Abstract
“One should not possess the word ‘religion’ at all. When and how did it originate” ? 2 The exact derivation of the word religion is uncertain. It may be derived from the Latin word religere or religere — more probably from the former.3 The early Christians were unacquainted with the word,4 but it was probably adopted into the German language more than two hundred years before the birth of Lichtenberg.
A great man ought to have only a common religion. All religions ought to have the right to teach their beliefs and — superstitions.1
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Notes
G. Chr. Lichtenberg Gesammelte Werke, edited and introduced by Wilhelm Grenzmann, Frankfurt am Main, I, pp. 449. This edition of his works will henceforth be referred to as Werke.
Ibid., I, p. 453.
See Hoffmeister, op. cit., p. 525.
Auguste Sabatier, Outlines of a Philosophy of Religion (New York, 1957), p. 2.
New York, 1941, p. 818.
Freud asserts: “Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible kind of insincerity and intellectual misdemeanor.”, The Future of an Illusion (New York, 1957 ), p. 56.
Werke, I, p. 146.
Says R. M. Meyer: “War er auch für äussere Anerkennung nicht unempfänglich, so scheint doch in noch höherem Grade der Lehrberuf selbst ihn befriedigt zu haben;…,” Jonathan Swift und G. Chr. Lichtenberg (Berlin, 1886 ), p. 6o.
E. Friedell maintains: “Die Spitze und Krönung der menschlichen Kulturpyramide wird von der Religion gebildet. Alles andere ist nur der massive Unterbau, auf dem sie selbst thront, hat keinen anderen Zweck, als zu ihr hinanzüfuhren. In ihr vollendet sich die Sitte, die Kunst, die Philosophie.”, Kulturgeschichte der Neuzeit (München, 1954 ), I, p. 24–25.
B. Russell, for example, professes: “I do not believe that on the balance, religious beliefs have been a force for good.”, The Will to Doubt (New York, 1958 ), p. 17.
VS., II, p. 96. Lessing made a similar differentiation.
Ibid., II, p. 564.
Ibid., I, p. 182.
Ibid., I, p. 199.
Ibid., I, p. 76.
Ibid., I, p. 167.
Ibid., I, p. 67.
Ernst Bertram, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: Adalbert Stifter (Bonn, 1919), p. 22.
VS., I, p. 95.
Ibid., I, p. 95. This sounds, it seems, more Quakeristic than Spinozistic. Rufus Jones wrote: “We are what we are as much because we feel as because we think, and when we clap down the lid on our feelings we have wrecked our capabilities as men.”, Rufus Jones Speaks to Our Times (New York, 1954 ), P. 177. Walter A. Berendsohn asserts “L. steht über den Aufklärern, die alles erklären, weil sie alles zu wissen meinen. Er sieht überall ungelöste Fragen und Schwierigkeiten, er forscht und versucht und vermutet und ahnt, rastlos bemüht, Wahrheiten’ zu entdecken.”, Stil und Form der Aphorismen Lichtenbergs (Kiel, 1912), p. 15. This work is, in my opinion, one of the best documented works on Lichtenberg. Berendsohn gives ample references to Lichtenberg’s works whenever he attempted an interpretation of Lichtenberg’s aphorisms.
VS., I, p. 80.
Ibid., I, p. 242.
Ibid., I, pp. 67–68.
Ibid., II, p. 96.
See Deneke, op. cit., pp. 28–35, for an analysis of Lichtenberg’s elementary and secondary school instruction in religion.
VS., II, p. 154.
Ibid., I, p. 145.
The epistomological evidence for this view was given by Kant.
VS., I, p. 71.
Ibid., V, p. 150.
Ibid., I, p. 102.
Ibid., I, p. 145.
B. an d. F., pp. 94–95.
VS., I, p. 146.
Lichtenberg amused himself on certain occasions by playing the role of an atheist. (Werke, I, p. 458).
VS., I, p. 146.
Ibid., I, p. 58.
Ibid., I, p. 56.
Ibid., I, p. 253.
Ibid., I, pp. 148–49. Even the word “church service” (Gottesdienst) is misused, according to Lichtenberg. That a person attends church does not mean that this person is serving God. The word “church service” ought to be used only for people who believe in and practice the Golden Rule. (VS., I, p. 144 ).
Ibid., I, p. 289.
Ibid., I, pp. 274–75.
Ibid., V, P. 338.
Ibid., I, p. 20.
J. S. Semler (1725–1791) was one of the first Lutheran clergymen to begin historical criticism of the Bible (Spinoza is probably the originator of the idea of the historicity of the Bible).
Lichtenberg’s rejection of the validity of revelations was in the spirit of W. R. Inge, who maintains: “A revelation absolutely transcending reason is an absurdity; no such revelation could ever be made.” Christian Mysticism (New York, 1956 ), p. 20.
VS., I, P. 73.
David Hume, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Los Angeles, 1956), p. 124.
Blaise Pascal, whom Lichtenberg liked to read, asserted: “Had it not been for miracles, there would have been no sin in not believing in Jesus Christ.”, Pascal’s Pensées (New York, 1958), p. 240. Lichtenberg refused, as is well known, to believe in the divinity of Christ and in every type of miracle.
Werke, I, P. 452. Thomas Paine echoes the identical conviction in The Age of Reason. Says Paine: “It is a contradiction in terms and ideas, to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing.”, New York, n.d., p. 8.
