Modern French Philosophy: a Study of the Development Since Comte

by John Alexander Gunn

[31] L’Irréligion de l’Avenir, p. xiii; Eng. trans., p. 10.

By these three different and really organic elements, religion is clearly marked off from philosophy. Owing to the stability of these elements religion is apt to be centuries behind science and philosophy, and consequently reconciliation is only effected by a subtle process which, while maintaining the traditional dogmas and phrases, evolves a new interpretation of them sufficiently modern to harmonise a little more with the advance in thought, but which presents a false appearance of stability and consistency, disguising the real change of meaning, of view-point and of doctrine. Of this effort we shall see the most notable instance is that of the “Modernists” or Neo-Catholics in France and Italy, and the Liberal Christians in England and America.

Guyau claims that these newer interpretations, subtle and useful as they are, and frequently the assertions of minds who desire sincerely to adapt the ancient traditions to modern needs, are in themselves hypocritical, and the Church in a sense does right to oppose them. Guyau cannot see any satisfactoriness in these compromises and adaptations which lack the clearness of the old teaching, which they in a sense betray, while they do not sufficiently satisfy the demands of modern thought.

With the decay of the dogmatic religion of Christendom which is supremely stated in the faith of the Roman Catholic Church, there must follow the non-religion of the future, which may well preserve, he points out, all that is pure in the religious sentiment and carry with it an admiration for the cosmos and for the infinite powers which are there displayed. It will be a search for, and a belief in, an ideal not only individual, but social and even cosmic, which shall pass the limits of actual reality. Hence it appears that “non-religion” or “a-religion,” which is for Guyau simply “the negation of all dogma, of all traditional and supernatural authority, of all revelation, of all miracle, of all myth, of all rite erected into a duty,” is most certainly not a synonym for irreligion or impiety, nor does it involve any contempt for the moral and metaphysical doctrines expressed by the ancient religions of the world. The non-religious man in Guyau’s sense of the term is simply the man without a religion, as he has defined it above, and he may quite well admire and sympathise with the great founders of religion, not only in that they were thinkers, metaphysicians, moralists and philanthropists, but in that they were reformers of established belief, more or less avowed enemies of religious authority and of every affirmation laid down by an ecclesiastical body in order to bind the intellectual freedom of individuals. Guyau’s remarks in this connection agree with the tone in which Renan spoke of his leaving the Church because of a feeling of respect and loyalty to its Founder. Guyau points out that there exists in the bosom of every great religion a dissolving force—namely, the very force which in the beginning served to constitute it and to establish its triumphant revolt over its predecessor. That force is the absolute right of private judgment, the free factor of the personal conscience, which no external authority can succeed, ultimately, in coercing or silencing. The Roman Church, and almost every other organised branch of the Christian religion, forgets, when faced with a spirit which will not conform, that it is precisely to this spirit that it owes its own foundation and also the best years of its existence. Guyau has little difficulty in pressing the conclusions which follow from the recognition of this vital point.

Briefly, it follows that the hope of a world-religion is an illusion, whether it be the dream of a perfect and world-wide Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, or Mohammedanism. The sole authority in religious matters, that of the individual conscience, prevents any such consummation, which, even if it could be achieved, would be mischievous. The future will display a variety of beliefs and religions, as it does now. This need not discourage us, for therein is a sign of vitality or spiritual life, of which the world-religions are examples, marred, however, by their profession of universality, an ideal which they do not and never will realise.

The notion of a Catholic Church or a great world- religion is really contrary to the duty of personal thought and reflection, which must inevitably (unless they give way to mere lazy repetition of other people’s thoughts) lead to differences. The tendency is for humanity to move away from dogmatic religion, with its pretensions to universality, catholicity, and monarchy (of which, says Guyau, the most curious type has just recently been achieved in our own day, by the Pope’s proclamation of the dogma of papal infallibility), towards religious individualism and to a plurality of religions. There may, of course, be religious associations or federations, but these will be free, and will not demand the adherence to any dogma as such.

With the decay of dogmatic religion the best elements of religious life will have freer scope to develop themselves, and will grow both in intensity and in extent. “He alone is religious, in the philosophical sense of the word, who researches for, who thinks about, who loves, truth.” Such inquiry or search involves freedom, it involves conflict, but the conflict of ideas, which is perfectly compatible with toleration in a political sense, and is the essence of the spirit of the great world teachers. This is what Jesus foresaw when he remarked: “I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” More fully, he might have put it, Guyau suggests: “I came not to bring peace into human thought, but an incessant battle of ideas; not repose, but movement and progress of spirit; not universal dogma, but liberty of belief, which is the first condition of growth.” Well might Renan remark that it was loyalty to such a spirit which caused him to break with the Church.

While attacking religious orthodoxy in this manner, Guyau is careful to point out that if religious fanaticism ls bad, anti-religious fanaticism is equally mischievous, wicked and foolish.[^[32]] While the eighteenth century could only scoff at religion, the nineteenth realised the absurdity of such raillery. We have come to see that even although a belief may be irrational and even erroneous, it may still survive, and it may console multitudes whose minds would be lost on the stormy sea of life without such an anchor. While dogmatic or positive religions do exist they will do so, Guyau reminds us, for quite definite and adequate reasons, chiefly because there are people who believe them, to whom they mean something and often a great deal. These reasons certainly do diminish daily, and the number of adherents, too, but we must refrain from all that savours of anti- religious fanaticism.[^[33]] He himself speaks with great respect of a Christian missionary. Are we not, he asks, both brothers and humble collaborators in the work and advance of humanity? He sees no real inconsistency between his own dislike of orthodoxy and dogma and the missionary’s work of raising the ignorant to a better life by those very dogmas. It is a case of relative advance and mental progress.

[32] He cites a curious case of anti-religious fanaticism at Marseilles in 1885, when all texts and scripture pictures were removed fromthe schools.

[33] Guyau’s book abounds in illustrations. He mentions here Huss’s approval of the sincerity of one man who brought straw from his own house to burn him. Huss admired this act of a man in whom he saw a brother in sincerity.