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Title: Reason and Religion Author: Leo Tolstoy Date: 1894 Language: en Topics: religion, christian Source: Original text from http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=10666, 2021.
To those who ask my opinion whether it be desirable to endeavor by the
aid of reason to attain complete consciousness in one’s inner spiritual
life, and to express the truths thus attained in definite language, I
would answer positively in the affirmative, that every man, in order to
achieve his destiny on earth, and to attain true welfare,—the two are
synonymous,—must continually exert all his mental faculties to solve for
himself and clearly to express the religious foundations on which he
lives—that is, the meaning of his life.
I have often found among illiterate laborers who have to deal with cubic
measurements an accepted conviction that mathematical calculations are
fallacious, and not to be trusted. Whether it arise from their ignorance
of arithmetic, or from the fact that those responsible for the
calculations have often cheated them, with or without intent, the
conviction that mathematics is unreliable and worthless for purposes of
measurement has taken root among illiterate workmen, and become for the
majority of them an unquestioned fact.
The similar opinion has obtained among men,—I will boldly say, lacking
in true religious feelings,—that reason is unequal to the solution of
religious questions, that the application of reason to such questions is
the most fruitful source of error, and that the solution of such
questions by the aid of reason is sinful pride.
I mention this because the doubt expressed in the question whether it be
needful to strive for distinct consciousness in one’s religious
convictions may be merely the outcome of the belief that reason cannot
be applied to the solution of religious questions.
Man has been given by God one single instrument to ​attain knowledge of
self and of one’s relation to the universe; there is no other, and that
one is reason.
Yet he is informed that he may use his reason to solve questions,
whether domestic, family, commercial, political, scientific, artistic,
but not for the elucidation of the problem for which especially it was
given him; and that for the solution of the most important truths, of
those on an acquaintance with which hangs all his life, man must on no
account employ his reason, but must acquiesce in their truth
independently of his reason, whereas, independently of reason, man
cannot be conscious of anything.
It is said, Accept the truth by revelation, by faith; but a man cannot
believe independently of reason. If a man believes this and not that, it
is only because his reason tells him that this is credible, and that is
not. To affirm that a man must not be guided by reason is equivalent to
telling a man who has lost his way in dark catacombs that, in order to
find his way out, he must extinguish his lamp, and be guided, not by
light, but by something else.
But it may be objected that not every one is endowed with intellect and
a special capacity for expressing his thoughts, and that, in
consequence, an inadequate expression of these thoughts may lead to
error.
To this I would apply the words of the Gospel,—that “things hid from the
wise and prudent have been revealed unto babes.” And this statement is
neither an exaggeration nor a paradox, as people are accustomed to view
such passages in the Gospels as do not please them, but is an assertion
of the simplest and most indubitable truth that unto everything in the
universe is given a law which this being must follow, and that to enable
each to recognize this law every one is endowed with corresponding
organs. Thus every man is endowed with reason, and to the reason of
every man is disclosed the law which he must follow. This law is
concealed only from those who do not wish to follow it, and who, in
order to avoid it, cast reason aside, and instead of using it to become
acquainted with truth, accept upon ​trust the assertions of those who,
like them, have surrendered reason.
Yet the law which men should follow is so plain that it is accessible to
every child, the more so as no man has to discover anew the law of his
life. Those who have lived before him have discovered and expressed it,
and he has but to verify it with his reason, and to accept or refuse
those propositions which he finds expressed in tradition; that is, not,
as recommended by those who would shirk the law, by verifying reason by
tradition, but, on the contrary, by verifying tradition by reason.
Traditions may proceed from men, and be false; but reason indubitably
comes from God, and cannot be false. Hence for the recognition and
expression of truth no special extraordinary capacity is required; one
has but to believe that reason is not only the loftiest sacred capacity
of man, but moreover is the sole instrument for the understanding of
truth.
Particular intellectual qualities are needful, not for the acquirement
and expression of truth, but for the concoction and expression of error.
Having once deviated from the directions of reason, distrusting it, and
believing what others proclaimed as the truth, men accumulate and accept
by faith—for the most part in the form of laws, revelations, dogmas—such
intricate, unnatural, and contradictory propositions, that, in order to
express them and adapt them to life, great acuteness of mind and special
qualities are indeed required.
Only imagine a man of our world, educated on the religious basis of any
of the Christian confessions,—Catholic, Greek-Orthodox, Protestant,—who
wished to elucidate for himself and adapt to his life the religious
fundamental ideas with which he has been inoculated in childhood! What
an involved mental labor he must face in order to reconcile all the
contradictions included in the faith he has imbibed from his youth.
A righteous God has created evil, persecutes men, demands redemption,
and so forth; and we, confessing the law of love and mercy, make war,
rob the poor, etc.
In order to disentangle these impossible ​contradictions, or rather in
order to conceal them from oneself, much mental capacity and special
talent is indeed necessary; but in order to learn the law of one’s life,
or, as already expressed, to bring one’s faith into complete
consciousness, no special mental capacity is required; one has but to
refuse to admit anything contrary to reason, not to deny reason,
religiously to guard one’s reason, and to rely on it alone.
If the meaning of life is obscure to any one, one must not therefore
conclude that reason is unequal to elucidating that meaning, but merely
that too much of what is unreasonable has been admitted upon faith, and
that everything uncorroborated by reason must be set aside.
Hence my answer to the question, whether one should try to attain
complete consciousness in one’s inner spiritual life, is, that this is
precisely the most needful and important business of our lives. Most
needful and important, because the only reasonable conception of life is
the accomplishment of the will of Him who sent us into the world—that
is, the will of God. And His will is revealed to us, not by any
extraordinary miracle, nor by the divine finger inscribing it on stone,
nor by the Holy Ghost composing an infallible book, nor by the
infallibility of any special holy person or collection of persons, but
by the working of the reason of all men, who pass on to each other by
word and deed the truths which are ever becoming more evident to their
consciousness.
This knowledge never has been, and never will be, complete, but augments
continually as the life of mankind advances. The longer we live the more
clearly and fully do we learn the will of God, and in consequence what
we must do to fulfill it.
Therefore, I am firmly convinced that the elucidation and verbal
expression (which is an unmistakable token of clearness of idea) of all
religious truth accessible to him by every man, however small he may
think himself or others may consider him—the least being essentially the
greatest—are of the most sacred and most essential duties of man.