done under the influence of blind faithism. "①Indeed, there are still many fanatics and blind believers, but if we allow rational work, it will slowly but reliably heal this sin. It is " is gentle and kind; it teaches us to overcome and eliminate differences; it cultivates virtue and makes people obey comfortable rather than compulsory laws. "
P157
Now there is another situation where people increasingly feel that the standard of pure rationality is insufficient. The truth of religion cannot be determined by pure theoretical standards; we cannot ignore its moral effect and abstractly determine its effectiveness. Lessing [3]'s ring fable ( "The Wise Natan" ) foreshadows the view that the ultimate truth of religion cannot be explained by external proof, but can only be explained by inner belief. All proof, whether it is based on historical facts, logical premises and metaphysical premises, is insufficient; because after all, religion is only an activity that religion engages in, and the basic nature of religion can only be achieved through emotions and activities. This is the touchstone of all true religions . Diderot returns this basic argument to prove that natural religion is superior to Apocalypse religion. He argued that it was impossible to make a direct ruling on the arguments of various religions in history, because each religion declared itself absolutely superior to all other religions, thus dogmatically criticizing all other beliefs. Nevertheless, this purely negative attitude still has its limitations. Because while every religion implements a policy of excluding all other religions, no religion can and tries to completely deny its relationship with natural religions. Because natural religion is the homeland where all religions are attached, and it is the homeland where all religions must never be completely separated from. Therefore, if we ask all kinds of doctrines that will be willing to be under which religion and not give up on their supremacy, they will give a universal answer.
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① Voltaire: "On Tolerance Because of the Death of Jean Carra" Chapters 1 and 4, published in Volume 29 of "The Complete Works of Voltaire", pages 63 and 74 below.
(p158) They will at least admit that they rank under natural religion, although they will never admit that they are inferior to other doctrines; therefore, as long as the parties to the argument are not prejudiced and make purely philosophical judgments, the argument will be resolved. For these people, it is clear where to seek true universality and true eternity: " All things have a beginning and an end, on the contrary, all things have no beginning and no end. Judaism and Christianity have a beginning. In addition, except for natural religion, there is no beginning and we do not know the beginning of a religion in the world. Therefore, only natural religion will never end, and all other religions will eventually perish. " Jews and Christians, Islams and pagans are all pagans and church separatists for natural religions. Only natural religion can truly show that they are pure religions. Because the relationship between the truth of natural religion and the truth of apocalypse religion is like the evidence given to oneself and the evidence obtained from others, just like the relationship between the evidence that people feel directly in their hearts and the evidence taught by others. " In myself, I found the former evidence engraved by the hand of God; the latter evidence was written on parchment and marble by superstitious people. The former evidence was engraved on me, and I found it never changed; the latter evidence was outside me, different by country and terroir.The former unites civilized people and barbarians, Christians and pagans, philosophers and people, scholars and illiterate people, the elderly and children, and unites them; the latter alienates father and son, arms people against each other, and causes the wise to suffer hatred and persecution from the ignorant and blind believers. "If some people say that natural religion is the oldest religion and therefore the most imperfect religion, this refutation cannot stand the examination; because, isn't the oldest thing likely at the same time the most real thing, something that precedes all religions? Even if we agree that the standard for measuring a religion is to look at its development and perfection, the solution to the problem may not be conducive to any special revelation religion or its creed. Because how do we know that we have reached the end of this development process? If Moses can replace natural law , and Christ law can replace natural law, why isn't Christ law not replaced by another law that God has not yet revealed to man? ①
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① Diderot: On the Sufficiency of Natural Religion, verse 4, verse 18 and 25 below.
(p159) From these words in Diderot's "On the Sufficiency of Natural Religion," we can hear the foreword of Lessing . This sharp distinction made by Diderot's reason and historical evidence; he strongly emphasized that no matter how sound the evidence of facts can never reach the level of certainty necessary to make itself the basis for proving universal and inevitable truth, which reminds us of Lessing. Theology and metaphysics of the seventeenth century were deprived of their power by the above arguments by the proof of the existence of God in order to establish their own systems; the center of religious certainty was shifted to another point, It is neither possible to achieve this kind of proof nor depends on them.
