In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

72 part i [. . .] To conclude this section, I will recapitulate the results to which my reflections have led me. State and church have a duty to promote, by means of public measures, human felicity in this life and in the future life. Both act on men’s convictions and actions, on principles and their application; the state, by means of reasons based on the relations between man and man, or between man and nature, and the church, the religion of the state, by means of reasons based on the relations between man and God. The state treats man as the immortal son of the earth. Religion treats him as the image of his Creator. Principles are free. Convictions, by their very nature, permit no coercion or bribery. They belong in the realm of man’s cognitive faculty and must be decided by the criterion of truth or untruth. Good and evil act on his capacity of approval and disapproval. Fear and hope guide his impulses. Reward and punishment direct his will; spur his energy; encourage, entice, or deter him. But if principles are to make man happy, he must not be scared or wheedled into adopting them. Only the judgment reached by his powers of intellect can be accepted as valid. To let ideas of good and evil interfere with his deliberations is to permit the matter to be decided by an unauthorized judge. Hence, neither church nor state has a right to subject men’s principles and convictions to any coercion whatsoever. Neither church nor state is authorized to connect privileges and rights, claims on persons and titles to things, with principles and convictions, and to weaken through outside interference the influence of the power of truth on the cognitive faculty. Not even the social contract could grant such a right to either state or church. For a contract concerning things that, by their very nature, are inalienable is intrinsically invalid, and cancels itself. Not even the most sacred oath can change, in this respect, the nature of things. Oathsdonotengendernewduties.Theyaremerelysolemnconfirmationsofthat to which we are in any case obligated by nature or through a contract. Where no 9 | From Jerusalem, or on Religious Power and Judaism (1783) Jerusalem and Related Documents | 73 duty exists, an oath is a vain invocation of God, which may be blasphemous but can in itself create no obligation. Moreover, men can swear only to what they know by the evidence of their external senses, to what they saw, heard, and touched. Perceptions of the internal senses are not the object of confirmation by oath. Hence, all adjurations and abjurations in reference to principles and doctrinal opinions are inadmissible. And if a man has taken such an oath, it obligates him to nothing but regret for having acted in a culpably thoughtless manner. If I swear this minute to an opinion, I am nevertheless free to disavow it a moment later. The misdeed of taking a vain oath has been committed even if I retain the opinion, and I do not commit perjury if I repudiate it. It must not be forgotten that, according to my principles, the state is not authorized to connect income, offices of honor, and privilege with certain doctrinal opinions. With regard to the teaching profession, it is the duty of the state to appoint instructors who are able to teach wisdom and virtue, and to promulgate those useful truths on which the felicity of human society directly rests. All particulars must be left to the best of the teacher’s knowledge and conscience; otherwise, endless confusion and collisions of duties will arise that, in the end, will frequently lead even the virtuous into hypocrisy and unscrupulousness. No offense against the dictates of reason remains unavenged. But what if the harm has already been done? Suppose the state appoints and pays a teacher for propounding certain fixed doctrinal opinions. The man later discovers that these doctrines are unfounded. What is he to do? How must he act in order to extricate his foot from the trap into which an erroneous conscience made him step? Three different ways are open to him here: he locks up the truth in his heart and continues to teach untruth, against his better judgment; he resigns from his position without giving his reason for doing so; or, finally, he openly testifies to the truth, and leaves it to the state to determine what is to become of his position and salary, or whatever else he is...

Share