Oldal 114 [114]
HANS ERICH BÖDEKER
Godhead lay in the fact that even a divine man would always retain a merely
individual perfection.’
IV
This Enlightened criticism of dogma was the prerequisite for a new belief. The
self-confident protagonists of the Enlightenment aimed at a reasonable belief;
they were convinced that despite all differences, reason and revelation could
coexist in harmony. The congruence of faith and reason became a leitmotiv of
eighteenth-century theological and philosophical discussions.
Leibniz’s writings on religion had a double thrust: he integrated revealed
religion into his philosophical system, but only on condition that from now on
any biblical exegesis that went against reason was inadmissible.'!° This view was
later picked up by Christian Wolff (1679-1754): “...divine reason is the source of
all truth, and, because of its perfection, it cannot bring forth anything incon¬
sistently; thus what God is said to have revealed cannot go against the truth of
reason.” 7 He conceived of the relationship between reason and revelation as
complementary. The counter-rational objection founded on the notion of Gods
will and omnipotence was inadmissible, “because the reason for God being
willing to or able to do anything must also be rationally explicable.”!# In this
context Wolff made a comprehensive list of criteria for the truth of revelations,
and he drew up a system of natural or rational religion. He repeatedly drew
attention to suitability as a defense of Christianity.
Nevertheless, there were many variations of detail in the idea of the congru¬
ence of faith and reason which formed the central feature of the Enlightenment
religious discourse. Lessing’s view was that revelation gave men nothing “that
human reason, left to itself, would not discover for itself; it merely gives him
the most important of these things more quickly.” Until men perceived revealed
truth as rational, he claimed, they remained unmerited “for the tuition of his¬
torical truth”, in regard of “providing evidence of necessary rational truth”.''?
In his study Die vornehmesten Wahrheiten der natiirlichen Religion (Principal
15 On the context cf. KAISER, Gerhard, Vergôtterung und Tod. die thematische Einheit in Schillers
Werke, Stuttgart, Metzler, 1967., and KÖPCKE-DÜTTLER, Arnold, Friedrich Schillers Entwurf
eines prometheischen Christentums. Versuch einer Pädagogik der Selbsterhebung, Philosophi¬
sches Jahrbuch 88 (1982), 282-300.
16 LEIBNIZ, Theodizee (note 54), vol. 1, $ 39.
17 Wo FE, Verniinftige Gedanken (note71), $ 1014.
18 Ibid., $ 80.
119 Lessing, Über den Beweis des Geistes und der Kraft (1777); Schriften LM, vol. 13, 5.
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