By Giandomenico Mucci, SJ
Kant defined the Enlightenment as “the emergence of human beings from the age of minority” through “the public use of reason,” a definition in which “minority” means “the inability to avail oneself of one’s own intellect without the guidance of another.” Nearly three centuries have passed, but many still appeal, at least indirectly, to this rule regarding the critical use of the intellect and human emancipation.
From the Catholic perspective, the limitations that are intrinsic to the agnostic position on religion are emphasized. This does not detract from the convergence of Catholics and agnostics on certain central values of social and political life that derive from those human rights that are incontrovertible, whatever justifications may be given for them.
Catholics are well aware that an agnostic or atheist can live honestly. The moral imperative, in fact, with its inherently unconditional character, operates in every person prior to the question of the ultimate explanation or foundation of the obligation it imposes and regardless of the answer that one is able to give to that question or the failure to answer at all. Therefore, even apart from a theistic view of life, people find that they can in fact live honestly without giving a rationally satisfactory justification for the obligation to which they feel they are subject.
A Secularist Fundamentalism?
The dependence of the dominant culture on “historical enlightenment” is not a theory shared by all. There are those who call that dependence simplistic. Charles Taylor is one such historian of philosophy. In his view, it has become customary to link the concept of the Enlightenment with a simple success story that witnessed a gradual expansion of reason and the natural sciences and supplanted the religious factor. This is a narrative which has attached to it the common belief that ours is the best of all possible worlds and religion must be only a private affair, as intimate emotional situations are.
The narrative is the myth of sovereign reason, the sole source of knowledge and action. What is mythical is not the value of its operations, but its asserted uniqueness that disavows any limitations. In this regard, Taylor emphasizes that where it advances, it spreads a purely calculating instrumental rationality that can reify human life. That is, it can have disciplining effects, but it can also be reductionist in a pseudo-scientific way. It is not in itself moral. It has enormous destructive capabilities and, when it attempts to impose itself, can become totalitarian. There is also its fundamentalist aspect which would impose the withdrawal of religious experience to the private sphere, but it is belied, Taylor observes, by the explosion in our time of the religious sense as a deep and irrepressible human need. For the most part, this phenomenon takes place within the context of extreme modernity.
Dario Antiseri, commenting on Pietro Prini’s philosophy, wrote: “The metaphysics of the last century – metaphysics of the limitless triumph of humanity, of unstoppable progress, of omnipotent reason of which positivism, idealism and Marxism are the clearest examples – can no longer be accepted today. Eternal truths, absolute meaning inherent in human history, indestructible foundations of ethical or metaphysical theories no longer seem to be part of our world.”
Religion in Modernity
It is evident to all that the religious sense has remained alive amidst the challenges of modernity. It has also been conditioned by it. This means that the permanence or revival of the religious sense is the case, without being a pure and simple return to the religious faith of the past. People in general, in whom religious sentiment is most observable in the media, experience in practice a contradiction of attitudes and choices. This is the contradiction between opinions and habits that sociologists call “cognitive dissonance.” Very often, people say they believe in God and belong to the Church, but they live as if they are certain that God does not exist. The undeniable rediscovery of God has occurred within modernity.
Similarly, as the so-called “meta narratives” collapsed, the prestige of the Church was not affected by these failures, despite the de-Christianization of the West. Its authority in the field of ethics, its status in the field of international relations were not undermined. But this does not mean automatic and faithful listening to the gospel message. The convinced applause for the moral worth of its teaching, for those who preach it, for their social commitment, for the universal charity they express, is very often detached from obedience to that teaching and the sacrifice it demands of those who want to live it. “If the Bible were to be rewritten today by so many half-hearted Christians in contemporary society, there would be no mention of Isaac or Job.”
The Church still relies today on a living popular reality that has deep Christian roots. Yet there is a risk of “anonymous atheism,” as if God remains on the margins of life and, in any case, is not the only sign under which people grow in a balanced relationship with others and with themselves.
Anonymous atheism and the new flowering of the religious dimension coexist in modernity. It is proof, if proof were needed, of the truth of a famous statement by Kant: “Out of the crooked timber of humanity nothing perfectly straight can be built.” But it is simultaneously proof that this is a need not only of the human heart, but of people even while living in an exceptional period of crisis. It is the need for a sense that saves, for an absoluteness, perhaps still unknown, that constitutes the human condition and is the trace of transcendence, certainly the opposite of the foolish view (“God is dead”) found in Nietzsche’s The Gay Science. It is not appropriate for a Catholic to share the central thesis of Ronald Dworkin’s posthumous book, Religion Without God, but it is significant that it is judged more a critique of militant atheism, in the manner of Richard Dawkins, than a critique of theistic religious belief.
