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HANS ERICH BÖDEKER
Goethe closely followed the contemporary theological debate about original
sin. He rejected the doctrine “that by the fall human nature has been so cor¬
rupted to its innermost core, so that not the least good could be found in it, and
that therefore man must renounce all trust in his own powers.” ** The deliberate
suppression of man’s moral capacity seemed to him particularly pernicious, for
this impaired human autonomy and made man totally dependent on divine
arbitrariness, which Goethe rejected. His complete confidence in human nature
came through again in his rejection, based on a total misunderstanding, of
Kant’s image of “radical evil”. Goethe was offended by the fact, that as he saw
it, Kant in the end, “dirtied his clean philosopher’s mantle with the blemish of
‘radical evil’”.®°
“However different the other paths they followed — in their condemnation of
the pessimism based on the notion of sinfulness and their optimistic belief in
the capacity of human nature for development... all the spirits of the age, from
Goethe ... to Nicolai, from Herder to the simple village priest, were united.””°
Ultimately, the image of the sinner was replaced by that of a free and self-reliant
human being, created by God.
The Enlightenment’s firm condemnation of pessimism based on a notion
of sinfulness was the main prerequisite for its belief in the capacity of human
nature for development, and thus for the Enlightenment enthusiasm for ed¬
ucation. For Enlightened theologians and philosophers, for Johann Gottlieb
Töllner (1724-1774), Eberhard, Schleiermacher etc., rejecting the doctrine of
original sin meant that “original sin” became a pedagogical problem.”! “Behind
education”, Kant stated, “lies the immense secret of the perfection of human
nature. It is delightful to imagine that human nature will be better and better
developed by education and that it can be given a form that is appropriate to
humanity. This opens up a prospect of a happy humankind in future.”
Corresponding to the explicit emphasis on human dignity was the fact that
Enlightenment theology placed the traditional dogma of man as made in the
88 Cf. GOETHE, Dichtung und Wahrheit; Werke HA, vol. 10, 43f. This English translation is from
J. W. von Goethe, Poetry and Truth. From My Own Life, introduced and edited by Karl Breul,
revised transl. by Minna Steele Smith, vol. 2, 174.
89 GOETHE, Werke JubA, vol. 37, 288.
®° ANER, Theologie der Lessingzeit (note 3), 288.
1 Cf. TÖLLNER, Johann Gottlieb, Theologische Untersuchungen, Vol. 1, Part 2, Riga, Hartknoch,
1773, 56-105, 159-200.; SALZMANN, Johann Daniel, Kurze Abhandlungen über einige wichtige
Gegenstände aus der Religions- und Sittenlehre, facsimile reprint of the 1776 edn., with an
afterword by A. Fuchs, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1966; EBERHARD, Apologie (note 56), 282ff.
Kant cited in Johann Bernhard Basedow’s Ausgewählte Schriften, ed. by Hugo Göring, Langen¬
salza, Hermann Beyer & Söhne, 1889, II f.
92
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