The World of Religions, November-December 2004 —
Editorial —
In recent years, we have been witnessing a return of religious certainties, linked to a growing identity crisis, which is focusing media attention. I believe it is the tree that hides the forest. As far as the West is concerned, let us not lose sight of the progress made in a century. The dossier we are dedicating to the centenary of the French law on the separation of Church and State gave me the opportunity to delve back into this incredible context of hatred and mutual exclusion that prevailed at the time between the papist camp and the anticlerical camp. In Europe, the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries was one of certainties. Ideological, religious, scientific certainties. Many Christians were convinced that unbaptized children would go to hell and that only their Church possessed the truth. Atheists, for their part, despised religion and considered it an anthropological (Feuerbach), intellectual (Comte), economic (Marx), or psychological (Freud) alienation.
Today, in Europe and the United States, 90% of believers believe, according to a recent survey, that no single religion holds the Truth, but that there are truths in all religions. Atheists, too, are more tolerant, and most scientists no longer consider religion a superstition destined to disappear with the progress of science. Overall, from a closed universe of certainties we have moved, in barely a century, to an open world of probabilities. This modern form of skepticism, which François Furet called "the insurmountable horizon of modernity," has been able to become widespread in our societies because believers have opened up to other religions, but also because modernity has rid itself of its certainties inherited from the scientistic myth of progress: where knowledge advances, religion and traditional values recede.
Have we not therefore become disciples of Montaigne? Whatever their philosophical or religious convictions, a majority of Westerners subscribe to the postulate that human intelligence is incapable of attaining ultimate truths and definitive metaphysical certainties. In other words, God is uncertain. As our great philosopher explained five centuries ago, one can therefore only believe, but also not believe, in uncertainty. Uncertainty, I should point out, does not mean doubt. We can have faith, deep convictions, and certainties, but admit that others, in good faith and with as many good reasons as we do, may not share them. The interviews given to Le Monde des Religions by two men of the theater, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt and Peter Brook, are eloquent in this regard. The first fervently believes in "an unidentifiable God" who "does not come from knowledge" and affirms that "a thought that does not doubt itself is not intelligent." The second makes no reference to God, but remains open to an "unknown, unnameable" divine being and confesses: "I would have liked to say: 'I believe in nothing...' But believing in nothing is still the absolute expression of a belief. » Such remarks illustrate this fact, which in my opinion deserves to be meditated upon more in order to move away from stereotypes and simplistic discourses: the real divide today is less and less, as in the last century, between "believers" and "unbelievers", but between those, "believers" or "unbelievers", who accept uncertainty and those who reject it.
The World of Religions, November-December 2004