Arthur Schopenhauer, a Lichtenberg admirer, wrote: “Es gibt keine andere Offenbarung, als die Gedanken der Weisen; wenn auch diese, dem Loose alles Menschlichen gemäss, dem Irrthum unterworfen, auch oft in wunderliche Allegorien and Mythen eingekleidet sind, wo sie dann Religionen heissen.,” Sämtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1891 ), V, p. 379.
Werke, I, p. 461.
Ibid., I, p. 465–66.
VS., III, p. 109.
Lichtenberg unequivocally praised both Nicolai and Mendelssohn.
VS., III, p. 125.
Ibid., I, p. 145.
Friedrich Schleiermacher, Lichtenberg’s contemporary, was equally denunciatory in his discussions of the Catholic Church. Says Schleiermacher: “Consider this purely historically, that the papacy is in no way the essence of the Catholic Church, but its corruption.”, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (New York, x958), p. 269. He continues: “Further progress of Papistical Catholicism in Germany on many grounds necessarily involves a return to every kind of barbarity.”, Ibid., p. 274.
VS., II, pp. 171–72. (The dogma of infallibility was pronounced a century later).
Ernst Cassirer, like Bayle before him, asserts: “Not doubt, but dogma, is the most dreaded foe of knowledge.”, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Boston, 1955 ), p. 161.
VS., II, p. to.
Paul Requadt states, surprisingly enough, that Lichtenberg believed in the transmigration of the soul, op. cit., p. 85. Requadt “proves” this by referring to VS., I, p. 32, where Lichtenberg says: “Ich kann den Gedanken nicht los werden, dass ich gestorben war, ehe ich geboren wurde, und durch den Tod wieder in jenen Zustand zurückkehre.”
VS., I, p. 56. Wrote Unamuno: “There is no way of proving the immortality of the soul rationally. There are, on the other hand, ways of proving, rationally, its mortality.”, op. cit., p. 79.
Ibid., I, p. 57.
Ibid., I, p. 8r.
Ibid., I, p. 12.
The point of view of Voltaire, whom Lichtenberg ridiculed for double baptism - “es hat aber nicht viel gefruchtet,” VS., II, p. 98 - is perhaps more convincing than the view advanced by Lichtenberg. Said Voltaire: “The words matter and spirit are mere words. We have no complete idea of these two things.”, Collected Works of Voltaire (New York, n.d.), p. 443• Voltaire also wrote: “The transmigration of souls is a system so simple and even so probable to the eyes of ignorant people.” Ibid., p. 395. If Voltaire’s pronouncement is valid and if Requadt’s interpretation of VS, I, p. 32 is correct, we are forced to put Lichtenberg into the category of “ignorant” people. “Ignorant” Lichtenberg was - but not because of possessing more ignorance than any other scholar who had pondered the subject, but because Lichtenberg suspended judgment in this “gedenkbare” but not “erkennbare” realm.
I have been unable to find a significant difference in meaning between the words morality and ethics, and I treat them, therefore, as being synonymous. For a short analysis of the part that ethics played in the history of ideas during the period of the Enlightenment, see Wilhelm Windelband, A History of Philosophy: Renaissance Enlightenment Modern (New York, 1958 ), II, pp. 500–518.
Josiah Royce, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (New York, 1958), p. 133. This book was first published in 1885.
Says Heinrich Heine: “Unsere Moralbegriffe schweben keineswegs in der Luft: die Veredlung des Menschen, Recht und Unsterblichkeit haben Realität in der Natur. Was wir Heiliges denken, hat Realität, ist kein Hirngespinst.,” Heinrich Heines Sämtliche Werke, ed. by Gustav Karpeles, Leipzig, n.d., XII, p. 155.
vs., I, p. 151.
It is noteworthy that Lester S. King devotes a whole chapter (36 pages) to medical ethics (or lack thereof) in his book: The Medical World of the 18th Century (Chicago, 1958).
VS., I, p. 166.
Ibid., I, p. 165.
Ibid., I, p. 29.
Ibid., I, p. 73.
Ibid., I, p. 148.
The definition of morality in the Catholic Encyclopedia Dictionary hinges on these words. The definition is as follows: “Human conduct in so far as it is freely subordinated to the ideal of what is right and fitting.”, op. cit., p. 657.
VS., I, p. 167.
Ibid., I, pp. 24–25.
Ibid., I, p. 191.
Ibid., I, p. 234. Says Friedrich Schaefer: “Der ethische Gesichtspunkt der pädagogischen Ratschläge Lichtenbergs hat seine Wurzel in der höchsten Wertschätzung der Wahrhaftigkeit und einem tiefen Abscheu von jeder Lüge, Heuchelei und Scheinheiligkeit, die Lichtenberg überall, wo er sie autrifft, mit Ernst oder Spott geisselt.”, Georg Christoph Lichtenberg als Psychologe und Menschenkenner. Eine kritische Untersuchung und ein Versuch zur Grundlegung einer “Empirischen Charakterpsychologie” (Jena, 1898 ), P. 54.
Ibid., I, p. 311.
Ibid., I, p. 234.
Ibid., I, p. 230.
B. an d. F., p. 209–10.
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Øksenholt, S. (1963). Religion. In: Thoughts Concerning Education in the Works of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-7528-7_4
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