A Influência do Cristianismo na Filosofia de Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Abstract

The objective of this research is to investigate the influence of religion on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy, especially on his moral and political thinking and on his reflections on education. Our research is based mainly on the works Emilio or Education, The Social Contract and Letters Written from the Mountain, as well as relevant texts by our philosopher that address this topic and their commentators. In this context, firstly, we define Christianity in Rousseau as Christian theism, whose concept is built from the idea of natural religion, which bases its belief in God, and which has as its principle, namely, man's natural feelings, which are, conscience and reason; and, also, Christian revelation. Thus, we argue that our philosopher was a Christian, for, among other reasons, he believed in the Bible as divine revelation. However, their belief did not depend on the intermediation proposed by religious institutions. Furthermore, even though he believed in the authenticity of the Gospel, he did not argue that it was necessary for the practice of faith or even to reveal God to men. For this reason, he was a critic of religious institutions. Thus, we also realized that religion, for him, was necessary for the modern State, however, only the principles that led citizens to love the laws and practice the precepts of sociability should benefit from it. Furthermore, all religious intolerance should be extinguished; and, above all, maintaining a secular State that guaranteed the freedom of its citizens, while at the same time privileging the true worship of the divine being. Given this, we conclude that religion was one of the main bases of Rousseau's moral philosophy. Furthermore, because he presented a religious expression that was very particular to him, and because he was a critic of Christian institutions, in addition to having exposed a political model that emphasized absolute popular sovereignty, we understand that Rousseau was a victim of intolerance and political censorship and religious, both in Paris and Geneva, as is possible to identify in the texts he writes in his defense. Regarding the republic of Geneva, even though he showed, in the Letters Written on the Mountain, that he was a critic of the political institutions of his homeland and, also, of Genevan Calvinism, we argue that his political work was inspired, to a certain extent, by the constitution of Geneva, consequently, it was influenced by Protestant political principles, since the Geneva that inspired Rousseau had the reformer John Calvin as one of its main legislators. In addition to the above, in his reflections on education, we know that the main objective of human formation was to preserve awareness of corruption, through negative education. In this sense, we understand that Rousseau's concept of conscience has religious inspiration, which highlights the connection between education and religion. Finally, Rousseau's education advocated a concern with forming tolerant individuals; Since, religious and civil intolerance, in his conception, could lead to the destruction of societies, therefore it needed to be extinguished.