Introduction
One thing that has interested me throughout the semester is the view that is taken on religion during the Enlightenment. Coming into this course I think a lot of us saw the role of religion as minimal during the Enlightenment, and the role of Enlightenment thinkers as one of trying to take down religion. But just by looking at the world today, the fact is that the Enlightenment did not eradicate religion. Not only does religion still exist today, but it continues to exist as a force many use for hatred, much like it did in the periods leading up to the Enlightenment. However, during the course of this semester, it’s become clearer and clearer that the Enlightenment was not an attempt to destroy religion in all its forms. Rather, with the increased importance placed on reason and its use, the Enlightenment served as an attempt to improve religion, something present in many of the thinkers of the period, including Benjamin Franklin.
Against Religion as It Existed
Something important which makes it appear as though the Enlightenment was an anti-religion movement is the criticism religion comes under at the time and the flaws that are found within it. Many of the attempts to reform religion during the Enlightenment consisted of arguments which pulled out the problems existing within contemporary religious institutions. It is important, however, not to confuse every knock on religion as a call to dismantle it completely. The only way to reform anything is to identify its flaws and try to fix them. As Isaac Kramnick points out in his introduction to The Portable Enlightenment Thinker, “Everything, including political and religious authority, must be subject to a critique of reason if it were to commend itself to the respect of humanity” (xi). The rise of reason therefore did not constitute the need to get rid of religion entirely. It served as an aid to challenge the religious views of the day and to amend them so that they better fit the needs of the people and were more in line with reason. That is not to say that every Enlightenment thinker was in full support of religion in any form. But a good number of thinkers in the Enlightenment were still religious or spiritual in some sense, even if they did not submit to the views of their time. Kramnick goes on in his introduction to argue that “Central to the Enlightenment agenda was the assault on religious superstition and its replacement by a rational religion” (xii). The importance there is that, as Kramnick sees it, the problem was not with the existence of religion as a whole, but rather as it existed. The Enlightenment served to challenge the superstitious religious traditions that had existed for centuries before and make religion more rational. As Brett Kaup states in his blog post “More Than a History of Mediation”, the readings we encountered over the course of the semester show the Enlightenment to be “more about defying the common day conceptions of religion and other ingrained beliefs” and people becoming “‘more than machines’”. To me, this captures the Enlightenment’s relationship with religion. It was the job of reason and those who employed it to challenge the ideas of the day and to help people become, as Kaup states, more than machines. And during this period, there were a lot of reasons for religion to come under fire. One problem with religion at this time was the power of organized religion over its adherents. In his post “Paine’s Reasonable Revelation”, Alex Tapper uses Paine to point out the fact that organized religion did not allow people to think for themselves. Indeed, Paine’s argument is hard to ignore. The revelation that the Church claimed (and still does), is only revelation to the one who receives it. After this, it is merely hearsay. Yet members of the Church are forced to believe it without questioning. Paine is right to challenge this, and, as Tapper says, to posit that anyone can free themselves from this point of view through the use of reason and therefore think freely. Religion during the Enlightenment also came under attack because of its effects of politics of the time. One of the main sources of this criticism is Rousseau, who argues that Christianity had actually caused the death of ancient liberty and republican freedom and goes so far as to say “‘I am mistaken when I speak of a Christian republic; those two words are mutually exclusive’” (Melzer 345). Of course, Rousseau, a Protestant in Catholic France, had reason to be against the Church and the way religion ruled during his day. The problem of religious tolerance during the Enlightenment rose in many countries. Rousseau says that the emphasis put on doctrine causes intolerance, leading men not only to fight outsiders, but to fight their fellow countrymen (Melzer 346). The effects of religious intolerance can also be seen in the writings of Englishman John Locke. In his “A Letter Concerning Toleration”, Locke argues for the toleration of any religion that does no harm to anyone else, stating that it is not the government’s job “to forbid the preaching or professing of any speculative opinions in any church” (88). One more example of this critique of religion stems from the religious fanaticism of the time. Though people had gone to extremes for their religion before, the Enlightenment called into question this fanatic devotion to the “holy”. As Vann Bentley outlines in his post “Voltaire’s Fanaticism in 2011”, Voltaire, one of the French thinkers of the Enlightenment speaks to the danger of severe indoctrination. Voltaire calls to question fanaticism, equating it to the delirium of a fever and calling religion poison to an already infected mind. But these writers are not calling for the destruction of religion; rather they’re critiquing it in the forms that it exists and calling for the freedom that their religions do not allow equally to all citizens of their countries.
Role in (and after) the Enlightenment
Above were many examples of how religion was attacked in the Enlightenment. However, as I stated before, this attack was not an attempt to destroy the system completely, but to improve it. As Tapper explains in his blog post, “Paine still believes in God, but he calls his church his own mind, and he experiences God not in scripture that any man could have written”. Another thinker who embodies this idea is Pierre Bayle in his “On Superstition and Balance”. As he states in his opening, “it is pure illusion to claim that a notion that has passed from one century to the next, from generation to generation, cannot be entirely false” (75). Bayle goes on to say that the problem is that no one thinks to challenge what is held to be absolute truth, and so many aspects of religion have gone unchallenged. However, as we’ve learned this semester, the Enlightenment was all about challenging the established norms of society. Bayle does so as he continues his argument. He brings to light the paradoxical state of Christianity:
“It is therefore true that the spirit of our holy religion does not make us warlike: and yet there are no more warlike nations on the face of the earth than those which make a profession of Christianity” (78).
Yet Bayle does not stop at merely criticizing religion. He does not call for a departure of religion from society. He goes further, calling for change:
“It is enough that every man consult sincerely and in good faith the light that God gives him and seize accordingly upon the idea that seems to him the most reasonable and the most conformable to God’s will. In this way he is a true believer in respect to God…” (80).