Nicola Abbagnano
A case in point is that of Nicola Abbagnano (1901-90). He had been part of the group of philosophers in Turin after World War II who imagined they could resurrect the Enlightenment. Abbagnano was the real animator of the Neo-Enlightenment program and the one who proposed it to his colleagues. The primary theme of the program, corresponding to the shared sentiment of the adherents, was resistance to the influence of Catholics on the culture and civic life of postwar Italy. And, together with that resistance, the critique of any philosophy that assumed the primacy of religion over intellectual activities, a rejection not only of neo-scholastic philosophy but also of Catholic spirituality, widely present in state universities and in the Catholic University of Milan. In short, the Neo-Enlightenment’s plan was to lay the groundwork for a secular culture independent of that advanced by Catholic intellectuals.
In recent years, some have talked about the philosopher from Turin moving closer to Christianity. It seems that there are no solid arguments to support this. There is, however, one text by Abbagnano that is quite interesting and relevant. It is the philosopher’s commentary on an essay by a German theologian, Bernhard Welte: From Nothing to Absolute Mystery. A Treatise on the Philosophy of Religion.
Abbagnano begins by stating that the clash between philosophy and religion has lost its meaning in contemporary thought. That clash was born with the Enlightenment, whose philosophy claimed the autonomous exercise of reason, which accepts no limits or conditioning and understands and subjects the whole of reality to itself. Religion, with its dogmas and appeal to faith as the only way to salvation, was configured as a renunciation of reason, philosophical inquiry and freedom. One could consider religion at most as an imperfect, elementary philosophy, which would sooner or later be swept away by authentic philosophy. This was Croce’s thinking, a form of secularist dogmatism.
Two things contributed to overcoming this, according to Abbagnano. The first was the realization that reason is not the infallible revealer of reality, but only the fallible capacity to understand the world and orient oneself in it. The second was the realization that religious faith is rooted in the limits of reason and expresses the need and hope for victoriously conducting the battle of life.
What are the motives and significance of the need for God, faith and the search for God? Here Abbagnano concurs with Welte, who replaces the traditional proofs of God’s existence with the proof that moves from nothingness. Here is how Abbagnano presents it: “The inevitable starting point is the fact that we exist in our world and that nothingness, that is, the beginning and the end of this existence, constitutes its essential characteristic. But it is precisely this presence of nothingness that gives rise to the dilemma that invests all of life: either nothingness is a nullifying force, and then nothing can have meaning, or nothingness is only the appearance of a hidden Presence, that is, an infinite and unconditional Force, and so the value and meaning of life are guaranteed. If one accepts the second alternative, one is faced with the Mystery, that is, an Absolute that is the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of everything real. But since it cannot be identified with such things, the Mystery conceals a transcendent Reality that is beyond everything that falls within the sphere of experience.”
“From this point of view, religious faith is a free and personal act, which has nothing to do with scientific knowledge, because it is not about the reality of the world, but is human surrender to God, that is, hope in a future that brings peace and happiness. Faith therefore is not contradicted by the evil that exists in the world, and it allows trust in the presence of hidden good even in those who practice evil. And with faith all aspects related to it find justification and meaning: trust in the miracle, prayer as silence and as language, the formation of community based on religious worship.”
This is not an autobiographical page from Abbagnano, but, as we have said, it is merely a review of a theological work in which “the presence of an authentic religious spirituality is felt.” The text is not to be forced, and yet, just as it is not out of place to note the consonance between the philosopher and the theologian, so too it is perhaps not too bold to assume in Abbagnano a personal, not just professional, interest in the great theme of the human need for God. This is no small thing for a distinguished representative of the Neo-Enlightenment.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32009/22072446.1224.14
. This article first appeared in Italian in April 2016, in Q. 3980.
. Cf. C. Schlüter, “Lumi al supermercato delle fedi”, in Avvenire, “Agorà Idee”, June 5, 2011, 4 f; P. Giovanetti, “Cattolicesimo, così moderno che parla a tutti”, ibid., June 23, 2006, 34.
. D. Antiseri, “Prini, la fede inquieta del pensiero”, ibid., December 30, 2008, 27.
. G. Barbiellini Amidei, “Crolla Marx, si riscopre Dio”, in Il Tempo, October 10, 1991, 3.
. Cf. A. Rigobello, “Perché si torna a parlare di Dio?”, in Oss. Rom., September 30, 1992, 3.
. Cf. Il Sole 24 Ore, December 1, 2013, 30.
. Cf. C. A. Viano, “Abbagnano, laici con filosofia”, in La Stampa, October 14, 2004.
. Cf. N. Abbagnano, “Il filosofo e il bisogno di Dio”, in il Giornale, July 6, 1985, 3. – La Civilta Cattolica
