Which Of These Texts Most Thoroughly And Persuasively Challenges The Existence Of God, And Why?

Which of these texts most thoroughly and persuasively challenges the existence of God, and why?

Both Diderot s Lettre sur les aveugles (1749) and Rousseau s Profession de Foi du Vicaire Savoyard (1762) were written during the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement of active and critical engagement with all aspects of life. Like other thinkers of their time, both of these philosophers engaged with and questioned the tenets of religion. However, neither Diderot nor Rousseau were self-declared atheists, in order to access a readership and evade immediate censorship within Catholic France both had to nominally support religion or use tactics of dissimulation. However, the arrest and imprisonment of both authors shortly after the publication of their texts leaves little room for doubt that they contained highly subversive content. In a world with no place for advancing the possibility of freedom of religious, civil and political expression, Rousseau s conversation between a vicar and a young fugitive nominally defends religious belief by aligning religion in accordance with nature. Yet, Rousseau does challenge the existence of God by gradually destabilising his reader s desire to believe, first by eroding the tenets of organised religion in favour of a natural religion, then by undermining the latter through the presentation of a contradictory, and violent God who provides suffering rather than relief. Diderot however allows no such emotion to be attached to God, more thoroughly and persuasively challenging his existence by refusing any form of identification with religion. Spring boarding off the Lockean doctrine that all knowledge comes through the senses, Diderot s Lettre uses the absence of the sense of vision to question the validity of accepted knowledge, moral ideas and incidentally religion. Unlike Rousseau, Diderot allows no space for deism, displacing a metaphysical, purity of nature with chaotic, atheist materialism. While the Vicar searches for meaning and faces contradictions at every turn, Diderot most effectively challenges the existence of God by displaying the utter insufficiency of human understanding. In a world devoid of meaning, belief and the existence of God have no part.

At first glance, rather than challenging the existence of God, Rousseau s Profession sees evidence of God in the beauty of nature. With the exposition of his ideas taking place with a beautiful, mountainous scene as its backdrop where nature talait nos yeux toute sa magnificence Rousseau s text supports the strongest argument for a divine order in the 18^th century, that of the great mathematically-driven cosmologies of Newton and Leibniz which presented the world running by divinely induced clockwork. Rousseau s Profession makes reference to this theory, with his Vicar s descri ption of the world as une montre ouverte and his evidence of the existence of God being the volont [qui] meut l univers et anime la nature. Rousseau therefore refutes the material view that nothing exists except matter and its movements, taking the deist position of God as the motivating force for nature and the order of existence. Thus, through reasoned arguments in the Vicar s articles de foi the first of which life, and man s sense of his own existence is credited to God, alongside explicit statements of his belief in God, j aper ois Dieu partout dans ses uvres, Rousseau does not challenge God s existence, but persuasively does the reverse.

Diderot also uses the senses to tackle the question of God s existence by removing the sense of sight and thus the ability to wonder, he demonstrates how the metaphysical quickly gives way to godless materiality. Like in Rousseau s text, Diderot also tackles the question of beauty and l tonnement devant la nature, however he concludes that this is only evidence of God for the sighted. In a staged conversation between Saunderson, a dying blind mathematician, and a minister by the name of Holmes, Diderot refutes the metaphysical explanation for the prodigiousness of nature and instead displays a materialist view that it is man s own reading of nature that supplies wonder and divine intent.[1] The blind man is unable to see the phenomena which sanction the existence of God for desists, for him such marvellous descri ptions are merely des prodiges que je n entends point. The only appreciation the blind man can gain for an object is through touch, which leads to Saunderson s rather absurd statement si vous voulez que je croie en Dieu, il faut que vous me le fassiez toucher. For the sighted, the idea that God could be touched is preposterous, however that we can see him in nature is not Diderot thus challenges his reader s preconceptions by providing the alternative perspective of existence acknowledged through touch. The blindman s equivalent wonder of nature is one for human inventions such as the mirror or un petit feu qu ils ont la commodit d augmenter ou de diminuer, these objects of wonder seem laughable to the sighted, however that of seeing God in nature was equally so for the blind. When one form of wonder or beauty is deemed preposterous by others, we are therefore left questioning whether wonder is indeed fit proof for the existence of God. Diderot thus persuasively uses the discrepancy between the world of the sighted and that of the blind to challenge the existence of God, positing a creation with no creator.

