ATEISMO

ATEISM. – Theory that denies the existence of a personal God.

SUMMARY:

I. Notion, division, and possibility

II. History and philosophical systems

III. Doctrine of the Church

IV. The ‘aeta’ morality

V. Atheism among primitives.

I. NOTION, DIVISION, AND POSSIBILITY

The term was in vogue during the Renaissance to denote the attitude of those who do not admit the existence of the Divinity, but the definition is already found in Clement of Alexandria: ἀθεός μὲν γὰρ ὁ μὴ νομίζων θεόν (Strom., VII, 1, 4, 3). It is practical atheism when one lives without acknowledging God, ‘as if God did not exist’ or without troubling oneself about His existence and organizing one’s private and public life by disregarding the existence of any absolute principle that transcends the values of the individual and human choice. It is theoretical atheism when one directly or indirectly passes judgment on the non-existence of the Divinity. Those who deny God ‘indirectly’ (negative atheism) are those who ignore Him completely, who are unable to form a judgment about Him, or who affirm that the problem does not interest them (indifferentism). They deny Him ‘directly’ (positive atheism) first and foremost those who apply themselves to demolishing the foundations of the proofs of the existence of God, of the necessity of religion and worship, and of all that is necessarily connected with them (Providence, the immortality of the soul, moral sanction…). It is called skeptical atheism when stress is laid on the invincibility of doubt, and it becomes agnostic atheism when the undemonstrability is said or recognized as absolute, either on the part of the object or the subject. Theoretical positive atheism exists when one proclaims oneself certain and persuaded of the non-existence of God, when one demolishes and undermines as erroneous and unfounded the proofs adduced for His existence, and when one claims that a true demonstration of the same has hitherto not been given nor ever can be given.

From the theological and metaphysical point of view, however, atheism also includes all those philosophies and religions that form a concept of God which is in contrast with the exigency of His Nature: Flint (p. 2, 4, 1, note) preferred to speak here of ‘antitheism’ rather than atheism. But these conceptions, with the illusion of an acceptance of divinity, in a certain sense remove one further from the knowledge of the true God than atheism does. This traditional scheme of classification of atheism cannot, however, be applied concretely, especially in modern philosophy and culture, except with due caution, having regard above all to whether there is an affirmation of the Absolute, whatever it may be and however the human mind may attain II.
The possibility of practical atheism, at least temporarily, seems beyond doubt: the pressure of the concrete problems of life, the heat of passions, an indifferent family environment, and a secular education can for a certain period of life divert man’s interest from the problem of God. Not, however, forever: at least for those who live in contact with society where the posing of the problem, by reason of the very exigencies of religious and political competition and struggle, seems inevitable. Moreover, what the history of religions attests for peoples can also be said for individuals: first and foremost the great phenomena of nature with the spectacle of wonder at their magnificence and of terror at their overwhelming destructive threat; then the decisive facts of human existence such as birth and death, and the most harrowing problem of human life, namely the suffering of the just on this earth and the frequent prosperity of the wicked; all this, sooner or later, must pose to human consciousness the problem of a cause and a justification, which is the problem of God.

Theoretical atheism, consequently, cannot be an original situation but must be explained as a point of arrival, as the ‘conclusion’ of a determined rational process that stems from certain premises: it therefore belongs to reflected consciousness, proper to philosophy. It is a fact that in every mature civilization there have been staunch supporters (who claimed and are therefore supposed to have been ‘convinced’) of theoretical atheism, both negative and positive; it also results that the number of atheists seems to increase in what may be called the ‘saturation phase’ of a certain form of civilization, such as Stoic and Epicurean philosophy in Greco-Roman civilization, Enlightenment and Idealism in modern civilization, and the predominance of technology and economics in contemporary life. The possibility, therefore, of theoretical atheism becomes more or less real and plausible according to whether certain environmental and cultural conditions obtain or not, which the theologian must consider each time: these conditions often, in the concrete fabric of existence, seem insurmountable except by a special intervention of divine Grace, which, according to Catholic doctrine, cannot fail those who sincerely seek the truth.

The spiritual complications to which modern culture can lead today are such that Catholic authors have not yet succeeded in formulating a unanimous judgment on atheism (cf. P. Descoqs, Schema Theologiae, I, Paris 1941, pp. 139 ff.): some deny the very possibility of theoretical atheism (Blondel, de Lubac), which is nevertheless a fact; others admit that atheism may be invincible in individual cases (Billot), and there are even those who say that one can lose the Faith without theological fault (K. Adam). Cardinal Billot distinguishes, for adult acts, the ‘adulti aetatis’ and the ‘adulti rationis’: that is, those who lack the minimum light required to form a concept of the true God, and those who in their environment have at their disposal the arguments and elements for a definitive judgment. Only the atheism of the latter is conscious and culpable, not that of the former, whom Billot includes among the ancient and modern idolatrous civilizations and religions and the secular and atheistic conceptions of contemporary life.

Despite all the precautions that the problem of atheism imposes today, it must still be acknowledged that it has represented, and still represents, in the history of humanity, more an individual attitude than a social conduct, which can also signify protest or liberation of the individual. The claim of materialist and evolutionist ethnology to place at the beginning of history a man without religion or a pietist and fetishist (D. F. Strauss, *Der alte und der neue Glaube*, ch. 11, § 35), devoid of a true notion and cult of divinity, has been refuted by facts; indeed, as is well known, the situation is now substantially reversed, in the sense that the most primitive forms of religion have proved to be strictly monotheistic, that polytheism is a phenomenon of degeneration of monotheism, so that individual positions of atheism appear genetically only as forms of reaction to the absurdities and improprieties of polytheistic conceptions and practices. In this sense, an ancient nosographer could affirm: “All men, without distinction of civilization and language, have sinned.”

ages that must be seen the stimulus that it has aroused philosophical reflection and with it at the same time the a. and the need for a single absolute principle of being.

Among the Jewish people, conscious of possessing in the prophetic teaching and in the sacred books the truth of the one true God, a. is the supreme act of «folly» (Ps. 14, 1; 53, 1 ff.) and idolatry the greatest sin: a conception taken up again by St. Paul, who sees in the nefarious vices of paganism the punishment of God for the sin of idolatry (Rom. 1, 18) and reminds the new converts that previously they were «without hope and without God (ἄθεοι) in this world» (Eph. 2, 12) and that the Gentiles do not know God (τὰ ἔθνη τὰ μὴ εἰδότα τὸν θεόν; I Thess. 4, 5). Men, however, even in paganism, could have risen to God from the creatures in which He had manifested Himself, and therefore the sin of idolatry was inexcusable (Rom. 1, 19-20). At the Areopagus (Acts 17, 22-28; cf. 14, 16) the Apostle discovers that a deep aspiration to the one true God is inherent in the cult of the «Unknown God» (Acts 17, 23).

