Atheism dispute

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The atheism dispute was a religious-philosophical dispute in the Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach in 1798 and 1799 , which was triggered by the philosopher Friedrich Karl Forberg and the philosophy professor Johann Gottlieb Fichte , who was then teaching at the University of Jena , and led to the dismissal and forced resignation of Fichte led by his professorship.

The dispute revolved around God's relationship to the world and the possibility of a moral world order without the necessity of God's existence. Forberg had postulated the latter possibility in an article in the Philosophical Journal published by Fichte (and Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer ) in December 1798. In the same issue, Fichte defended Forberg's position.

The name of the controversy seems misleading, since Fichte did not take an atheist position. He only defended himself against an anthropomorphic concept of God based on human ideas, since, in his opinion, this necessarily leads to thinking God smaller and even finite. Rather, God is greater than man's imagination, which is why he should not be thought of as a person.

In 1799, Forberg and Fichte were indicted for spreading atheistic ideas and godlessness ( Asebie ). Fichte was forced to resign by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach , Carl August . But Fichte later wrote: “It is not my atheism that you are prosecuting, it is my democracy. The former only gave the cause. ”The documents confirm this: The Weimar privy councilor Christian Gottlob Voigt confirmed in a letter to his council colleague Johann Wolfgang von Goethe that the letter in which Fichte threatened his resignation had given the“ cause ” that the councils had sought to "get rid of" Fichte. The Electorate of Saxony and the Kingdom of Prussia had threatened the University of Jena with a ban on matriculation for their regional children if Fichte remained in his teaching post; Russia and Austria had already imposed a boycott. The real stumbling block were Fichte's pro- revolutionary writings, published anonymously in 1793, the reclamation of freedom of thought from the princes of Europe, who had previously suppressed them, and contributions to correcting the public's judgments on the French Revolution . Goethe demanded his letters to Voigt in the dismissal affair and destroyed them. Fichte's dismissal triggered the departure of many students and several lecturers from the University of Jena.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jörg Lauster : The enchantment of the world. A cultural history of Christianity. CH Beck, Munich 2014, p. 467.
  2. ↑ JG Fichte complete edition of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. Edited by Reinhard Lauth, Hans Jacob. Stuttgart 1964ff., Dept. 1: Works, Vol. 6, P. 72f .; see. to the following Karl-Heinz Fallbacher: Fichte's dismissal. A contribution to the history of Weimar-Jena institutions. In: Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 67 (1985), pp. 111-135; W. Daniel Wilson: The Goethe taboo. Protest and human rights in classic Weimar. Munich 1999, pp. 243-248.
  3. ↑ Voigt to Goethe, April 7, 1799, cited above. after Fallbacher, p. 115f .; for other sources cf. Wilson, p. 378, note 154.
  4. ↑ Hans Tümmler: Goethe's share in the dismissal of Fichte from his teaching post in Jena in 1799. In: Tümmler, Goethe in Staat und Politik. Collected Essays. Cologne, Graz 1964, pp. 132–166, here p. 163.

literature

  • Werner Röhr (ed.): Appellation to the audience. Documents on the atheism dispute, Jena 1798/99 . Reclam Verlag, 2nd edition, Leipzig 1991.