Le monde sans Dieu
ELEVENTH CAHIER OF THE FIFTH SERIES
M. M. MANGASARIAN Lecturer of the Independent Religious Society of Chicago
THE WORLD WITHOUT GOD
A NEW CATECHISM
FOREWORD
Charles Péguy
I have said several times in these cahiers, and I shall say again as often as I can, as often as it is necessary, as often as it is fitting, to what extent and why I am personally opposed to the manufacture of secular catechisms. Nevertheless, we publish below the French translation of an American rationalist catechism.
First, this new example, after so many others and before so many more, proves that intellectually our various cahiers are, within the series, perfectly free.
Second, the American rationalist catechism whose French translation we publish below has quite particular qualities. Let one set aside for a moment, postpone, or leave in their place the preliminary criticisms we are accustomed to make of every catechism, and these qualities will become apparent.
Given that the deep vice of religious catechisms is dogmatism, audacity, and dogmatic assertion; given further that secular catechisms oppose religious catechisms as one power opposes another, and that an opposition is tempted to resemble the position it opposes, the temptation of a secular catechism is to oppose the religious catechism, the commanding authority exercised by the religious catechism, with a commanding authority that is equal or rather superior, and of opposite direction. Thus the deep vice of secular catechisms is also dogmatism, audacity, dogmatic assertion. The secular, statist catechisms we know are for the most part only reversed religious catechisms, particularly reversed Catholic catechisms, counter-Catholic catechisms, counter-catechisms. They do not propose to liberate the human spirit; they propose only to exercise a commanding authority. They speak of modern society; they treat, they teach about the modern State and the modern world at least as categorically, at least as marvelously, at least as miraculously as the old catechisms taught about the Church and Christendom. They are no less mystical; they are no less authoritarian; they are not even a reply to the religious catechisms; they are of their direct lineage. They are religious catechisms more particularly devoted to the ritual worship of a new God which is the modern State.
The new catechism of M. M. Mangasarian is in no way a religious catechism, a reversed Catholic catechism.
This is what one will see from the very first page: the liminal baptism of the twentieth century in the name of Peace, Liberty, and Progress is in no way one of those secular and civil baptisms that are replicas, crude imitations, and grotesque counterfeits of a religious ceremony, of the Catholic baptism. This invocation, this claim, this demand of the twentieth century is profoundly human; and for anyone who does not stop at a few symbolic and deliberate imitations of form, it is profoundly original.
By the English introduction one will learn who the American author is and how the book came into being. The author of the book, M. M. Mangasarian, is Armenian by origin, and for us who have been so occupied with Armenia and the Armenians, who personally know some Armenians, this origin is extremely interesting. The author is the lecturer of the Independent Religious Society of Chicago; we are told that an assembly of two thousand persons hears his word every week. These are customs we hardly have in France, and which at first sight might displease us a little. As for a weekly service, our so-called freethinkers have been unable to imagine anything but ritually eating meat every Friday. And as genuine freethinkers, we have difficulty picturing these sorts of American secular sermons. But we are internationalists; we admit into our understanding the customs of foreign peoples, provided they are honest. It does not suffice for us that a custom be established, that an institution be born and function outside this French nation, for us to condemn it.
Published by the Open Court publishing company of Chicago, this new catechism went through several editions. Published by the Rationalist Press Association of London, I am assured that several thousand copies, four or six thousand, were sold in a few weeks, four thousand in six weeks. The initiative for this French edition should not be attributed to me; our regular collaborator, M. Jean le Clerc de Pulligny, having come to know this new catechism, brought us the translation all ready.
I must admit that I hesitated a long time before making a cahier of it. I was wrong. But for the reasons I have stated and those one can guess, this word and this form of catechism arouse in us hesitations, apprehensions perhaps exaggerated. Today I have recovered from nearly all these apprehensions.