In Holy Scripture and from the strictly theological point of view — which in the rest is confirmed also by metaphysical reflection — there is no distinction between a. and idolatrous polytheism: between them there exists at most a distinction from the psychological point of view, which however in the development of consciousness must disappear.

But also in the Greco-Roman world the greatest crime was that of impiety (ἀσέβεια), which had been the object of severe legislation, especially in Greece, and could even entail the death penalty. To determine the precise sense of this crime one may refer to the triple division of the gods by Varro, recalled by St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, VI, 5): fabulous or mythical, natural or philosophical, and civil or political. The first, the fruit of the imagination of poet-theologians, was the heritage of the uneducated masses, while the third represented the religion of the State, so that the recognition of its divinities and of their official cult constituted the foundation of civil life itself and the first duty of the citizen. «Atheist» was therefore anyone who contradicted this belief or refused to acknowledge its cult, which in ancient society was the only obligatory one. Whoever abandoned belief and cult in favor of mythical gods, sowing the world with beneficent and maleficent deities, was called «superstitious» (ἐσπερίδαλος) with a sense of excess, but not of contempt.

The natural religion of the philosophers, founded on the exigency of a single principle and of its transcendence, had the function of a critical resolution of both, especially among those thinkers who did not wish to compromise with vulgar beliefs or with the interests of politics. These philosophers, with the energetic affirmation of the transcendence and unity of the deity, represented the height reached by human wisdom outside of Revelation, so that St. Augustine could write of them: «Quidam eorum quaedam magna, quantum divinitus adiuti sunt, invenerunt...» and even goes so far as to recognize that «aliquid invenerunt philosophi, quod agendae bonae vitae beataeque adipiscendae satis esse possit; quanto iustius talibus divini honores decernerentur?» (De Civ. Dei, II, 7; CSEL, 40, I, p. 67). But to the superstitious multitude and to the politicians they were «atheists»; not infrequently struck by the accusation of a., in order to save their lives they had to emigrate (Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Aristotle); it is well known that Socrates, having refused to flee, faced death, trusting in his God, as Plato (Apology) and Xenophon have handed down.

The same Plato in the Laws (X, 885 b ff.) makes us acquainted with an entire legislation on the subject that strikes those who deny the existence of the gods, providence, and the vengeance that they take against transgressors of the laws of the State. Whether political concerns were at stake or whether it was a matter of a religion in the service of politics, this is evident from the fact that the charge of ἀσέβεια was brought not for personal opinions or doctrines, but only when they propagated them or publicly insulted the gods of the official religion (Leg., I, 887 c-f). The impiety of the «universalist philosophers» consisted in tearing from religion the foundation of local traditions on which the «city» based its history and its fortunes, because therefore those doctrines undermined the foundations of civil justice (Leg., I, 890 a-e). For this reason Derenne (following Drachmann) rightly observes that, even beneath the political background, it was still religion and the conception of religion that was called into question in the process of ἀσέβεια (Le procès d'impiété..., Liège-Paris 1930, p. 261); but one must also add that it was above all the reaction of philosophy that in the classical age freed man from the narrow confines of his national and racial interests and gave him as his fatherland the whole of humanity, thus in some way preparing men for the Christian concept of the transcendence of God and of universal brotherhood.

Many lists of «atheists» have been handed down: in that of Sextus Empiricus, who distinguishes them from both theist and sceptical philosophers, are Everno, Diagoras of Melos, Prodicus of Ceos, Theodorus of Cyrene (called by antonomasia ἀσεβής; Cicero, De nat. Deor., I, 42); Critias, Protagoras, Epicurus... (Adv. Phys., IX, 50 ff.); to whom Fabricius adds (from Lysippus’ Epitome) many others such as Arcagoras, Anaximander, Apollophanes, Aristagoras of Melos, Bion of Borysthenes, Callimachus, Carneades, Gorgias, Hippias of Elis, Leucippus, etc.; certainly mention must also be made of Diogenes of Apollonia, Critias, Hippo of Reggio, Xenophanes. But of most of them it must be said, as Drachmann has proved (op. cit., p. 19), that their denial bore not so much on God as on the multiplicity of gods and on the superstitions of cult. Nevertheless it seems that among them there were not lacking «atheists» in the strict sense (Democritus, Theodorus of Cyrene, Protagoras...). Nestle (op. cit., p. 80) recalls Cinesias of Miletus (cf. Plato, Gorgias, 501 e) by whose work there was constituted in Athens a group of impious men (ἀθεομισταί) who gathered on the hill of the Pnyx to amuse themselves «in mocking the gods and our customs». Even in the list of Sextus there do not seem to be lacking radical «atheists». As for the position of Epicurus regarding external respect for the gods, which today is treated by philologists with a certain favor (J. Festugière, C. Diano): Sextus, in the external observance of Epicurus toward the official religion, sees a practical expedient to avoid a., because πρὸς τὴν φύσιν τῶν πραγμάτων οὐδὲν μᾶλλον [ἐνίοτε τοὺς θεούς] (cf. also Cicero: «...Epicurum, ne in offensionem Atheniensium caderet, verbis reliquisse deos, re sustulisse» [De nat. Deor., I, 30]).

In all this matter Sparta and Rome showed themselves more tolerant than Athens, contenting themselves with the external act of cult toward the official divinities of the State, without concerning themselves with the opinions of individuals or the disputes on the subject among philosophers. It was with the Christians that in Rome the problem of a. was raised, which had its juridical reality in the decrees that ordered the persecutions.

Already in the Hellenistic period, with the fall of local republics, the Greek soul had lost belief in indigenous deities who had shown themselves incapable of defending the fatherland of which they were the palladium. Hellenism, however, had left intact the Greco-Roman principle of religion, which remained always a matter of state and a national characteristic: it had merely lost the influence over life that ancient religion had possessed, so that, as we observe from the writings of authors from the Augustan age onward, atheism was no longer confined to the “elite” of philosophers but had spread among the masses who immersed themselves in materialism.