Diderot further undermines the existence of God in a way Rousseau does not through his representation of the chaotic and the monstrous within nature, challenging the existence of God in a world without meaning and unity. In the conversation between Saunderson and Holmes, it is Saunderson s blindness which conceals him from the spectacle de la nature and Saunderson uses his blindness as evidence against nature being such a spectacle, for if God created perfection, why create a blind man. Diderot then pushes this point further, questioning whether there was a God at all to tie things together in an orderly fashion: Qui vous a dit vous, Leibniz, Clarke et Newton, que dans les premiers instants de la formation des animaux, les uns n taient pas sans t te et les autres sans pieds. Here, Diderot evokes unstable forms and a dynamic universe which undermines the idea of any form of divine master plan. Diderot instead advances a materialist view that matter moved on its own and molecules came together to form organisms, most of which were not even viable, let alone beautiful and symmetrical. Following such arguments, in what can be best seen as a statement of irony, Saunderson appears to convert to religion on his deathbed, to the particular Dieu de Clarke et de Newton the eternal geometer whose existence his materialist view of nature has just undermined. Demonstrating, Diderot s persuasiveness in converting the reader from a now preposterous seeming deist position. Even within such a fictional context, the idea that a blindman for whom la beaut [ ] n est qu un mot , and who is himself evidence of a chaotic world, converting to a religion where God is believed to exist due to beauty and flawlessness, Diderot makes this idea seem laughable.

Where Diderot removed the authority of God over nature, Rousseau more explicitly challenges the existence of God by calling into question the validity of established religion. Firstly, Rousseau highlights the difficulty of adhering to religion, his very Profession is to a man who he who he believes to be in danger of losing his faith si vos sentiments taient plus stables, j h siterais de vous exposer les miens a state of faithlessness that Rousseau alludes is present across Europe: voil , je crois, ce que le bon Vicaire pourrait dire present au public. The Vicar s Profession is thus conducted in the light of educating the public on religion and convincing them of the existence of God, and he initially seems to fulfil this purpose, affirming la majest des critures and la saintet de l vangile and lauding the sagesse and presence d esprit of the Gospels. However, Rousseau gradually erodes these forms of evidence for God s existence, reducing the authority of divine revelation where the Gospels are revealed to be plein de choses incroyables, de choses qui r pugnent la raison and questioning the proof of miracles as evidence of God s intervention when they can also be performed by the devil. Rousseau also questions why God, who has the power to ordonne au soleil de changer sa course, aux toiles de former un autre arrangement, would meddle in small human affairs, providing miracles that rather than providing clear examples of his power ont eux-m mes besoin d tre prouv s. Rousseau thus removes his reader s trust in miracles, and removes all human evidence of God, discounting the importance of divine revelation and religious doctrine as counterintuitive when ce que Dieu veut qu un homme fasse, il ne lui fait pas dire par un autre homme, il le dit lui-m me. Although Rousseau does not clearly challenge the existence of God, and still gives him a place in this world, he does persuasively remove all the tenets of religion, encouraging his reader to put aside religious texts referm tous les livres and even justifies an absence of religious education in a child, refuting the idea that il faut croire en Dieu pour tre sauv . Thus, Rousseau renders the Vicar s entire Profession void, challenging religions evidence of the existence of God thus, instead of convincing the young man, or the public of God s existence, or succeeding in bringing about more moderate religious belief, Rousseau s Profession is more likely to wipe it out completely.