P159
British deism, although its individual statements vary greatly, essentially show the same basic tendency. Deism was initially a strict rationalist system; it aimed to drive away the mystery, miracles and secrets in religion and shine on religion with the light of knowledge. The title of Tolland [4]'s book "Christianity is not mysterious" (1696) has appeared repeatedly in various works of the Deism movement. The philosophical significance of deism is mainly that it adheres to a new principle when systematically expounding its own problems. Because For the deism, the problem of faith content cannot be separated from the problem of faith form, and these two problems can only be solved together. Therefore, the problem lies not only in the truth content of individual doctrines, but in the religious certainty itself. Tolland believes that on this issue, he can ask for advice from Locke to introduce the basic concepts and basic principles of Locke epistemology into the religious problem. Because everything that applies to general religious knowledge must also be applicable to special religious knowledge. Locke has defined general cognitive activities as the understanding of consistency or inconsistency of ideas. From this, it can be seen that cognition according to its nature contains a relationship; each item of this relationship must first be given by our consciousness and clearly understood by our consciousness. Because there is no such understanding of the basic factors of relationships, relationships lose all their meaning. In Torrand's view, this methodological consideration puts forward a basic principle and a necessary limitation for the object of religious belief.
(p160) absolutely transcends these objects and should be prevented; because, if an object is not presented in a certain consciousness phenomenon for a certain reason, how can consciousness as the subject of cognition, belief and judgment be concentrated on this object? However, is absolutely irrational and beyond all human enlightenment, which cannot present in consciousness; therefore, for such irrational things, we cannot say what it is, nor can we be sure of what it is. If someone retorts that even if we do not know any attribute of something, we can be sure that it exists, then this rebuttal is not sound.Because, even if this view can be valid, what religious significance does it have to us? If faith does not want to become something completely empty and meaningless, its object must have some meaning, that is, faith must contain some factors that can be clearly understood. Therefore, if something is completely mysterious, it transcends all insights, and it must always be incompatible with knowledge and faith. " Someone is sure that something called Blictri exists in nature, and at the same time, he does not know what this Blictri is. Can this person properly estimate that he is smarter than his neighbors? " ① Tolland concluded from this: can only have mystery in the relative sense, but cannot have mystery in the absolute sense . What he mentioned in 's relative mystery refers to content that transcends a certain way of understanding, rather than content that transcends all possibilities of understanding . Whenever he talks about the word "mystery", Tolland always claims that it originally meant a doctrine that is not opposite to reason, but contains a known truth, but for some reason, it should not be revealed to some human beings. Therefore, the opposition between the so-called "revelation" concept and the concept of natural religion does not mean that the specific content of these two concepts is different. What distinguishes these two concepts is not what they express, but the content and way of this expression. Revelation is not the only basis of certainty; it is only a special way of conveying a certain truth, and the ultimate proof and confirmation of this truth must be sought in reason itself.
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①Rand: "Christianity is not mysterious", Commercial Press 1982 edition, page 73.
P161
Tindal's book "Christianity and Creation are the same as its longest"* (1730) also starts from this principle. He pointed out that there is no substantial difference between natural religion and revelation religion, and their differences are simply different from different ways of expression. The former is an internal manifestation of the will of an extremely intelligent and kind creature①, while the latter is an external manifestation of this will. To imagine such a creature, it must be freed from the limitations of all the same form of gods and humans. It would be an incomprehensible confinement to inhibit some of the nature and activities of such creatures, or to use them to serve the interests of a particular era and a special nation that is above all other nations. Because God is eternal and human nature itself is also one and unchangeable, revelation must sprinkle its light equally to all corners. If God is the image depicted by the doctrine of God’s grace selection, that is, if God will only enlighten part of humanity and leave another part in darkness, then God will not be God, and it can even be said that God will hide his nature in some way. Therefore, the most important criterion for measuring whether all revelations are pure is to see whether they are universal and whether they can transcend all limitations of time and place . Therefore, Christianity is true in its satisfaction of this basic condition. The reason why Christianity can exist is because it is not limited to any special time and place, because it has a long history with the world. There is no difference between natural law and Christian law in terms of content; the purpose of the latter is to reaffirm what the former has established. This "republished of the natural law of "② is especially understood by humans through human moral knowledge. Only such revelation is truly reliable revelation, which surpasses all other revelations in value and certainty. Tindal thus achieved a religious definition, which Kant later adopted in his book "Religion within the Scope of Pure Reason" . In Tindal's view, the so-called religion is to recognize that our obligations are God's commandments, to start from some universally valid and universally feasible norms, and then connect these norms with a divine creator and regard them as expressions of his will. can be seen from this that even in the development of British deism, the focus of has shifted from the realm of pure reason to the "field of practical reason": "moral" deism has replaced "constructed" deism.