With Christianity, every ambiguity became impossible: inasmuch as it revived Jewish monotheism, it rejected every form of idolatry; inasmuch as it taught redemption in Christ from sin, it demanded asceticism and the renewal of all life, which the turbid—when not impious and infamous—practices of the various “mysteries” brought to Rome from Greece and the East could not satisfy. When, therefore, Tacitus indicates the motive for the first persecution under Nero—“hanc sententiam praebuit ut perinde in crimen incendi quam odio generis humani” (Ann., XV, 44, 3)—he expresses the impression that the new religion made even upon the minds of the best: namely, the abandonment of an entire civilization that had brought Rome to empire.

Under a similar impression, but with reference to the other sense (that of “catharsis” in the mysteries), is Apuleius, who, in defending the mysteries of Isis, speaks of a woman who, beyond the vices that stain her: “spreti ac calcati divini numinibus in vicem certae religionis mentita sacrilegae superstitionis dei quem praedicant unicum confictis observationibus vani” (Metamorph., 9, 4), deceived all men (the last clause seems to show the clear distinction between Christianity and Judaism, which Tacitus still confused). For Apuleius, therefore, the new religion stripped man of the enchantment of regenerative forces and the beauties of nature that pagan religions and cults sanctioned and celebrated. To the convinced pagan, therefore, Christians must have appeared the worst “atheists.”

Yet Christians, beginning with the Apostolic Fathers and the apologists, repelled the charge of atheism and in turn energetically returned the explicit epithet of ἄθεοι to their adversaries (St. Ignatius, Trall., 3, 2; St. Polycarp, Martyr., chap. 9; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept., II, 23-24). Pagan polytheism is atheism according to Origen (τολόδειον ὄντες καὶ ἄδειοι: In Ps., 65, 12) and is placed on the same level as “superstition” (ἀπάτη) as the work of the devil (Clement of Alexandria, Protrept., I, 18, 22; II, 13, 5; Gregory Nazianzen, Or., 25: PG 35, 1220 A), and is branded as ἀδέξατος. Meanwhile, Christians, since they worship the one true God, are not atheists: the apologists declare (St. Justin, Apol., I, 5: who boasts of being ἀδέξατος in rejection of the pagan gods; cf. Lactantius, De ira Dei, IX, 2; Clement of Alexandria, Strom., VII, 9, 54, 3: ὁνὸς ἄρξα ἀδέξατος ὀχέασινός).

The Jews themselves are called ἀδέξας by St. Gregory Nazianzen (Or., 2, 37: PG 35, 444) and are grouped with polytheism. Atheists are called by the Fathers the Chaldeans (Hippolytus, In Dan., II, 31, 3), the Persians, and among philosophers, Epicurus holds the first place; he is called by Clement of Alexandria ἀδέξατος κατάρχων (Protrept., II, 3, 10). The same writer, with respect to pagans, speaks of a twofold ἀδέξατος: one of not knowing the true God (τὸν ὄντα ὄντα), the other of calling gods what are not (ibid., II, 23, 1). Proclus also speaks of a twofold ἀδέξατος: one of those who deny the existence of the gods, the other of those who deny their providence (σόν τήν πρόνοιαν ἀδέξατον ἀναστάσου θεούς εἶναι διδόντες: In Plat. Timaeum, ed. E. Diehl, 1, 207, 26 ff.).

The charge, therefore, of atheism in the early centuries of the Christian era did not refer so much to the absolute denial of divinity—which has always been rare—as to the perversion (supposed by each of the contending parties regarding its antagonist) of the concept of God, which in controversy amounted to a denial. This is so evident that the Fathers treat heretics outright as ἀδέξατο: the Arians are so called by St. Maximus Confessor (Acta: PG 90, 144), and so too the Manicheans (St. Athanasius, Or. I contra Arianos: PG 26, 124; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Ep. can.: PG 45, 225 C; Cod. Iustin., I, 5, 12, 3). Marcion is called τὸν ἄρξα ἀδέξατος σόνμας by St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech., 6, 16) and ἀδέξατος par excellence (ibid., 16, 3, 7). Likewise, Eunomius is called the author τός ἀδέξατος αἱρέσεως (Synes. Epist., V), and those who deny the Holy Spirit are called “atheists” (οἱ μὴ δεξάμενοι τὸν Παρακλήτον). Already by St. Ignatius M. they are called ἀδέξατο κατάξατο teachers (Trall., 10), and by Clement of Alexandria pagan mythology is in its entirety branded as μόθων ἀδέξατο (Protrept., II, 11, 1).

This brief sampling of texts shows, in the writers who use the term ἀδέξατος, not merely a simple theoretical evaluation in the religious sphere, but, along with it and as a complement to it, a condemnation of a moral order; and it was a more ethical than dogmatic meaning that the term was bound to evoke both in the classical period and in that of the Fathers. We have confirmation of this in a judgment of Porphyry, epigone of dying paganism, according to whom “every light life is full of servitude and irreligion and is therefore atheistic (ἀδέξατος) and unjust (ἀδίκιος), because in it the spirit is full of irreligion and therefore also of injustice (ἀδικία).” Sent., XL, ed. Mommert, 39, 6.

And it is along this line that Greek and patristic thought invites us to envisage the true essence of atheism. If atheism means first of all the direct negation of God, it is also—and above all—in the admission of a notion of God that nullifies him as God and reduces him to insignificance in the face of his majesty. This is the judgment that the greatest Greek philosophers passed on the deities of popular and state mythology, and such too, by the law of opposites, was their condemnation of Christianity. In the same way, guided by Holy Scripture, Christian doctors have, somewhat paradoxically but rightly, included heretics in the condemnation of atheism. For the concept of God must be carried to its ultimate consequences: to avoid being called atheists, it is not enough to affirm the existence of the “divine” or the absolute; one must think of it as a subsistent and transcendent Person, solicitous at once of the world and of our miseries. Given moreover the fact that God has spoken to man directly (Revelation), his word must be accepted integrally: every “selection” (ἀπόσχεσις) that man wishes to make is a true sacrilege (ἀσέβημα), a true impiety (ἀσέβεια); it is outright denial of God, who does not give himself piecemeal but always and only integrally, especially when his fullness is given to man “unfolded” in the gift of the highest communication, as in Christianity. Today, therefore, whoever does not accept Revelation integrally rejects God as such, because it is only as revealing himself that he is God for man today.

della filosofia moderna cade sotto l'accusa di a., il quale però riveste forme molteplici e nuove rispetto alle epoche precedenti. Nel medioevo la storia dell'a. si confonde con quella delle eresie e non ha un volto particolare. Nell'età moderna possono ridursi a tre le forze principali che hanno stimolato e sostenuto la costituzione dell'a.: la ripresa delle forme della filosofia antica (specialmente stoica, scettica e epicurea), la riforma e specialmente il panteismo delle filosofie trascendentali. Il teismo cristiano è ancora solido in Cartesio, Malebranche; della vera posizione di Locke si dubita, mentre è luminosa la difesa di Bacone: "... Leves gustus in philosophia movere fortasse ad atheismum sed pleniores haustus ad religionem reducere". (De augmentis scientiarum, in Works, ed. Ellis-Spedding, I, Londra 1879, p. 436; cf. Medit. sacrae: De atheismo, VII, p. 239 sq.; Essays, ed. Whately, Boston 1871, p. 155 sqg.).

