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Lessing and Hamann: Two Views on Religion and Enlightenment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Irving Louis Horowitz
Irving Louis Horowitz
Affiliation:
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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Extract

The Lessing “legend” is grounded in paradox. It rests on his total dedication to the Enlightenment ideal of Sapere aude — dare to use one's own understanding—while at the same time he viewed himself as heir apparent to German Protestantism. Lessing was a religionist who depended on rationalism for the solution to every major problem. The unity of these apparently diverse perspectives was summed up in Lessing's program of seeking truth, not claiming its possession. “If God held in his right hand all the truth, and in his left hand the ever active longing for the truth, and said to me: ‘choose’, I should humbly grasp his left hand and cry: give me this, oh Father! the truth is for you alone”. If truth were relinquished to God, then at least Lessing could lay claims to salvaging history for man. In this form, what appeared to the philosophes as alien traditions, human revolution and divine revelation, were to be united.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 1961 , pp. 334 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1961

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References

1. Lessing Samtliche Schriften, edited by Karl Lachmann and Franz Muncker. (Stuttgart and Leipzig 1886–1924)Google Scholar; hereinafter referred to as LSS. Vol. XIII, p. 24.

2. Neujahrsgeschenk für das schöne Gesohlecht herausgegeben, edited by Fried-rich Nicolai. Cited in Heinrich Schneider, Lessing: Zwölf Biographiche Studien, (Bern 1951), p. 253.Google Scholar [The exact phrase is, “Wer einen Lessing denkt, Denkt sich zu Deutschlands Ehren”].

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24. Ibid.

25. Ibid.

26. HSW., Vol. III, p. 283.Google Scholar

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29. Ibid.

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