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① The organism here refers to humans. One translator
② Here, "reprint of natural law" refers to the law of Christ. One translator
* "Christianity and Creation" [English] Matthew Tinger, Wuhan University Press; 2006. Editor's note
P162
The reason why British deism had an unusual impact on the entire spiritual life of the 18th century was mainly because it achieved this transition. If we only consider the pure theoretical content of British deism, it is impossible to understand why this influence has reached such a strong level. Because among the leaders of this movement, there are truly profound and truly original thinkers; and pure theoretical interpretations as the basis for deism to defend its own views are often problematic and specious. The attitude of deism, that is, its sincere pursuit of truth, the moral seriousness it holds in criticizing doctrines, is more influential than all its theoretical deductions. is its sincere pursuit of truth and its moral seriousness that is its true internal driving force. Pel, who lived at the beginning of the Deism movement, clearly saw this and predicted the victory of the Deism trend. In attacking the abolition of the Nantes rescuing order, Peer wrote: "Our time is full of free thinkers and deists. People are surprised. But from my perspective, I am amazed that there are no more people like this, because think about the disasters caused by religion in the world, and how it eliminates our virtues! For its temporary prosperity, it indulges all kinds of imaginable crimes: murder, robbery, exile and abduction, etc., and these crimes have successively produced countless other abominable acts, such as the preaching of goodness and blasphemy of the sacred, etc., so how can our virtues not disappear?" Deism originated from an internal criticism of the spirit of religious disputes in the past centuries; it expresses a deep desire for the " faith and peace " that the Renaissance movement had expected and promised but never achieved. Only through religious peace, not through religious wars can we see the truth and the nature of God : This is the general belief of the Deistic movement. Because as Peel said, God is too kind to be the creator of any harmful things like Revelation religion.
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①Pel: "Philosophical Review on the Powerful Initiatives in the Gospels", published in "Pel's Collection of Writings", Volume 2, page 366.
(p163) Various revelation religions themselves contain undestroyed seeds such as war, massacre and injustice. The continuous advancement of the Deism movement in Germany is also mainly due to this motivation. In the history of German thought in the 18th century, the growth of the Deist movement can be seen every 10 years. Various journals regularly publish the lives of British free thinkers and comments on their works. ①Indeed, the debate about natural religion and the relationship between reason and revelation has never been as sharp in Germany as it was in France. Because this argument faces a different enemy in Germany. What it opposes is no longer an attempt to suppress the Orthodox and religious ruling groups that use their own authority and self-proclaimed absolute power to suppress freedom of thought; on the contrary, the task of German deism is to perfect a religious system with a very different seed of new ideas. Leibniz Philosophy plays an ideological mediator in Germany, in which religious thought develops, and this mediator can tolerate and reconcile the principle of extreme opposition. The basic tendency of Leibniz's thought is the tendency to seek harmony, which is still full of vitality in German deism. There is no obvious difference between belief content and knowledge content, revelation and reason in Wolf's system. In Wolf's opinion, the requirements of both sides should be carefully balanced and accurately determined. Both Locke and Leibniz objected to the irrationality of the content of faith, but neither of them asserted that the content of faith can only be generated from reason, nor did they assert that there is no super-rational (supra-rational) factor in faith. Reason and revelation are still the original sources of knowledge; they should not be opposite to each other, but should complement each other; they can be assured that such cooperation will give religious truth a unified meaning. We should not make these two forces opposed to each other, but should combine them to achieve harmony between them. Similarly, the Wolf school still leaves a territory for such an Orthodox Church, which does not allow any change to the basic content of the Revelation faith, even if the form of their expression has gradually changed, even if they increasingly demand a method of proof of Revelation faith and increasingly emphasizes proof. This ideological tendency of the true German theological innovator, that is, the " old word, new meaning, " movement represented by Sinler, Sakh, Sbalding, Jerusalem and others, soon passed this stage.