C'è anzitutto l'a. aperto e confesso delle filosofie materialiste e scettiche, sorte nel Rinascimento e che raggiunsero le proporzioni massime nei secc. XVIII: vi appartengono il deismo inglese, gli atei e i libertini di Francia (gli «esprits forts») nel sec. XVII al tempo di Cartesio quando il p. Mersenne scriveva che nella sola Parigi vi erano 50.000 atei, l'illuminismo di Francia e di Germania (Federico II di Prussia), il materialismo che con gli enciclopedisti ha preparato la Rivoluzione Francese (Lamettrie, d'Holbach e poi Cabanis) e quello tedesco dell'Ottocento (Feuerbach, Haeckel, Moleschott, Büchner, Czolbe...). L'a. del materialismo dialettico di Marx e della direzione marxista della «stretta osservanza» (Lenin, Stalin) sta come professione di fede e fondamento della nuova società fondata sul Quarto Stato. Marx, sulla scorta di Feuerbach, ha applicato indiscriminatamente alla religione cristiana, la critica fatta da Democrito e da Epicuro alla religione mitologica dell'antichità: esser la fede in esseri superiori al mondo, generata in parte da eccesso di fantasia, in parte poi e specialmente da un'utopistica brama di evasione dalle sofferenze della vita terrena. L'a. marxista vecchio e nuovo ha trovato un alleato, di cui fa molto conto, nell'evoluzionismo biologico darwiniano considerato come la spiegazione definitiva dell'origine dell'uomo.

Un'altra fonte rinascimentale dell'a. moderno, messa a punto con estrema energia già dal Campanella nello Atheismus triumphalus (Parigi 1636, ma composto nel 1607 a Roma; cf. specie appendice, p. 226 sg.), è il Machiavelli la cui concezione politica amorale e atea ispirò presto tanta parte della politica europea: del resto l'accusa più insistente che oggi si fa al bolscevismo ovvero marxismo politico, è precisamente di machiavellismo.

L'indirizzo più speculativo dell'a. è indubbiamente quello che fa capo al panteismo che si può dividere in due periodi: uno che ha per sommi rappresentanti Bruno e Spinoza, l'altro che assume Spinoza dentro il nuovo concetto della verità e realtà come soggettività, inaugurato da Kant e portato a compimento precisamente nelle filosofie trascendentali. Per Fichte Dio si riduce all'ordine morale del mondo, per Schelling invece (sotto l'influsso di Bruno) all'assoluto della natura, per Hegel allo spirito (Geist) assoluto che si realizza nella storia universale (Weltgeschichte). Per Fichte basti ricordare la Atheismusstreit (1798) in cui fu coinvolto per aver pubblicato nella sua rivista un articolo del kantiano Forberg di contenuto decisamente ateo, e per non aver precisato al riguardo in modo soddisfacente la propria posizione. Lo spinozismo di Schelling (e non solo del «primo» Schelling, il filosofo) fu subito avvertito con gioia di trionfo dallo Heine nel 1834 con le seguenti parole: «La dottrina di Spinoza e la Naturphilosophie di Schelling del suo miglior periodo sono sostanzialmente una identica cosa» (Deutschland, I). Basta percorrere del resto la serie di teoremi con cui s'apre, ad es., la Philosophie der Kunst (1801), per accorgersi che il grande modello dell'Ethica spinoziana ispira tanto la forma come il contenuto.

Sull'a. radicale di Spinoza il giudizio affermativo dei contemporanei è stato ripreso concordemente dagli storici moderni del materialismo (Fr. A. Lange) e dell'a. (Fr. Mauthner, Der Atheismus und seine Geschichte, II, Stoccarda e Berlino 1922-23, sez. XI, p. 346, nota), e dal traduttore (e editore) tedesco di Spinoza, Karl Gebhardt (pref. alla Kurze Abhandlung von Gott, dem Menschen und seinem Glück [Philos. Bibl., 91], Lipsia 1922, p. xvii sg.). L'accusa più famosa di a. al pensiero di Spinoza è stata avanzata dallo Jacobi nella controversia col Mendelssohn, specie nel Beylage che riassume in 44 proposizioni l'essenza dello spinozismo e avanza poi alcuni apprezzamenti dottrinali di cui il primo è: «Spinosismus ist Atheismus» (Werke, IV, 1, p. 216). L'argomento fondamentale di una «riduzione» del panteismo di Spinoza ad a. è dato dall'affermazione della «unicità della sostanza» (Ethica, parte 1a, prop. 5) e della causa (ibid., prop. 6) che s'identifica con Dio (ibid., prop. 14) e dell'affermazione dell'«immanenza» della sostanza nei suoi modi, la cogitatio e la extensio (ibid., prop. 11, 18; ibid. parte 5a, prop. 30). Perciò Spinoza può dire: «Deus sive natura...» e sostenere tuttavia l'impossibilità dell'a.: «Nemo potest Deum odio habere» (ibid., parte 5a, prop. 18). Perché nella «metafisica dell'identità» non vi può essere nessun contrasto.