Anticlericism, anti-Catholicism — radical, floating, wavering between a selfish individualism and a statism that is itself only a selfish individualism — is worthless, can accomplish nothing in matters of conscience against Christian charity, particularly Catholic charity. Only socialist solidarity can accomplish, is worth something in matters of conscience alongside and in the face of Christian charity, particularly Catholic charity. Only socialist solidarity can counter, is worth something against Christian, Catholic charity.
In morality as in physics and chemistry, displacements do not happen at random; they do not happen to the advantage of vanities. The more weighty displaces the less weighty; the more efficient displaces the less efficient. A political State can oppress, but morally it cannot displace a city of God. Only a moral city can displace a religious city.
A political system does not displace a religion; a political system does not displace a mysticism. A morality displaces a religion; a social and economic system displaces a mysticism.
Against this eternal, infinite idea — Christian, particularly Catholic — of eternal salvation, only one idea can be set in opposition, for debate or simple confrontation; only one idea can measure itself against it: the socialist, economic idea of temporal salvation. Because, as I have demonstrated or shown every time I have spoken of destitution in previous cahiers, particularly treating of Jean Coste, the servitudes, degradations, torments, shames, crimes, and condemnations, the enclosures of economic miseries are infinite, eternal, absolute — as much, to the same degree, exactly, as the religious, Christian, Catholic damnations represented. Thus economic salvation, in the sense understood by the few socialists who have survived — being the revolution, the overturning of misery, eternal, infinite, absolute — being therefore itself the result of an eternal, infinite, absolute operation, requiring such an operation, can measure itself against eternal salvation. It requires an operation of the same order; it sets in motion magnitudes of the same order.
The miseries of economic miseries are of the same order of magnitude as the miseries of religious damnations; salvation from economic miseries is therefore of the same order of magnitude as salvation from religious damnations.
A revolution can confront a conservation, can measure itself against it, only if it is at least of the same order of magnitude.
[Peguy continues at great length to develop his thesis that radicalism is a failed imitation of Catholicism, unable to truly challenge it because it is neither fully traditional nor fully revolutionary. Only a genuine socialism, he argues, one that draws on deeper human resources, can truly displace the Catholic tradition — not by superficial political maneuvering but by reaching to a more profound humanism. The foreword runs to approximately fifty pages of dense philosophical-political prose.]
George Jacob Holyoake — Introduction
The author of this book, M. M. Mangasarian, Armenian by origin, has the honor of being the lecturer of the Independent Religious Society of Chicago, and each week his words charm, it is said, an assembly of two thousand persons who, for their quality, constitute the largest congregation of the faithful known in any country. We have larger ones in England, but they are children of Dogma who crowd into them. M. Mangasarian’s listeners are sons of Reason, who seek Spirit and Morality. That is a far rarer breed. The Open Court publishing company of that lively and tumultuous city that is Chicago has published several editions of this book, for the convenience of American readers. The Rationalist Press Association was right, I believe, to decide to give readers of Great Britain a similar opportunity to possess this original and new catechism.
The most difficult form of literary composition, one that has the quality of engaging the reader, is without any doubt the catechism.
The author must be expert at diving into the deep ocean of polemics to find the essential facts hidden in those depths. A catechism is a short and convenient method for acquiring precise knowledge. There are only two persons on stage — the Questioner and the Respondent. A good questioner is a distinct type. He must know what information to request. If he is banal, he serves no purpose; if he is vague, he cannot be answered. The Respondent must be master of the subject under discussion and precise in the expression of his thought. The “New Catechism” possesses these qualities. It is the boldest, liveliest, most varied, and most instructive of all works in this genre. It breaks into the principal fields of human knowledge that Religions have surrounded as if with barriers of supernatural terrors: it cherishes what is beautiful and shows what has been deformed. The notes are numerous and touch on antiquity as well as modern times: they are as striking as the text. This book is an encyclopedia of theology and reason lodged in a nutshell.
Eastern Lodge, Brighton — October 20, 1902
Note from the French translator
Everything in this volume, text and notes, belongs to the American author. Had the translator written this book to express his own thought, he would have made it different on a few points. As it is, he has judged it useful to make it known to the French public. He has added nothing to it. — Jean le Clerc.