Rousseau s Vicar therefore does not explicitly challenge the existence of God, encouraging his reader to favour natural religion and a personal relationship with God over human-established doctrine however, in turn these are also undermined. Rousseau challenges his initial presentation of God as a benevolent motivating force for nature and man, instead undermining the appeal of his existence by presenting a violent and contradictory God. Rousseau s Vicar claims to be religious due to his desire to honorer ce qui nous prot ge, et d aimer ce qui nous veut du bien, however rather than demonstrating a God who rewards the virtuous, we are faced with a less attractive form of God. Rousseau describes God as terrible , inique et le plus cruel des tyrans, allowing animals to be joyful whilst leur roi seul est mis rable. God is also seen to be unjust, the promise of retribution in the afterlife removed, when the Vicar questions the immortality of the soul qui sait si c est assez pour durer toujours. Likewise, although to a lesser extent, Diderot also presents a God who allows unnecessary suffering when an otherwise moral blind man questions the justice of his blindness: Qu avions-nous fait Dieu, vous et moi, l un pour avoir cet organe l autre pour en tre priv ? Religion in both of these texts is thus not presented as entirely appealing, Alberg describing the Vicar s position in the Profession not as how to achieve happiness through God and natural religion, but rather the more unattractive how to become a happy victim. [2] By removing doctrine, Rousseau reduces religion down to one of violence, rendering Jesus death an arbitrary sacrifice, and destroying the image of a benevolent God who au lieu d tablir la paix sur la terre instead brings le fer et le feu. Rousseau thus persuasively, and more thoroughly than Diderot, erodes his reader s desire to believe in such a God, opening up greater possibility for his readers to challenge whether they should believe in him at all.

Although Rousseau takes a more explicit approach, Diderot also thoroughly challenges our established knowledge of God by bringing all established knowledge into question. Having recognised the connection between senses and our use of them to justify religious belief, Diderot demonstrates the inability of the senses to provide any certain truth. Sight is often associated with its metaphorical counterparts of truth, reason, knowledge and faith associated with an ability to appreciate God s work, however Diderot calls this and consequently all our perceptions into question. On the face of it, Diderot lends little weight to the blindmans revocation of God due to their own lack of credibility: the blind are looked at in piti , and their morals are called into question, distancing them from God through their inhumanit , their lack of fear of punishment, or ability to tell the difference between un homme qui urine et un homme qui sans plaindre verse son sang. Saunderson s lack of religious belief does therefore not persuasively challenge the existence of God for the sighted, he is simply unenlightened. However, Diderot persuasively challenges the existence of God when this previously discarded opposition group, are actually shown to be have access to knowledge that the sighted do not. The reliability of sight, and consequently religious belief, is even questioned, an example of which Diderot gives in his own commentary on the text about the status of a faraway object: l un de vous le voit en movement l autre le voit en repos. In comparison, a blind woman M lanie de Salignac can distinguait des voix brunes et des voix blondes and Saunderson is able to recognise places au bruit des murs et du pav . By rejecting the superiority of sight, the most reliable basis for establishing humankind s convictions, and the demonstration that the blind are able to see in ways that the sighted are not, Diderot calls all our beliefs into question and implicitly suggests that the blindman s disbelief in God is perhaps more credible than it first appeared. While Rousseau more explicitly erodes religious tenets, Diderot provides a more encompassing challenge to God s existence, by bringing not just organised religion but all forms of belief into question.