Hegel si è assunto di proposito il compito di difendere Spinoza dall'accusa dello Jacobi. Spinoza, per Hegel, ha saputo riprendere l'intuizione dello d'egli Eleati e dalle il proprio contenuto metafisico, cioè «quella unità (degli opposti) che è lo spirito dentro di sé» per cui in filosofia «l'essere spinoziani è l'inizio essenziale del filosofare» (Gesch. d. Philos., III, 2; tr. it., Firenze 1943, p. 109 sg.). A., osserva Hegel, è affermare che Dio «non sia»; Spinoza, invece, afferma tutto il contrario, dice cioè che solo Dio veramente è e ciò che è finito, il mondo, non è: quindi non di a. ma piuttosto di acosmismo si dovrebbe parlare: non solo non nega Dio, ma se mai in lui c'è troppo di Dio» (cf. op. cit., p. 135 sg.; V. Enciclopedia, § 50 e l'importante § 573). Il merito di Spinoza è invece nell'aver mostrato che il finito è l'inessenziale e l'apparente che va tolto, e così la sua sostanza come poi l'assoluto di Schelling, hanno costituito gli stati di passaggio alla concezione del «Vero come tutto», che è necessariamente «Risultato» (Philos. der Religion, ed. Lasson, XII; Phil. Bibl., LIX, 168 sg.). L'argomento principale di Hegel per difendere Spinoza dall'accusa di a. è il fatto che egli ha superato e negato il mondo del finito nell'unicità della sostanza e che quindi il suo sistema può ben essere detto, anzi va detto, Modernismo (op. cit., ed. cit., 197 nota: corsivo di Hegel). Difetto di Spinoza è stato invece l'essersi fermato a un concetto dell'assoluto come sostanza «unica, rigida, immobile»; nell'aver lasciati distinti fra loro attributi e modi, movimento e volontà, distinzione dell'intelletto: nel non aver raggiunto l'assoluto come «processo» autosvolgentesi (op. cit., XIV, 64, 134).

Una volta invece che sia raggiunto — come è

Hegel succeeded in presenting the Absolute as a "process," and in so doing not only did the accusation of atheism leveled against pure philosophy fall to the ground, but also the more common accusation of pantheism: for in this conception empirical individualities, whether material as in immediate consciousness or otherwise, do not in any way belong to the Absolute but pertain to the phenomena of immediacy and thus remain outside the being of truth. In the third edition of the Encyclopedia, Hegel himself took comfort in the fact that "the accusation of atheism had become rare, indeed almost non-existent, because the content and existence of religion had been reduced to a minimum" (Encyclopedia, § 71, note). This may have been true in Protestant Germany of the nineteenth century, preoccupied with politics and commerce and almost ignorant of the Gospel, as Kierkegaard often observes in his critique of Protestantism. Hegel’s atheism, however, was exposed and denounced in a practical and convincing manner by Feuerbach (Das Wesen des Christenthums, Introduction). To Feuerbach, a confessed atheist, belongs the explicit charge: "Protestantism denied God in Himself, that is, God as God" (Prinzipien d. Philos. d. Zukunft, § 3; Italian trans., Turin 1946, p. 71).

Just as transcendental philosophers developed the implicit atheism contained in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, so Schopenhauer derived an atheistic position from the primacy Kant attributed to practical reason in affirming the transcendent. Up to Kant, the dilemma remained: either materialism (the rule of blind chance) or theism (an ordering intelligence). After Kant’s critique of the proofs for God’s existence, the entire pretended reality of the world is reduced to phenomenon, in which the order of the world is merely appearance and depends upon the a priori forms of the intellect (Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie, ed. Griesbach, I, 649, note). God can therefore never be an "object" of human knowledge, and for Schopenhauer Kantianism constituted "the most serious attack" on theism (Satz vom Grunde, op. cit., III, 145). Moreover, Schopenhauer observes, there is no identity between religion and theism: Buddhism, like Taoism and Confucianism, is atheistic, and yet it cannot be denied that they are religions. Religion is a generic term of which theism, like atheism, are subspecies. Attacking the hypocrisy of Hegel (without naming him), Schopenhauer maintains that pantheism is a self-contradictory concept, because it presupposes (as a starting point) the concept of a God distinct from the world and as an essential correlate of the same. If, on the contrary, it is the world that assumes this role, then "pantheism is nothing but an euphemism to cover atheism," in which atheism may in truth claim the "ius primi occupantis" (Erläut. z. Kant. Philosophie, op. cit., IV, 138). Schopenhauer’s atheism, however, is expressed without illusions or hypocrisy, once the ultimate ground of being and the term toward which it tends is constituted by negativity.

From Schopenhauer, through a direct channel, derives the atheism of Eduard von Hartmann’s unconscious and especially that of Nietzsche’s "will to power": the cry of Zarathustra, "God is dead" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Prologue, 2; cf. The Gay Science, III, 125). Nietzsche is an epigone and merely notes how modern philosophy, by giving primacy and precedence to subjectivity, has emptied itself of God, considering Him non-being, in the words of G. Rensi (Apologia dell’a., Rome 1925, p. 13 and passim).

Atheism also emerges in contemporary left-wing Existentialism: explicit and confessed in the relativistic phenomenism of N. Abbagnano and the French J.-P. Sartre and A. Camus. "The atheistic existentialism that I represent is more coherent; it declares that if God does not exist, there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence, and this being is man. There is therefore no human nature, because there is no God to conceive it... man is nothing else than what he makes himself" (J.-P. Sartre, L’Existentialisme est un humanisme, Paris 1946, p. 21 sq.). It is implicit in the two German masters, Jaspers, for whom God is a limit-concept, and Heidegger, who, by placing "ground" in "nothingness," could not encounter the positive and subsistent Absolute that is the principle of theism. The Absolute to which Heidegger’s later writings allude does not seem to satisfy any of the attributes of transcendence and personality.

Of expressly atheistic orientation is the philosophy of Hans Vaihinger’s "as if" (Als-oh), which explicitly connects with the interpretation of Kant given by the atheist Forberg: according to Vaihinger, for Kant the idea of God is a "Fiktion" of reason (Die Philosophie des «Als ob», 6th ed., Berlin 1922, p. 750, note). Atheistic, despite certain appearances of a return to traditional ontology, is the philosophy of Nicolai Hartmann (cf. especially his Ethik): the judgment of existence remains within the sphere of "modality" and affects only the entities of experience.

Italian neo-idealism, guided by different methodological paths by B. Croce and G. Gentile, remained faithful to the atheism of the Hegelian conception (cf. G. Gentile, La mia religione, Florence 1943), fixed upon the single subject and thus upon the real identity of subject and object and of the ego and God. A typical example may be seen in G. Calogero, according to whom God may exist only on condition "that He is not totality and that He is not omniscient and not omnipotent... and not infinite... and not a person" (cf. Etica, giuridica e politica, Turin 1946, pp. 121, 244 sq.). Hegel’s conception still retained a vestige of the eminence of the divine being, of which there is no longer any trace in his epigones. Almost the sole exception is the sincere theistic intent of B. Varisco (Dall’uomo a Dio, Padua 1939), who directed his mature thought toward breaking the chains of subjectivist atheism in order to found the consistency of the individual and the authentic transcendence of God.

III. DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

Atheism, whatever mask it wears, is condemned by the natural law itself. Wisely, therefore, the Church, rather than addressing itself to atheism in the abstract, has firmly rejected and condemned all philosophical systems that entail the denial of the possibility of knowing God, as well as those that corrupt the true concept of God: pure Spirit, first creating cause, free, personal, provident, and transcendent. The organic and complete position of the Church with respect to atheism, which underlies the majority of modern systems of thought or to which they necessarily arrive, is found in the Vatican Council. The Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith (24 April 1870) dedicates Chapter I (On God, Creator of All Things) to the concept of God and has five canons condemning the most prominent errors: Canon 1 anathematizes those who deny the existence of one God "creator and lord of all things, visible and invisible"; Canon 2 condemns absolute materialism; Canon 3 condemns pantheism in general; Canon 4 condemns special forms of pantheism (emanationist, evolutionist, idealist); Canon 5 condemns those who do not admit the genuine concept of creation and in particular the followers of Günther and Hermes (Denz.-U., nn. 1801–1805). In Chapter 2 (On Revelation), those are condemned who

They deny the knowability of God from natural effects, along with deists and progressives who reject divine revelation (nn. 1086-1809). Atheism is explicitly accused and condemned by the Pascendi in the modernists (n. 2073), in whose doctrine, says the encyclical, atheism oozes from every part: «...quasi multiplici intere doctrinae modernistarum ad atheismum trahant et ad religionem omnem abolendam» (n. 2109). But all the Church’s pronouncements against agnosticism, indifferentism, naturalism, rationalism, liberalism, secret societies, and especially Marxist social-communism, by the Pontiffs of the last century, must be considered condemnations of atheism (cf. Denz-U, nn. 1613 ff., 1677-1688 ff., 1701 ff. [Syllabus of Pius IX], 1857, 1885). Pius XI, in his encyclical against communism, declared that « in such a doctrine there is no place for the idea of God; there exists no difference between spirit and matter, nor between soul and body » (AAS, 29 [1937], p. 70).

In its judgments on atheism, the Church goes to the essence of systems and condemns all those that do not safeguard in its complete entirety the concept of God, because God can only be in one way, and because man, living after the completion of Revelation in Jesus Christ and capable of knowing it, has the duty to know and accept all that God has made known to man about His nature and His relations with the world and with man. Therefore, although the two orders of nature and grace remain distinct, there is for man, after the advent of Christianity, only one true concept of God, which consists of two moments: reason and Revelation. Yet even the moment of reason cannot be satisfied with any concept of God, nor with any form of monotheism, but must adhere to that which is in harmony with the content of Revelation. For this reason, the mere admission or affirmation of a God may not suffice and may arouse suspicion of atheism, when, that is, one has of God a concept that compromises His nature or any of His attributes. To use Kierkegaard’s terminology, one may say that, as regards the concept of God, the “how” coincides with the “what,” and this is always the case when it comes to the ultimate determination of any nature and essence.

Fr. Mauthner, an atheist and modern historian of atheism, asserts that « contemporary literature is for the most part atheistic, and while the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften) may hypocritically preserve some link with theology, the natural sciences are very far from the Church, and poetry in general is atheistic even where it seeks to revive the dead symbols of theism » (I, pref., p. vi). If one of the most responsible factors of contemporary atheism has undoubtedly been the subjectivism of modern philosophy, one must look further back (Campanella had written: « Omnes haereses ad Atheismum terminantur »: Atheismus triumphatus, pref.) to the subjectivism of the Protestant Reformation; the Pascendi also alludes to this: « Equidem protestantium error primus hac via gradum iecit » (Denz-U, n. 2109). The religious individualism of the Reformation, as scholars of modern thought of every tendency agree, provided the foundation and was the stimulus for speculative subjectivism; it is therefore no wonder that Hegel felt himself and proclaimed himself a genuine Lutheran and a defender of the « true » concept of Revelation and Incarnation.

The Europe of the twentieth century has seen the resurgence of societies for atheism: in Germany the « Bund der Atheisten » (1920) of Dr. Zepfer, in the United States of America the « American Association for Advancement of Atheism ». The most complete organization and the most radical active form of atheism has been achieved in Russia through Bolshevik Marxism, in which the « élite » of activist elements, both within and abroad, forms the organization of the « Godless ». The tactic here is a direct consequence of the fundamental idea that comes from Marx himself, according to which in historical materialism the very controversy between theism and atheism is surpassed: granted that everything that man is, is what he becomes and what he becomes through society; one must arrive at a work of abstention, of liquidation of the very problem (cf. the fragment Philosophy and Political Economy of 1844: Opere, ed. teubneriana, III, 125). For this reason, the direction of the so-called « God-builders » (Gor’kii) was rigorously crushed by Lenin. He traced for the propaganda of atheism a tactical line of conduct that must know how to adapt itself to the diversity of environments. Although the solidarity between communism and atheism is essential, on the practical level and in the period of conquest of power, the propaganda of atheism according to Lenin must not be conducted abstractly by directly attacking religious faith, but rather by gradually emptying it (and through the intensification of the « class struggle ») of its foundations, making the masses aware that belief in God is a principal means of exploitation by those who hold power and capital (N. Lenin, The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion, 1909, in M. Raphaël, Zur Erkenntnistheorie der konkreten Dialektik, Paris 1934; reproduced in appendix to the French translation, N.R.F., Paris n.d., p. 238 ff.).

The characteristic of contemporary atheism (outside of communism) is not so much or chiefly to revert to particular idealist and materialist philosophies or to urge the progress of science and technology, but rather a phenomenon of spiritual weariness and dilettantism that stems from an increasingly fatalistic conception of human events. This mentality is fostered at the same time by the phase of dissolution of philosophy and by the precariousness of existence that today no longer allows individuals or nations the security of civil and political freedom in the traditional sense. And yet, by the inexhaustible capacity for recovery that the spirit possesses, this tragedy of our earthly situation can become or be the beneficial stimulus that impels man to seek, beyond time and every finite instance, the ultimate foundation of his being in the true God, who is not merely the abstract Absolute of philosophers, but the living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who at the appointed time manifested Himself in Christ.