Author’s Preface
The old catechisms that were imposed on our youth — when our intelligence could not yet defend itself — no longer command our respect.
They rust in neglect. The times in which they were conceived and composed are dead — quite dead!
A new catechism is needed to express what men, women, and children who live in the twentieth century think.
THE NEW CATECHISM
We baptize the twentieth century in the name of Peace, Liberty, and Progress. We name it — The Century of the People. We ask of this new century: a Religion without the supernatural; a Politics without war; a Science and an Art without coarseness; and Wealth without misery or injustice!
Chapter I — Reason and Revelation
- Question. — What is reason?
Answer. — It is the faculty of thinking — a faculty peculiar to man.
[The catechism proceeds through sixteen chapters in a question-and-answer format, covering: Reason and Revelation, Christian Revelation, the Canon of the Bible, God, the Earth, Man, Jesus, the Teachings of Jesus, the Church, the Liberal Church, the Creeds, the Clergy, Prayer and Salvation, Death, Immortality, and the Supreme End of Man.]
Chapter VIII — The Teachings of Jesus
- Question. — What opinion is held of his teachings on these subjects?
Answer. — A very high one.
- Question. — What were some of the most beautiful sayings of Jesus?
Answer. — His parable of the Good Samaritan; the Prodigal Son; the shepherd’s care for his lost sheep; the wise and foolish virgins; the sower who went out to sow his seed; the widow and her mite; and his merciful call to those who are weary and heavy laden, to come to him for rest.
- Question. — What is the value of these sayings of Jesus?
Answer. — They are as exquisite as human words can be.
- Question. — Did Jesus ever say or do things that we would be wrong to imitate?
Answer. — Yes. In a moment of anger and impatience, he “cursed” his enemies and railed against them. He used physical force against the money-changers; he despised the laws of hygiene and cleanliness, and he destroyed other people’s property.
Chapter IX — The Church
- Question. — Define the word “church.”
Answer. — It derives from the Greek “ecclesia,” which means assembly or congregation.
- Question. — Define this idea.
Answer. — In the beginning the Church was first a republic of believers of the same faith — an organization in Spirit; then gradually a separation arose between clergy and laity. Teaching in the Church was monopolized by the priest and the bishop, who also claimed the power to save or damn souls for eternity. A republic at its origin, the Church became a hierarchical body.
Chapter XIV — Death
- Question. — How long has death existed on earth?
Answer. — As long as life.
- Question. — What is the relation between life and death?
Answer. — They are different manifestations of the same power.
- Question. — Which is?
Answer. — Movement.
- Question. — What happens to the body at the moment of death?
Answer. — It begins to return to life. The molecules of which the body is composed unbind, separate, and resume the form of their original elements — water, calcium, iron, phosphorus, etc. Thus disaggregated, they mingle with the sun and the air, and having renewed their youth, they re-enter into combination in new bodies.
- Question. — Could there be any progress in the world without death?
Answer. — As old leaves must fall from the branches to make room for new ones — greener — so we must die to make room for the men and women of the future — better than we.
- Question. — How can we triumph over death?
Answer. — By loving and serving some noble cause, in which we may long outlive ourselves after we have disappeared.
Chapter XV — Immortality
- Question. — What does the word Immortality mean?
Answer. — It is the state of a being that does not die, that is, a life without end.
- Question. — What effect would such a belief produce upon us?
Answer. — It would encourage us to cultivate in ourselves — to store up as a treasure — only what is true and noble, to make of it the brain and soul of the future.
Chapter XVI — The Supreme End of Man
- Question. — What is the greatest thing in the world?
Answer. — To live, with honor; for without living we can have nothing else that is good.
- Question. — Who is the savior of the world — the true Christ of humanity?
Answer. — Truth! which is the most perfect knowledge we can possess; and the confidence that one can rely on this knowledge to attain the highest ends of life.
- Question. — What then is the supreme end of man?
Answer. — To seek the supreme wisdom by reason, and to practice the sovereign good by the will, and this for the good of humanity.