Finally, through the form and language of both texts, readers are encouraged to not blindly accept anything as truth. Diderot s Lettre in particular promotes the questioning of all beliefs. The Lettre is itself a fictional text in the epistolary genre, a letter Diderot declares to be about the pleasures of conversation, its purpose de vous entretenir which like Rousseau s supposed warning against the dangers of fanaticism, masks the text s true intent. As with Rousseau s Profession, which is itself dismissed as mere human testimony alongside all dogma and human writings, the value of the letter and all it contains can therefore be written off as unimportant. However, these writers are able to persuasively challenge the existence of God through the process of engaging with these texts. Through Diderot s digressions and deflections, and Rousseau s acceptance of religious belief to then erode it, the reader is led through multiple opposing ideas that force them to question their beliefs. Neither author provides a clear conclusion to their text, the reader is forced to provide the answer for themselves. However, Rousseau s refus du jugement d autrui en mati re de foi [3] itself directly challenges the intolerance of established religions. Diderot s Lettre, does not answer whether the blind man is to be dismissed, or whether Saunderson was right that Holmes is pas moins aveugle que moi. Furthermore, the reader is asked to consider her own gullibility and incredulity when the man-born-blind of Puiseaux is placed in the zone between fact and fiction through the unnecessary aside qui n est point imaginaire. Overall, through the overturning of our preconceptions and the erosion in our confidence in Diderot s own evidence we are indeed left with the question que savons-nous? But this refusal to provide a conclusion and respite for the reader is itself a challenge to the existence of God, as it underlines Diderot s idea that we cannot provide universal assumptions. Rousseau unquestionably challenges established religions, however Diderot most thoroughly and persuasively challenges God s existence by overturning all certainty, how can the reader argue for God s existence when all forms of belief have been suspended.

In conclusion, although both of these texts force their readers to re-evaluate their prior convictions and to analyse the foundations of what they believe, it is Diderot s Lettre sur les aveugles which provides the most comprehensive challenge to the existence of God. Rousseau s Profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard does erode convictions in established religion, highlighting the inherent contradictions not just between religions, but within them the incomprehensible nature of an all powerful God intervening to conduct questionable miracles, and the unnecessary conduit of the prophet for God s message. By questioning such foundations of religion, the text is only one small step away from questioning God himself, a step Rousseau encourages through his presentation of a violent and contradictory God. However, Rousseau never outrightly denies the existence of God, and even directly upholds the existence of the metaphysical in nature. Diderot on the other hand disparages the metaphysical from the outset, undermining a singular concept of wonder and instead focusing on the material world of the senses. Diderot suggests that where mirrors seem so wonderous to the blind, perhaps with access to different senses, nature will no longer seem so wonderous to the sighted. Through the disparity between the beliefs of the blind and the sighted, the Lettre thus holds up a mirror in which we perceive the precariousness of our beliefs in physical, aesthetic, and metaphysical realms. [4] While Rousseau erodes individual religious tenets, stripping away sophisms and forcing us to question the nature of God, Diderot utterly and persuasively challenges our entire concept of existence, removing all assumptions of knowledge, and provoking a re-evaluation of all forms of belief.

Bibliography:

- Bourdin, Le mat rialisme dans la Lettre sur les aveugles , Recherches sur Diderot et l Encyclop die, 28 (2000)

- Curran, A., Diderot s Revisionism: Enlightenment and Blindness in the lt;i>Lettre sur les aveugles , Diderot Studies, 28 (2000)

- Leigh, J., Thought on Religion , in The Search for Enlightenment (Duckworth: 1999)

- Mostefa , and Scott, eds, Rousseau and l infame : Religion, Toleration, and Fanaticism in the Age of Enlightenment (Rodopi, 2009)

o Alberg, Preventing fanaticism through transcendental violence: the second part of the Profession de foi

o Mostefai, Singularit et exemplarit du cas Jean-Jacques : th orie et exp rience du fanatisme chez Rousseau

- Tunstall, K. E., The Judgement of Experience: Reading and Seeing in Diderot s Lettre sur les aveugles , French Studies, 62.4 (2008)

- Tunstall, K. E., Blindness and Enlightenment. An Essay (London: Continuum, 2011)

- Wokler, R., Rousseau: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: 2001)

[1] Curran, A., Diderot s Revisionism: Enlightenment and Blindness in the Lettre sur les aveugles , p.87

[2] Alberg in Mostefa , and Scott, eds, Rousseau and l infame : Religion, Toleration, and Fanaticism in the Age of Enlightenment, p.191

[3] Mostefai in Mostefa , and Scott, eds, Rousseau and l infame : Religion, Toleration, and Fanaticism in the Age of Enlightenment, p.112

[4] Curran, A., Diderot s Revisionism: Enlightenment and Blindness in the lt;i>Lettre sur les aveugles , Diderot Studies, p.78