IV. ATHEISTIC MORALITY

The responsibility for the patronage of « secular » morality, i.e., atheistic morality, which excludes any relationship between ethics and religion, still goes back to modern philosophy. Here too Kant took the most decisive step with the « categorical imperative, » which is valid in itself and a priori within the pure realm of man as the « form » necessary to his action. Human action is thus removed not only from the stimuli of individual satisfaction and practical interest, but also from any relationship with God and with the future life: only in this way could the categorical imperative secure, in its universality for every rational nature, immunity from every empirical will (W. Windelband, Einleitung in die Philo-

Butler, Tubingen 1920, p. 281). The moral absolute, implied in Kant, becomes a requirement in Hegel, for whom moral regard « belongs to empirical individuality and vanishes with it; because the whole of spirit, which finds its realization in the State, has no other law than that of its own realization. » The systematic moral absolute is proclaimed by another epigone of idealism, Stirner, with *Der Einzige und sein Eigentum*; and, as is well known, above all by Nietzsche in the theory of the Übermensch who stands « beyond good and evil » and knows neither law nor regard, having as his only law his will to power (*Wille zur Macht*), with which he can reduce to pulp the men of the « herd » (cf. *Thus Spoke Zarathustra*, Italian trans., Turin 1921, pp. 56, 163 ff.). And although Nietzsche harbored a notable antipathy toward Hegel’s idealism, the fact remains that twentieth-century Europe has hitherto been under the combined influence of both ideologies: Hegel’s totalitarianism of the State (or theory of the « ethical State ») and the Nietzschean *Führermythus*, which was able to centralize in its arbitrary will that totalitarianism and attempt the definitive substitution of every morality and religion (cf. H. Pfeil, *Der Mensch im Denken der Zeit*, Paderborn 1938, p. 44 ff. for Nietzsche; p. 58 ff. for a bold critique of Nazism).

But the connection, affirmed by Christian philosophy, between ethics and religion is already present in the very notion of both, because it precedes the nature of man himself, in whose consciousness both converge and place their respective duties. As Troeltsch says, « atheistic ethics—which annuls all Christian values—gives the impression of a certain melancholy prudence, » because « with it the moral world becomes much more difficult and obscure, » which seems to have been recognized even by Nietzsche himself (E. Troeltsch, *Atheistische Ethik und Grundproblem der Ethik*, in *Gesammelte Schriften*, 11, 1913, pp. 537 ff.). But against « godless » ethics energetic reaction has come from the very field of idealism, innovating not an abstract impersonal God, but the « Father of whom man is a creature and bears His image inscribed within him, » as H. Cohen expressly declares (*Die Ethik des reinen Willens*, Berlin 1921, p. 407). The same Marburg master rightly observes that with the entry of the idea of God into ethics, the principle of ethics is in no way altered. Thus the danger of ethics falling into religion is excluded (cf. the translation with postscript to the 7th ed. of F. A. Lange’s *Geschichte des Materialismus*, n.d., pp. 519 ff.).

Catholic ethics too recognizes that man can have a « certain knowledge » of duties even without knowledge of the true God, and in this it agrees even with the moderate Protestant E. Brunner (*Das Gebot und die Ordnungen*, Zurich 1939, p. 16). But the « complete » knowledge of one’s duties and with it the « adequate » situation of the human act requires knowledge of the ultimate end of these acts and of the first principle of those duties, which is God. In this concrete sense of human existence, moral action presents itself as both preamble and consequence with respect to the authentic religious moment: for there is no true religiosity that does not entail in man moral obligation, and on the other hand moral obligation in its integral displeasure entails factors and values (good and bad conscience, remorse, the despair of the demonic and the heroism of sanctity...) which absolutely demand a theological foundation (cf. Th. Steinbüchel, *Die philosophische Grundlegung der Katholischen Sittenlehre*, Düsseldorf 1938, pp. 221 ff.). An atheistic morality is therefore a « contradiction in terms, » because it is inevitable, as Dostoevsky well saw (especially in *The Possessed*) and as the epigones of Nietzsche have shown (D’Annunzio, nationalism, etc.), that when God is not acknowledged, not even the natural values of man can be preserved, but one necessarily falls into the subhuman and into the systematic practice of private and political violence. Even atheistic morality is a victim of the modern prejudice of human self-sufficiency and does not accept the paradox perceived by the finest minds of classical civilization before Christ: that man, precisely in order to remain man, must be « more than man, » that is, recognize divinity and accept its laws. That paradox finds its ineffable counterpart in Christianity, where, to save man, God, as St. Paul says, became less than God; hence even the « definitive » answer to the exigence of morality, man finds it in Revelation.

Abundant but confused bibliography in P. Descotes, *Précédences théologiques naturalis*, 2 vols., Paris 1932–35; *Schema theodiceae*, ibid. 1941.

On Marxist atheism: G. Ledit, *La religione e il comunismo*, Milan 1937; G. Manacorda, *Il Bolscevismo*, Florence 1940; M. Cachin, *Science et religion*, ibid. 1946.

On existentialist atheism: M. Werner, *Der religiöse Gehalt der Existenzphilosophie*, Bern-Leipzig 1943; C. Fabro, *Problemi dell’Esistenzialismo*, Rome 1945; id., *Il significato dell’Esistenzialismo*, in the volume *L’Esistenzialismo*, Turin-Rome 1947.

Cornelio Fabro

Some scholars have maintained that humanity, before conceiving of spirits and deities, passed through a primordial phase marked by the absence of any form of religion, and that some peoples still living today have remained at that stage. The foundations of this hypothesis were laid by the positivist Auguste Comte, who, believing that the development of humanity unfolded in three stages—theological, metaphysical, and positive—supposed that the first moment of the theological stage should be characterized by a kind of cult of all natural things, without these being conceived as pervaded by spirits or otherwise animated, nor even personified. Despite the schematic nature of the system and the complete lack of any documentation, its a priori reasoning enjoyed singular success among sociologists and supporters of progressive evolutionism. Lubbock then expanded the schema, allowing the aforementioned phase an additional period marked by the absolute absence of any religious sentiment, and thus also of the indeterminate concept postulated by Comte. As proof, he provided a list of peoples whom he considered entirely atheistic, remaining at the alleged primordial stage.

Soon, however, eminent ethnologists and anthropologists rose against such assertions, subjecting the famous list to rigorous and objective criticism. Thus, for example, the most renowned ethnologist of the time, E. B. Tylor, in a study on the beginnings of culture; G. Roskoff in an investigation into the religion of the most barbarous peoples; the French anthropologist A. de Quatrefages in another on the human species; the world-famous linguist Max Müller, professor at Oxford, in a work that achieved great success; and also, among many others, C. P. Tiele, the first holder of the chair of Comparative History of Religions at Leiden in the Netherlands. And although the results of later research did not confirm the theories of these authors regarding the origin of religious thought and attitude (animism, naturalism, etc.), they were unanimously justified in considering the evidence adduced by Lubbock in support of his alleged atheism among primitives as unfounded. Indeed, the works from which he drew his insights could not help but be open to criticism, as they clearly revealed themselves to be based on overly superficial and fleeting contacts with natives, even falling into frequent contradictions. All the more opportune, therefore, appeared the criticisms of the opponents, which aimed, above all, to advocate for deeper and more serious research before issuing such an important judgment.

