Dans quelle mesure l’athéisme est-il inacceptable pour l’auteur du Theophrastus redivivus et pour Spinoza ?
L’auteur anonyme du Theophrastus redivivus (1659), tout en critiquant radicalement la croyance en Dieu, affirme qu’il faut chasser l’athéisme de la cité. Son athéisme est pourtant pensable : non seulement le mot n’est pas anachronique pour le XVIIe siècle, comme l’affirment de nombreux commentateurs...
| Published in: | Littératures classiques |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | French |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Presses Universitaires du Midi, PUM
[2017]
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| In: |
Littératures classiques
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | L’auteur anonyme du Theophrastus redivivus (1659), tout en critiquant radicalement la croyance en Dieu, affirme qu’il faut chasser l’athéisme de la cité. Son athéisme est pourtant pensable : non seulement le mot n’est pas anachronique pour le XVIIe siècle, comme l’affirment de nombreux commentateurs, mais le traité lui-même fait la généalogie de la croyance tout en exposant un système de pensée cohérent qui se passe de tout dieu. Par-delà les raisons d’ordre moral (l’athée est celui qui se laisse entraîner par ses instincts et transgresse les lois), la question pour l’auteur anonyme est de concilier l’ordre social avec l’absence d’un bien et d’un mal absolus. Dix ans plus tard, le nécessitarisme de Spinoza, en dépit de différences notables (utilisation du terme de Dieu pour désigner la nature), présente des similitudes avec le système du Theophrastus redivivus. Aussi, son même rejet de l’athée, parce qu’il ne contrôlerait pas ses instincts, permet de mieux comprendre celui de l’auteur anonyme : point de stratégie de dissimulation, non plus, chez Spinoza, mais une volonté de se faire comprendre fondée sur une anthropologie nouvelle où pensable se confond avec communicable. Theophrastus redivivus is a materialistic and atheist (in the present sense of the meaning) treatise, written by an anonymous author in 1659. The problem is that the author radically criticized the belief in God and, at the same time, stated that atheism had to be expelled from the city. Though, his atheism might be “thinkable”: not only the word was not an anachronism in the 17th century – as assessed by many commentators – but this treatise provided a genealogy of belief while displaying a coherent system of thinking that didn’t need any God. Rejecting the term atheism is a moral and social act since this term refers to someone who let himself be led by his instincts. The author lets us know in some way that it is not because he denies any god that he would also refuse to follow the laws. However, the “unacceptability” of the term atheism also bears a deeper meaning: indeed, how might social order be compatible with the lack of absolute Good and Evil? Of course, the treatise did propose a purely natural solution consisting in founding morality on self-love, however how could it be made understood by others? This was not really “acceptable” – with the meaning of “understandable”. Various degrees of unacceptability can be distinguished: theoretical amoralism appears to be even more unacceptable than stating the inexistence of God since it may lead to civil disobedience (the absolute unacceptable according to the anonymous author and his readers). As a paradoxical consequence, the thesis of religious imposture might appear for political reasons less unacceptable than such an amoralism, and above all less unacceptable than the complete inefficiency of any religion as stated by the author. Finally, as things can be said more or less openly, unacceptability supposes more complicity and hypocrisy from the readers than what expected. Ten years later, beyond a certain number of differences (as the term God used to indicate nature) Spinoza’s necessitarianism shared similarities with the system described in Theophrastus redivivus. E.g. the way Spinoza rejected the atheist because he would be unable to control his instincts allows us to reach a better understanding of the same rejection by the Theophrastus redivivus’ anonymous author: he did not implement any strategy of dissimulation – neither did Spinoza –; he only wanted to be understood and based his reasoning on a new anthropology where what is “thinkable” meant what “can be communicated”. The unacceptable (because unthinkable, and thus uncommunicable) feature of atheism provided an additional intellectual feature to its social one, which may explain why it was so vigorously rejected by both authors. |
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| ISSN: | 2260-8478 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Littératures classiques
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