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① Regarding the spread of deism in Germany, see Hertner: "History of the Eighteenth Century Works" Volume 3, page 264, below.
(p164) It not only uses reason to support or formally prove a certain belief issue that is also supported by other sources, but also tries to define such belief issues with reason. This school cleared out all the components of the doctrine that cannot be deduced from its definition, and tried to prove through the study of the history of doctrine that these components were later added to the original pure faith in a variety of different ways. In this way, the content of the revelation is greatly simplified, although the concept of revelation remains as it is for the time being. However, the concept of revelation is now only used to support and recognize the truths that reason can be understood and consistent with reason . Proof in a strict sense, that is, the proof of true syllogism, is now increasingly supplemented by empirical proofs, however, empirical proofs do not seek their own basis in special historical facts but in internal certainty. " My experience is my proof ," Jerusalem wrote; and the basic experience on which all religious proofs must be based is the peace of mind, which allows us to obtain greater happiness than reason as theoretical function. Because he regarded subjectivity as the true principle of all religious certainty, he criticized the authority of any apparent objective source, and it was only a step away to clearly abandoning this authority. Later, theological theory took this step; it summoned all faiths to the court of reason and declared that we no longer need to regard revelation as an independent knowledge. In this way, the basic requirements of deism find the way to enter theology and overcome all resistance. Sakh once claimed that revelation is a "teleoscope of reason". Without it, reason either cannot see the most important religious truths at all, or can only see them very vaguely. Remanu may argue that this analogy has its limitations. Because, just as in the field of perceptual knowledge, the perceptual organs can be tempered but cannot be spared, is useless without the help of natural vision, in the field of rational efforts, knowledge must always ultimately seek the natural power of the mind and be measured by it.
P164
In this way, deism overcomes all obstacles that lie on its own path. Despite all the powers being active, and despite the growing number of debate literature year after year, the final victory of deism seems inevitable. (p165) However, at this time, a new and unexpected force emerged from that could save the threatened Orthodox system. It is at this point that one of the mortal enemies of the Orthodox system became its ally. It is not theological doctrine, but the thorough philosophical skepticism that repels the deism attack and prevents it from moving forward. In Britain, Samir Klark re-established the truth of the entire Christianity with his keen logical insight, that is, deducing Christianity from the universally valid premise, thereby establishing its truth. or even Voltaire has to appreciate his ability; in "Philosophical Communication" , Voltaire describes Klark as an " authentic inference machine " (unevraie machine a raisonnements) ② that can complete the most difficult tasks. Voltaire has not withdrawn this judgment since then; in "Theory of Metaphysics" , he ranked Clarke and Locke as the first-class "reasoning artist". But all these efforts with strict logical proof do not seem to touch Deism, but instead expose the weaknesses of orthodox doctrine more clearly than before. Anthony Collins mockedly in defending free thought that no one had any doubts about it before Clarke set out to prove the existence of God. However, a radical enemy of all logical dogmatism and metaphysics can't do what logicians and metaphysical dogmatism succeeds in doing it. It was Hume who made Deism face a new problem, thus breaking the control of Deism's thoughts at that time . When establishing its own concept of natural religion, deism starts from the following premise: there is a human nature that is the same everywhere, which gives some basic theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge that it can absolutely trust. But where have we discovered such a human nature? Is it a fact given empirically, or is it a pure assumption? Isn’t the main weakness of Deism in its secretly trusting this assumption and elevating one as a dogma? Hume attacked the dogma. He neither opposed the rational theory of Deism nor its revelation theory, but only aimed at evaluating Deism with empirical standards and pure factual knowledge.
