Abstract
Religion runs like a red thread through all of Masaryk’s thinking and writing and affected, at least indirectly, many of his public actions. In his opinion life without religion was unthinkable; it provided a secure basis for national existence and for an ethical personal life. Yet in spite of the importance he assigned to religion, wrote R. R. Betts, ‘he never tells us what religion is. An admiration of Jesus and a somewhat vague belief in Providence seem to be the substance of his theology. To him religion is primarily ethical and practical’.1
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Notes
R. R. Betts, ‘Masaryk’s Philosophy of History,’ Slavonic Review, vol. XXVI, no. 66 (November 1947) p. 42. For Masaryk’s own exposition of his views, see Karel tapek, Hovory s T. G. Masaryk (Prague, 1969) pp. 113–5, 202–43.
Simon R. Green, Thomas Garrigue Masaryk: Educator of a Nation (Ph.D. thesis, University of California, 1976 ) pp. 35–7, 100.
Roland J. Hoffmann, T. G. Masaryk und die tschechische Frage (Munich, 1988) pp. 242, 263.
T. G. Masaryk and V. Bouček, O svobodě a volnosti přesvědčení (Prague, 1904), also given as ch. 1, V boji o náboženství.
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© 1992 International Council for Soviet and East European Studies, and John Morison
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Skilling, H.G. (1992). Masaryk: Religious Heretic. In: Morison, J. (eds) The Czech and Slovak Experience. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22241-4_5
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