The education of the human race

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The education of the human race (1780) is Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's main work in the philosophy of religion .

The special meaning of the text is not apparent at first glance, especially if one takes seriously the fiction that the script is from a “good friend” who likes to make “all sorts of hypotheses and systems” “in order to have the pleasure of using them to tear again ”(letter to HS Reimarus , April 16, 1778).

On closer examination, however, it results from three relationships:

  1. the position in the overall work;
  2. the text itself;
  3. the arguments relating to the other writings on the philosophy of religion.

History of origin

The “education of the human race” is part of Lessing's late work, so it cannot be seen as young people experimenting with dubious hypotheses , but rather as the result of years of preoccupation with the subject.

Sections 1–53 first appeared in 1777 as part of the fragmentation dispute with pastor Johann Melchior Goeze (“Anti-Goeze”, 1778) and others. Within this significant context, the font occupies a special position because it is the largest coherent part written by Lessing himself and thus stands out from the status of pure "opposites". The complete text (§§ 1–100) appeared in 1780, the year in which the so-called “Jacobi Conversations” were held, one of the few statements by Lessing in which he expressed his own views without tactical and “educational” filtering sets out about religion.

The meaning of scripture becomes clear through this temporal and industrial history position alone. In addition, at the same time (1779), “ Nathan the Wise ”, Lessing's major dramatic work, which deals with a very similar topic, was published. The following statement shows that Lessing understands this work as a continuation of the religious-philosophical discussion:

I have to try to be allowed to preach undisturbed in my old pulpit, at least in the theater. "
(Letter to E. Reimarus, September 6, 1778)

The text

Superficially, Lessing compares the development of human reason with the development of reason in the individual, whereby God appears as a kind of educator of humanity. Divine revelation is to the human race what education is to the individual. This "education" essentially takes place in three stages:

In the first it happens through immediate sensual punishments and rewards (= AT); in the second stage, through the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, reward and punishment are shifted to the hereafter (= NT); and in a third stage there will be no more rewards and punishments because human reason is so developed that people do good because it is good (= Eternal Gospel). All peoples go through these three stages, so that one can recognize the respective stage of development of their reason by their positive religions.

The central categories of the comparison used are "revelation" and "education" on the one hand and "reason" and "development" on the other. Throughout the text there is evidence of both an assumed dominance of revelation (§§ 7, 77) and a primacy of reason (§§ 4, 65, 84, 91).

This superficial contradiction is resolved if one regards externally controlled revelation (by an extra-worldly God) and self-controlled reason (by an inner-worldly God) as only two sides of a dialectical unity (suggested also by §§ 36, 37) and the autonomous understands human reason as its deeper structure. Then the divine revelation appears only as an image for the respective stage of development of human reason and God as an image for the inner human imperative for this further development, which consists in an increasing concretization of the image of the revelation. Revelation thus becomes the “not yet” of reason. The “education” of a “chosen people” through “divine revelation” thus means that the whole of humanity can become acquainted with mythological explanations of nature and through the gradual demythologization of these explanations. H. purely immanent, developed. Revelation appears to Lessing here merely as a historical fact, while reason is eternal. The concept of development not only proves Lessing's “belief” in an inner-worldly God ( Deus sive Natura ), but also his conviction of a positive development of humanity. For him it is a natural law of all life that there is a constant tension between present imperfection and future perfection, and that the development of reason and morality proceeds from one pole to the other.

Nonetheless, Lessing also mentions the "blasphemy thought" that the belief in progress is a mistaken belief (parallel to the judge's assumption in the " Ring Parable " in "Nathan the Wise" that the real ring was lost). Only persistent prayer can drive away ( suppress ?) This "blasphemous thought" . An important moment in the book "The Education of the Human Race" comes at the very end, when the idea of ​​reincarnation appears for the first time in Christian Europe as a desirable way of thinking. The reincarnation, which in the late Indian period was completely immersed in a pessimistic mood - "Life is suffering" (Buddha) appears here as a great opportunity. Quote: "& 94 Why could every single person not have existed more than once in this world? & 95 Is this hypothesis so ridiculous because it is the oldest? - because the human mind before the sophisterey of the school distracts and weakens it had, immediately fell for it? .... & 98 Why shouldn't I come back so often when I am sent to acquire new knowledge and new skills? Am I taking away so much all at once that it is not worth the effort to come back? & 99 That is why not? - Or because I forget that I have already been there? I'm happy that I forget that. The memory of my previous states would only allow me to make poor use of the present one. And what I have to forget now, I have because forget that forever? & 100 Or because too much time would be lost for me? - Lost? - And what do I have to miss? Isn't all of eternity mine? "

Similar arguments in other writings of Lessing

In all of the Enlightenment's writings on the philosophy of religion, a (real or fictional) counterpart must always be taken into account. Lessing deals with the prevailing currents of religious-philosophical thought of his time . The opinion of the respective dialogue partner is too important to him to simply be “set aside” (“Leibniz, von den Ewigen Strafen”, 1773). Rather, he endeavors in an exoteric way of speaking to “lead his opponents on their respective path to truth” (ibid.). In this respect, all writings are not esoteric, but always to be understood as "counter-writings" in which one has to know who he is addressing in order to then indirectly deduce his own opinion. This “tactic” has nothing to do with opportunism , but arises from the respect for the opinion of the other (tolerance) and the conviction that no one has ever “deliberately deluded himself” (“Eine Duplik”, 1778).