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①Lalker: "Proof of God's existence and attributes, London 1705-1706 edition.
②The 7th letter from Voltaire in "Philosophical Communication".
③ Collins: "On Free Thoughts Arising from the Rise of Liberal Thoughts", London, 1713 edition.
(p166) His evaluation proves that the entire grand building of Deism is just a mud-footed giant. Because Deism wants to establish the superficial "human nature" of natural religion is itself unreal, but a pure fiction. The human nature revealed to us by the experience is completely different from the entire constructive attempts of Deists. experience tells us that human nature is not a treasure house of basic truths and transcendental truths, but a bunch of dull and chaotic instincts; it is not a harmonious school, but a chaotic . The deeper we understand human nature and the more precise our description, the more its rationality and orderly appearance disappear. Hume even reached this conclusion on issues related to theoretical concepts. We usually believe that sufficient reason law is the principle of all theoretical knowledge, and we believe that this principle gives our entire general knowledge unity and inherent stability. However, if we analyze the concepts more thoroughly, this illusion will be dispelled. Because it is precisely the concept of causality that is said to make our knowledge stable is unfounded. has no direct evidence, nor has a priori meaning and necessity support it; it itself is just a product of the conceptual game, which are not linked by objective and rational principles, and their combination is only due to the role of imagination and obey the mechanical laws of imagination. This applies even more to our religious ideas. Once we trace their origins and examine their growth and development, their apparent objective content and sublime suddenly turn into pure illusions. We cannot find the original thinking content or the original ethical content. It neither meditates on the primary principle of existence and the foundation of the world order, nor is it fully focused on an existence of infinite wisdom and kindness. But people's initial insights about God are precisely derived from this contemplation, and are still supported and maintained by this contemplation. Pure philosophical considerations like have no influence on the masses. people are not born as philosophers. It is just a deceptive and illusory hope that they will become philosophers one day. people are not dominated by abstract reason, but succumb to the power of instinct and desire. Instinct and desire are not only the source of initial religious concepts and doctrines, but also the root of all religions.
(p167) Religious insights are not created and cultivated by thinking and moral will. What makes people accept faith and maintain faith is the two emotions of hope and fear. They are the true foundation of religion. Religion originates neither from logical nor ethical; it has only one kind of anthropological cause. It arises from fear of supernatural forces, from human desire to calm these forces and make them obey their will. Here is another game of desire and imagination that manipulates and guides our religious life. Superstition and fear of demons are the true roots of our view of God. We should not think that this conclusion can be refuted if we take the example of higher-level, purely "spiritual" religions far exceeding the early stages of religion with "primitive" view of God. Because this argument collapses as long as we examine the real empirical reality of religion rather than looking at the rationally transformed religion and disguised in idealism. empirical reality tells us that religion is always the same from the beginning to the end, from the most primitive stage to the highest stage. The basic psychological forces that play a leading role in the beginning of religion determine the further progress of religion and continue to affect the development of religion. Although superstitions vary widely and increasingly subtlely, its deepest essence never changes . If we bravely unveil the veil of words, abstract concepts and moral concepts that cover the "higher" religious face, we will find that religious forms are the same everywhere. " is because of the absurdity that I believe in " (credoquia absurdum). The motto of shows its ancient power everywhere. What else is more logically absurd than the doctrine of Jesus’ incarnation? What else is more ethically harmful to human society than the creed that enlightens religion? The difference between the "higher" religion and the "lower" religion is simply that in the "higher" religion, in addition to the two motivations of hope and fear, there is a third motivation at work; this motivation arises from the perfection of reason, but in a purely ethical sense, it is more of a regression than progress. It is the motive of flattery that makes people elevate their God to all the standards of earthly perfection and gives these Gods more and more sublime attributes. But if we look and examine human behavior more closely than human ideas, we will find that despite all these intellectual and moral improvements, all things are still the same as they were before.
