Rousseau On Civil Religion
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Rousseau On Civil Religion
Religion is a component of almost every society. Knowing this, one might look at
the function it serves. For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, religion, specifically a
civil religion established by the Sovereign, is an instrument of politics that
serves a motivating function. In a new society people are unable to understand
the purpose of the law. Therefore, civil religion motivates people to obey the
law because they fear some divine being. For a developed society, civil religion
motivates people to maintain the habit of obedience because they grow to
understand and love the law. First of all, it is necessary to clarify
Rousseau’s ideas on religion. In Chapter Eight of On the Social Contract,
Rousseau distinguishes four types of religion. The first of these is the
“religion of man.” According to Rousseau, this type of religion is
“without temples, alters or rites.” It is “limited to the purely internal
cult of the supreme God and to the eternal duties of morality--is the pure and
simple religion of the Gospel, the true theism, and what can be called natural
divine law” (SC, Bk IV, Ch. 8) In addition, he describes the “religion of
man” as Christianity. However, it is different than the Christianity of today
in that it is focused on the Gospels and “through this holy, sublime, true
religion, men, in being the children of the same God, all acknowledge one
another as brothers, and the society that united them is not dissolved even in
death” (SC, Bk IV, Ch. 8). Rousseau finds fault in this type of religion. True
Christianity of this sort would require every citizen to be an equally good
Christian for peace and harmony to be maintained. In addition, Rousseau argues
that it would be unlikely for every man to be concerned only with heavenly
things. He anticipated that “a single ambitious man, a single hypocrite, a
Cataline, for example, or a Cromwell, he would quite undoubtedly gain an upper
hand on his pious compatriots” (SC, Bk IV. Ch. 8). Rousseau defines the second
type of religion as the “religion of the citizen.” He states, The other,
inscribed in a single country, gives it its gods, its own titulary patrons. It
has its dogmas, its rites its exterior cult prescribed by its laws. Outside the
nation that practices it, everything is infidel, alien and barbarous to it. It
extends the duties and rights of man only as far as its alters(SC, Bk IV, Ch 8).
Rousseau believes this type of religion is good because it unites “the divine
cult” with love ...
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