And rightly so: for when people no longer contented themselves with summoning individuals, perhaps forcibly taken from the forest, and questioning them hastily even through interpreters, and instead realized that one had to live for a long time among the peoples to be studied, observing with confident friendship the normal and spontaneous course of their entire social and spiritual life, the ethnologist could not fail to conclude that even all the peoples listed by Lubbock had their own religion. Thus, for example, only a few decades ago, it was absolutely believed that the Vedda of Ceylon were atheists. Yet in the first decade of the century, the Englishman C. G. Seligman, together with his wife, was able to observe among them a belief in life after death, ancestor worship, beliefs in greater and lesser spirits, among which Kanda-Yaka holds the first place and is the object of worship consisting of prayers, first-fruit offerings, and sacred dances. Other peoples long vaunted as classic examples of primitives, and upon which Lubbock relied on nothing less than the reports of the famous circumnavigator Cook and even Darwin, were the Fuegian tribes: but here, Father M. Gusinde, in four long exploratory stays recounted in three weighty volumes, unequivocally demonstrated the existence of faith and worship in a Supreme Being, and among two of the tribes, many texts of fervent and meaningful prayers addressed to it were recorded.

Only one people remained from Lubbock’s list, the Kubu of Sumatra, anthropologically and culturally classified among the most ancient peoples and considered atheistic—a viewpoint that some still cling to today. But unjustly, for Father Schebesta, explorer of the Pygmies of Central Africa and Southwest Asia, has become convinced that the Kubu are neither atheistic nor of the remotest origin. Anthropologically, they belong to the same group as the Jakudn of the Malay Peninsula and should be considered Proto-Malays with a tendency toward mesocephaly, or respectively dolichocephaly, rather than as Pygmies or Pygmoid with a tendency toward brachycephaly. Their language is an archaic form of Malay, their economic life is not the initial stage of nomadic hunters and gatherers but the more advanced stage of sedentary farmers. They are not at all atheistic, since their myths demonstrate beliefs in countless nature spirits, among which a female deity, Nenek-Bondo, stands out, as among the Jakudn. At death, she casts the souls of the wicked (thieves, murderers, and adulterers) into a cauldron of boiling water to examine them until, purified, they may migrate to the afterlife. All the spirits, moreover, are objects of veneration through prayers and generally bloody sacrifices; the Kubu also practice shamanism, in several respects similar to that of the Jakudn.

Thus, Lubbock’s list was irreparably dismantled, and ethnology erased from its pages the category of atheistic primitives. However, between 1920 and 1930, G. Tessmann asserted that the Tschama Indians of the Ucayali in South America—who, moreover, did not belong to Lubbock’s series—were without any religion. But here too, the criticism leveled by notable ethnologists, particularly against Tessmann’s method, was so vigorous and decisive as to demonstrate the lack of any scientific basis for his arguments. In this regard, we may mention the observations of the Dutch professor A. W. Nieuwenhuis, who, initially convinced and later recanting, had asserted the atheism of the Kubu, and the renowned ethnologist K. Th. Preuss, both authors of weighty works on the spiritual culture of naturally occurring peoples, both eminent and successful explorers accustomed to long stays among primitives—in Dutch India for the former, in the same South America for the latter. Both note in this regard that Tessmann very likely failed to achieve the aim of his study and that the religion of the Tschama remained hidden from him, giving as the fundamental reason the fact that Tessmann did not know the natives’ language, with the consequence that he had to rely on interpreters and limit himself to schematic questions. In this regard, Preuss remarks that it could hardly be surprising that Tessmann received obscure or negative responses, since even he himself had once lost his way until he managed to have his Indians dictate their myths in their own language, thus succeeding in discovering an entire religious world of which he had previously had no inkling.

Preuss further emphasizes another circumstance that certainly prevented Tessmann from penetrating and understanding the spiritual life of the Tschama: his evident inability to enter into intimate spiritual contact with them, that is, to comprehend and evaluate their mentality. Indeed, as Preuss continues to note, no praise for these people can be found in the book, and only

Petty resentments and scornful judgments, such as, for example, that the monkey accompanying him would have been far more psychologically astute than the average Tschama; that they barely surpassed the spiritual level of beasts; and that they knew far less about religion than a good dog, etc. Nieuwenhuis rightly adds that, in all likelihood, Tessmann in these assertions must have reproduced, more than anything else, the negative suggestions of the small Peruvian planters who served as his interpreters—individuals, as everyone knows, not to be trusted as sources for a nuanced understanding of spiritual culture.

Preuss also explains the cause of the misunderstanding into which Tessmann fell, noting that previously the latter had dealt only with Negroes—peoples far more submissive and familiar—whereas his new subject of study proved far more challenging, since American Indians are generally far more reserved and distrustful toward strangers, accustomed to giving brief and evasive replies. He adds that, in any case, the dignity of these characteristic traits undoubtedly places them on a higher level compared to the obvious pliability of Negroes. Tessmann, however, could only interpret these traits as sheer mental obtuseness, as evidenced by the misunderstandings in his work. Thus, the independent conclusions reached by the two scholars converge in recognizing that while Tessmann admirably rendered the details of the material culture of the Tschama, the picture he presented of their spiritual culture is, by contrast, untenable; indeed, Preuss outright places a large question mark beside II. Hence, sound and rigorous ethnological criticism has also dispelled this attempt to vindicate the author’s portrayal of primitives.

But even if, in the light of more thorough and reliable investigations, one were to admit that the Tschama truly had no religion, this would in no way justify drawing sweeping negative inferences about the religiosity of primitives, nor would it lend any support to Lubbock’s hypothesis. After all, it has been rightly observed that the Tschama are no longer a homogeneous or original people but a mélange of disparate groups, uprooted and decimated tribes whose economic foundations, social structure, and ethical life have been thoroughly eroded by the many upheavals and prolonged enslavement they endured. Thus, they would likely present to the observer only faint traces of their original religiosity—abnormal elements of a disintegrating whole that could hardly convey anything meaningful about the religious spirit of peoples in a normal state of culture. In short, this would amount to a residual phase of degeneration rather than any form of original atheism.