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THE RELIGIOUS BELIEFS OF THE EDUCATED CLASSES IN PROTESTANT GERMANY...
themselves", not merely accept it. Otherwise, he claimed, man was no longer
the subject of his belief, but merely the recipient of someone elses belief. Ihis
Enlightened pathos of searching for truth harmonized well with Lessing’s high
esteem for intellectual and religious subjectivity.
This demand for unconditional recognition of human dignity and freedom
was a basic feature of the theological thinking and argumentation of Less¬
ing and his German contemporaries. In 1778, he still declared it his duty “to
examine with my own eyes, quid liquidum sit in causa christianorum”.’* The
credibility of faith of which Lessing repeatedly tried to convince himself was all
too often arrogantly and self-confidently thrust aside as a religious problem by
his orthodox contemporaries. Again and again, Lessing and others were forced
energetically to defend the principle of the dignity of the religious subject. In his
reply to his main orthodox adversary in the “Fragmentenstreit”, Johann Mel¬
chior Goeze (1717- 1786),’’ who objected that in Lessing’s interpretation the
“inner truth” of religion had atrophied into a merely subjective function, Less¬
ing explicitly defended the notion of having come of age in religious matters.
In the attribution of “inner goodness” and of “inner truth’, Lessing emphasized
the connection between subjective experience and the moral motive, orien¬
tated by the needs of human beings, which was recognized by contemporary
philosophy. This was a basic feature of the view according to which people had
come of age in religious matters as opposed to a theonomic view of reality.'®
Lessing’s declaration that he was an “enthusiast for theology, not a theo¬
logian”'? expressed the distance separating Lessing from the institutionalized
and official theology of his day. The distinction between “enthusiast for theol¬
ogy” and “theologian”, predicated upon the notion of thinking (experiencing)
for oneself, supported Lessing’s claim to individual religious beliefs, which
presupposed the freedom to make one’s own judgement. In declaring this, how¬
ever, Lessing threatened the officially sanctioned separation between private
opinion and spiritual authority in religious matters.”°
The formation of an Enlightened religious subjectivity was also a basic fea¬
ture of theological developments from the middle of the eighteenth century
1° Quoted from BARTH, Protestantische Theologie (note 3), 203.
17 Cf. REINITZER, Heimo -SPARn, Walter (eds.), “Verspätete Orthodoxie“. Über D. Johann Melchior
Goeze (1717-1786), Wiesbaden, Harrosowitz, 1989.; HÖHNE, Hans, Johann Melchior Goeze.
Stationen einer Streiterkarrriere. Münster, LIT, 2004.
18 Cf. LESSING, Anti.Goeze. Sechster, Schriften LM, Vol. 13, 178f.
1% Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, Axiomata I, in H. G. Göpfert (ed.), Lessings Werke, Theologische
Schriften III/ Philosophische Schriften, Vol. 8, München, Hanser, 1979, 130.
?° Ibid., 109. On the context, cf. BOLLACHER, Vernunft und Geschichte (note 7), 80ff, 94f.
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