(p168) The Christian God, whom the Calvinists imagined, is a complete tyrant, as cruel, vicious and domineering as any tyrant feared or favored by the worshippers of the primitive religion. It can be seen that the fear of demons is also the cause of a higher religious view. This fear has not been weakened because it hides itself and carefully conceals all the weaknesses that the primitive religion innocently showcases hypocritically from itself and from others①
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① Hume: "The Natural History of Religion" below Section 1.
P168
This is the "natural history of religion" that Hume described; He believed that he had overthrew natural religion once and for all, and had proved that natural religion is just a dream of all philosophy . It can be seen from this that it is philosophy itself that rescued the system of revelation religion from its most dangerous enemy . But Hume's analysis with the sharp tool of analysis also caused fatal damage to the Orthodox system itself. Skepticism made the final judgment on both natural religion and revelation religion ." knows what a noble privilege of God is the reason of humanity; it can infer a principle as noble as the highest creator of nature from the visible works of nature! But please look at the back of this medal. Look at most nations and most eras. Looking at the religious principles that have been in fact so far in the world, you will only think that they are dreamers' whispers, and you can't believe that they are anything else... No matter how obvious theological fallacies are, they are often believed by the greatest and most educated people. No matter how powerful the religious precepts are, they will be adopted by the most greedy and indulgent people... This whole is a mystery, an incredible thing, The mystery that the clan cannot explain. Doubt, uncertainty and inability to judge seem to be the only result of our most rigorous examination of this subject. But human reason is so fragile and the spread of opinions is so irresistible that even this prudent doubt cannot be supported if we do not expand our horizons, use one superstition to oppose another, and make them argue endlessly; at the same time, we ourselves can avoid the rage and competition of various superstitions and live happily in the philosophical kingdom of darkness. "①
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①Hume: "Natural History of Religion" verse 15.
P169
Hume This ideological line that pursues its logical conclusion is not a typical feature of the 18th century. This century has believed in the power of reason so much that it has abandoned the power of reason on this crucial issue. 18th century did not want to surrender to doubts, but firmly demanded a clear and reliable decision. Hume's "The Natural History of Religion" has always been an isolated phenomenon in the history of Enlightenment's thoughts. Because people can go another possible path, it does not lead to a decisive break of reason and experience (this break exists in Hume's theory), but seems to be able to combine and reconcile the demands of both sides. People believe that abstract concepts of natural religion should be given to certain content to repel skepticism's attack on the concepts of natural religion. We can no longer allow natural religion to remain in a purely hypothetical position, but should prove that what the concept of natural religion seeks and maintains has its place in real religious life. We should not only seek the basis of this natural religious concept in reason, but also seek its basis in history. To accomplish this task - 18th-century thought seemed to be led to this task by an internal necessity, 18th-century thought found itself facing a general problem and used its own methodological tools to solve it with all its efforts. The general task of is: we must understand the relationship between religion and history; we must know how these two concepts restrict each other; and how specific religious reality originates from this relationship.
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Introduction to the relevant characters in the article: [Baidu Encyclopedia]
p149
[1] Biel Peer (Pierre Bayle, November 18, 1647-December 28, 1706), a pioneer of French bourgeois enlightenment thinkers in the 18th century, and the most influential skeptic in the second half of the 17th century. He initially opposed Catholic theology from a Protestant standpoint, and later developed into being skeptical of all religions, including Protestantism. His main works include: "Dictionary of Critical History" (1695-1697), "Letters on the Appearance of Comets in 1680", etc. Peer believes that human mind is limited, while the natural universe is infinite, and it is an unfathomable bottomless pit, so people only know phenomena but not things themselves. Using skepticism as a weapon, he criticized the 17th-century speculation metaphysics for religious theology, mainly criticizing Leibniz's views on "theistic theory" and "pre-determination harmony". Peel was not an atheist, but his theory provided ideological preparation for the French Enlightenment.
