Cult of Reason

The cult of Reason ( French Culte de la Raison ) belonged to other cults revolution into an ensemble civil religious festivals and beliefs during the French Revolution, which was to take the place of Christianity and Catholicism in particular in the social and political center. The de-Christianization was combined in a special way with the cult of the Supreme Being, the base of which were deistic beliefs. Worn by social revolutionary groups won the cult between autumn 1793 and spring of 1794/2 official character.

Content of faith

The cult of reason rooted in skepticism of the Enlightenment over the traditional confessions. Advocating for a reason -guided thinking and actions motivated a world view, which, when the existence of God is not entirely denied, this saw as the immanent principle of natural law according to rules you set up and functioning pervasive order. Through scientific examination of superstition and illogical everything from religion should be eliminated and a rationalistic piety be created. Voltaire, the most prominent critic of the Church, took the abominable [ Church of the deistic view that God, whom he compared to a watchmaker, the natural order had created, but now no longer engaged, and coined the phrase " l' Ecrasez infâme " ( Smash " ] ").

After the outbreak of the Revolution operated the anti-clerical Jacobin under the leadership of Jacques -René Hébert and Pierre Gaspard Chaumette religious policy as consistent action against the established church, which they viewed as an organizational backbone of the internal and external counterrevolution. Your anticlerical thrust largely adopted anti- religious overtones, and they were among the initiators of the relevant de-Christianization. Atheist beliefs were widespread among the Hébertists and stood in contrast to Maximilien de Robespierre's Cult of the Supreme Being. The propagated by Hébert and Chaumette Cult of Reason was also one of the deistic beliefs that looked subject to the rules of a " clockwork universe " everything; the cult worshiped Raison had the numinous character of a mere function Godhead, God the status of a demiurge. Thus the cult of reason positioned uniquely as opposed to theism of Catholicism.

Propagation and suppression of the cult

Even with the " September massacres " of 1792 and in the summer of 1793 there had been militant appearances against the Church and in the autumn came the de-Christianization of a mainly supported by lower middle class mass movement; this was their first trailer in the provincial towns south of Paris and Lyon, and expressed often in carnival -like parades with church equipment, desecration of churches, iconoclasm or ceremonies for revolution martyrs, organized the envoy of the National Convention. The movement spread quickly to the center over, and in October prohibited the commune (municipality ) of Paris, the holding of all public religious ceremonies. With the de-Christianization was combined a " transfer of the sacred ," the most impressive in popular devotion to the revolution martyrs, especially Jean -Paul Marat, remarked. The cult of martyrdom had all those trouble, atheistic or deistic views represented, and the need for a "substitute faith " examined the Hébertists to meet with the creation of the cult of reason. At the instigation Chaumette the first festival in honor of Reason (originally planned as a festival in honor of freedom in the Palais- Royal) held at the Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November 1793, the reclassified as a " temple of reason and freedom " been. On November 23, 1793, the National Convention passed a law that all the churches of Paris withdrew the cult and made to other temples of reason, and that at each décadi ( tenth day ) of the new calendar was the feast of reason should be celebrated. These measures spread across state and parastatal institutions from Paris over large parts of France.

The cult of reason met from the outset widespread resistance in the population. Even Danton spoke of " anti-religious masquerades ." The mass of the people could not follow the visionary and utopian attempt of an intellectual elite, is to transform abstract concepts as purely rational of faith. Robespierre was aware of this and spoke out on 21 November 1793 Jacobin Club expressly for the freedom of religion from. Apart from his own beliefs, which could not be reconciled with the strong atheistic embossed cult of reason, he recognized the abolition of worship a political mistake, which flouted the emotional needs of people and the number of the Republic of enemies at home and abroad increased. On December 6, 1793, the Convention urged to the free exercise of religion, which he promised to maintain. Robespierre warned again of the dangers of de-Christianization, and even the Parisian commune followed the same line. However, nothing changed on the taken measures and the churches remained civil religious temples. The status quo only found out since the end of March 1794 a turning point; after the persecution and execution of Hébertists also the cult of reason was suppressed.

Aftereffect

Elements of the cult of reason remained in the subsequent short-lived cult of the Supreme Being, as well as under the changeable repressive religious policy of Napoleon until settlement with the Catholic Church in the Concordat of 1801 received. Under the Cult of the Supreme Being would still have to be dedicated décadis the state-carrying party, albeit not of reason, but similar values ​​of terms such as truth or justice. The official reintroduction of the culte décadaire end of October 1795 proved to be ineffective, he lasted only until 1800. The official celebrations lost their popularity and were completed rather than Republican compulsory exercise. Several attempts by the creation of other civil religious cults remained mere suggestions, only the deism committed Theophilanthropie acquired from 1796 until its ban 1801/1803 some distribution. The idea of ​​a reason-led religion propagated not least the early socialist Henri de Saint -Simon, who spoke in 1802 of a Newtonian religion ( for rationalistic worldviews that time played Isaac Newton with his fundamental insights into gravity, light and power always has a special role as a symbol ) and with his work Nouveau Christianisme ( German new Christianity ) from 1825 based on the reason of his social philosophy was a name.