Bayle, much like other writers of the times, criticizes religion not as a whole, but as it exists. He challenges the institution of religion, yet asks of people to continue believing in and following the Christian God. This call to religion can also be seen in Rousseau’s work. Despite being one of the harshest critics of Christianity during the Enlightenment, Rousseau also called for its reform. In fact, Rousseau went as far as to criticize the Enlightenment despite not being in support of the Church. Rousseau argues that in trying to fight against the Church, many philosophers copied it (Melzer 351). Therefore Rousseau argues against these philosophers (the Party of Reason) in the same way he argues against the Church. However, rather than abandon both religion and philosophy altogether, Rousseau tries to improve them. He uses the original spirit of the Enlightenment, the use of reason, to offer a reformed version of Christianity. He argues against the institutionalized religion that was forced down the citizens’ throats, and instead puts an emphasis on what one truly believes in his “Profession of Faith” (Melzer 352). Rousseau proposes that instead of being reliant on what one is told all people should constantly question what they hear and if they truly believe it. Furthermore, in the “Profession of Faith”, the Vicar (who gives the profession) brings back into focus on of the problems Enlightenment thinkers faced with religion: the relationship between the Church and state. As Rousseau’s Vicar states, “‘there can no longer and can never again be an exclusive national religion’” (Melzer 356). Unfortunately for Rousseau, this still does not solve the problem of the death of the liberty he felt existed before Christianity’s triumph in the Roman Empire. However, it does demonstrate that for many Enlightenment thinkers, reforming religion and increasing tolerance was much more so than destroying religion as a whole. Rousseau’s “Profession of Faith” is therefore important in that it takes power from the Church while still promoting religion (Mezler 357). The Enlightenment was not an attempt to destroy all forms of reasons, as can be seen with one of its most famous thinkers, Benjamin Franklin.
Ben Franklin
The fact that the Enlightenment was not an attempt to banish religion from human civilization can be seen especially strong in Benjamin Franklin’s own thoughts. Over the course of the semester we have been immersed in Franklin’s work, and through it we have seen Franklin’s own emphasis on religion. As Hannah Fasick (BF’sMainSqueeze) shows in her blog post “Private Franklin”, Benjamin Franklin’s view on religion was very similar to that of many other Enlightenment thinkers. He regrets that organized religion and the beliefs it imparts upon its adherents has become a detriment, yet he supports the belief in God nonetheless:
“…he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we render to him is doing good to his children…the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes.” (Fasick)
Franklin, like many of his contemporaries, did not call for the destruction of religion. Rather, he questioned the usefulness of organized religion and the Church. This can further be seen by the fact that Franklin, as Fasick demonstrates, supported a number of denominations so long as they tried to “impart good”. This once more demonstrates the importance the Enlightenment had as an attempt to reform religion. Franklin did not stress the difference in denomination like the Church did. He merely supported what he thought was right and good. He supported the enrichment of man, an Enlightenment goal, and he believed religion could be a part of that enrichment. This can be seen also in the virtues he outlines in Part III of his autobiography. As Jonathan Braun states in his post “Why Does Virtue Need Religion?” when Franklin formulated the idea of a Party of Virtue, he made belief in God a requirement to joining the party. Braun’s post makes an interesting point of the fact that Franklin, a man who was against religious indoctrination (also described in Fasick’s post), made belief in God a requirement for the Party of Virtue. And while it does raise the question of why, it nonetheless shows that Franklin still held religion to some value, even if his writings showed a dislike for the religious institutions that existed in his day. Franklin was no different from many other Enlightenment thinkers. He did not call for the complete abolishment of religion and the following of reason in its place, but rather tried to use reason to improve religion in a way that served the people.
Conclusion
It remains interesting me to see the role religion played in the Enlightenment. Through the course readings we have had over the semester, it is impossible for me to say religion was not attacked, but it is also impossible to say that all thinkers tried to destroy it. Bayle, Rousseau, Locke, and Franklin are examples of the Enlightenment’s attempt to reform the religion they still believed had some value. Perhaps this makes it even harder to look at religion’s role in the world today. As Bentley points out in “Voltaire’s Fanaticism in 2011”, the fanaticism Voltaire feared is alive and well today in all parts of the world. In addition, the frustration Braun shows in his “Why Does Need Religion?” is very understandable when one looks at the role religion has plays in politics, especially in the previous presidential election and as we get ready for the next one. Or perhaps we should take this as a sign that the Enlightenment is an ongoing process, as we discussed in class. Not everyone needs to follow a religious tradition, but those who do should continue to challenge those institutions rather than follow blindly.
Works Cited:
Bayle, Pierre. “On Superstition and Tolerance”. The Portable Enlightenment Reader, ed. Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin, 1995. 75-81.
Bentley, Vann. “Voltaire’s Fanaticism in 2011”. English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. N.p., 19 October 2011. Web 12 December 2011.
Braun, Jonathan. “Why Does Virtue Need Religion?” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. N.p., 17 November 2011. 13 December 2011.
Fasick, Hannah. “Private Franklin”. English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. N.p., 18 October 2011. Web 13 December 2011.
Kaup, Brett. “More Than a History of Mediation”. English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. N.p., 1 September 2011. Web 12 December 2011.
Kramnick, Isaac, ed. Introduction. The Portable Enlightenment Reader. By Kramnick. New York: Penguin, 1995. IX-XXII.
Locke, John. “A Letter Concerning Toleration”. The Portable Enlightenment Reader, ed. Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin, 1995. 81-90.
Melzer, Arthur M. “The Origin of the Counter-Enlightenment: Rousseau and the New Religion of Sincerity”. The American Political Science Review, 90:2 (1996). 344-360.
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