The dominant intellectual currents with which Lessing deals are essentially: deism , neology , orthodoxy .

Against the Deists, Lessing defends the right of the “Christian feeling” to his religion and his active Christianity (“Opposites to the 1st to 5th fragment”, 1777; “The Testament Johannis”, 1777). He opposes their “reasoning”, which is subtle, arrogant and refutable, and advocates keeping old laws for which no reasonable substitute exists (“Der Freigeist”, 1749; letter to Karl, February 2, 1774 ).

Above all, he criticizes neologists for the mixing of beliefs and reasoning. In the half-measures and falsities of this ideology of justification, he sees reason degraded to the mere support of revelation (“Fragment of a Conversation”, 1774).

He calls on the Orthodox to critically review their religion and not to limit this discussion to their own religion, but to find out the common core of all positive religions (" Salvation of the Hier. Cardanus ", 1754; "About the Elpistiker", 1763). The argumentation should not be based on "accidental historical truths" but rather with "necessary rational truths" ("New Hypothesis about the Evangelists ...", 1778; "The Religion of Christ", 1780) and go beyond the inadequacies of the mere "letter" of the Bible ("A Parable", 1778). In this way it could be possible to advance to a “natural religion” which in turn no longer needs revelation as proof of its reasonable necessity because it is based on a “Christianity of reason” (1753).

Many of these arguments run through the discussions within the fragmentation dispute, as part of which the "education of the human race" first appeared. And all thoughts also arise within the "education" in which the relative truth of the Christian religion on the one hand and its historical necessity on the other hand are explained. For the believing “Christian feeling” one of the two “elementary books” (OT, NT) is still appropriate as long as there is no reasonable substitute or cannot be accepted by him. It is therefore not necessary to "fool around" with it, as the deists do. Lessing counters the justification considerations of the neologists in “education” with an - at least - balanced reason which, on closer inspection, is even the dominant part of the dialectical connection. Finally, the whole concept of Scripture implements the criticism of Orthodoxy in a constructive way, in which Lessing questions his own religion in detail, puts it on a par with other religions, and tries to find a common core, the “Eternal Gospel” or the "Christianity of Reason" to arrive.

Reception of the treatise

Günter Grass' novel "Die Rättin"

In his novel Die Rättin , published in 1986, Günter Grass deals with Lessing's utopia of an age in which “people do good because it is good”. Grass does not believe in a development of the “human race” (Grass adopted this term from Lessing, which was actually obsolete at the end of the 20th century) towards moral perfection. The counter-image is provided by a poem built into the novel, in which the "great brightness" of the atom bomb abruptly ends human history:

Our plan was: Not only how to deal with a knife
and fork, but also with one's own kind,
and also with reason, the almighty can opener
, should be learned little by little
.

Let the human race be educated freely,
yes, free to determine itself, so that, free of
its minority, it learns, cautiously,
as cautiously as possible , to wean itself off from chaos
.

In the course of his upbringing, the human race had
the virtue of eating with spoons, diligently
practicing the subjunctive and tolerance,
even if it was difficult
among brothers.

A special lesson instructed us
to guard the sleep of reason so
that every dream creature
would be tamed and henceforth
eat out of the hand of the Enlightenment .

Halfway enlightened, the human race
no longer had to play haphazardly insane in the primeval mud,
rather it began to purge itself systematically .
The learned hygiene clearly expressed itself: Woe to
the dirty!

Once we called our upbringing advanced,
knowledge was declared to be power
and not just applied to paper. The
enlightened shouted : Woe to
the ignorant!

When, in spite of all common sense, violence
could not finally be eradicated,
the human race brought up mutual deterrence.
So it learned to keep the peace until some
unexplained accident got in the way.

At last the education of the human race was
as good as complete. Great brightness
illuminated every corner. It's a shame that it got
so dark after that and no one found
his school.

literature

  • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: The education of the human race. Berlin 1780 ( digitized version and full text in the German text archive )
  • HE Allison: Lessing and the Enlightenment. New York 1964.
  • M. Bollacher: Lessing: reason and history. Investigations into the problem of religious enlightenment in the late writings. Tübingen 1978. Reprint Berlin 2016.
  • K. Beans: Spirit and Letter. Cologne 1974.
  • D. Cyranka: Of course - positively - sensible. The concept of religion in Lessing's educational pamphlet. In: U. Kronauer, W. Kühlmann (Ed.): Enlightenment. Stations - conflicts - processes. Eutin 2007, pp. 39-61.
  • Monika Fick: Lessing manual. Life - work - effect. 3. Edition. Stuttgart 2010.
  • Karl S. Guthke : The status of the Lessing research. Stuttgart 1963.
  • M. Haug: Development and revelation at Lessing. Gütersloh 1928.
  • P. Rilla: Lessing and his age. Munster 1973.
  • H. Thielicke: Revelation, Reason and Existence. Gütersloh 1957.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Günter Grass: The She-rat . Munich 1999³, p. 181ff.