p153
[2] Nicholas of Cusa, born in Moselle from 1401 to 11 April 1464, graduated from Heidelberg University on April 11, 1464. He is a German Catholic cardinal, the greatest mystical thinker, jurist, astronomer, experimental scientist, philosopher, mathematician, optician, classicist, physician and inventor of myopic glasses (1451). In terms of religion, Nicholas holds a pantheistic belief and once wrote an article to explain the "Trinity" of Christianity, namely the three persons of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and one ontology. -p153
p157
[3]LessingGothold Ephraim Lessing (1729.01.22~1781.02.15), a German, born in Saxony, Germany, graduated from the University of Leipzig, and is a playwright, aesthetician, and literary critic during the Enlightenment period of the German Enlightenment. Born in Kamenz, in the Lausitz region, his father was a pastor. In 1746, he entered the University of Leipzig to study theology. In the same year, he wrote his debut work in the comedy "Young Scholar". Before 1760, he was engaged in editing and writing work, and was the chief editor of the literary supplement of the "Berlin Charter" and so on. He created Miss Sarah Samson (1755) and translated Mr. Diderot's Drama (1760).
p159
[4] Toland Toland John, born in 1670, died in 1722. Irish philosopher. Deists. He was a Catholic in his early years and later converted to Protestantism at the age of 16. He taught at Oxford University. The author of "Christianity Is Not Mystery" points out that human reason can fully understand certain biblical doctrines without the need for apocalypse. Criticize miracles, revelation and traditional doctrines. This book caused him to be prosecuted by the church authorities. The Biography of Milton, published in 1698, raised doubts about the authenticity of the New Testament, and the "Illusion of the Pantheist" published in 1720 further proposed that God is the reason and spirit of the universe, and preaches a new religion that worships truth, freedom and health. Tolland is known as the father of pantheism.
Directory
Order …1
Chapter 1 The Spirit of the Enlightenment Age …1
Chapter 2 Nature and Natural Science …34
Chapter 3 Psychology and Knowledge On …86
Chapter 4 Religion …124
Section 1 The doctrine of original sin and theories of theories…126
Section 2 The foundation of tolerance and natural religion…149
Section 3 Religion and history…169
Chapter 5 Conquer the historical field …183
Chapter 6 Law, state and Social …216
Section 1 The principle of law and non-transferable rights…216
Section 2 Methods of contract and social science…234
Chapter 7 Basic issues of aesthetics …256
Section 1 “The era of criticism”…256
Section 2 Classical aesthetics and the objectivity of beauty…259
Section 3 Appreciation and subjective tendencies...278
Section 4 Intuitive aesthetics and genius issues...292
Section 5 Reason and imagination: Gottserd and Swiss critics...311
Section 6 The establishment of systemic aesthetics: Baumgarden...317
Author profile [Baidu Encyclopedia]
Ernst Cassirer, German philosopher. An important representative of the Neo-Kantian Marburg School. Born on July 28, 1874 in a Jewish family in Breslau, Silesia, and died in New York on April 13, 1945. He studied at the universities of Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, Heidelberg and Marburg, and received his Ph.D. in 1899. He has taught at the University of Hamburg, Oxford and Gothenburg. In 1941, he went to the United States and served as a lecturer at Yale and Columbia University. Kassiller inherited and developed the neo-Kantism of the Marburg School, extended the application scope of I. Kant's prior principles to various fields such as language, religion, mythology, art and science, and tried to explain his views through abstract analysis of various symbolic forms. But the symbols he mentioned, just like the concepts and categories mentioned by Kant, do not reflect the objective world, but construct the objective world.He has written "Philosophy of Symbolic Forms", "The Problem of Knowledge: Philosophy, Science, and History since Hegel", "Substance and Function", "An Essay on Man", etc.
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or above is for reference only, thank you!
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Now that you know God, you can be said to be known by God, why do you have to return to that cowardly and useless primary school and be willing to be a slave to him? (Galatians 4:9 Combination)
But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? (Galatians 4:9 NIV)
IN CHRIST
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