DIDEROT: ATHEIST WITH THE RIGHT ATTITUDE
of the Age of Enlightenment. Here is a translation -
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Atheist but devout: Diderot was Ratzingerian before the fact
Benedict XVI’s call for atheists to live their lives “as if God existed” even if
they don’t believe in God is not totally unfounded.
One of the most famous professed atheists in history wrote down in black and white
that he adheres wholeheartedly with the appeal by the future Pope.
He lived 3 centuries ago.
Denis Diderot, 1713-1784, champion of the French Enlightenment and a pillar of
the famous Encyclopedia, touched on the question often and wrote about it.
The literary scholar Giuseppe Scaraffia writes about it in “Il Foglio” – doctrinal organ
of modern devout atheists.
Example: Diderot concluded his “Thoughts on the interpretation of nature",
published in 1753, with a prayer - “I began with nature, which has been called
your work, and I will end with you, whose name on earth is God. Oh God, I know
you do not exist, but I will think as if I see you in my heart and I will behave
as if I were in front of you.”
And in the later “Interview of a philosopher with Madame Marschallin of ***,”
published in 1774, he is more explicit:
Marschallin: So you are he who does not believe in anything?
Diderot: That’s me.
Marschallin: But your morals are those of a believer.
Diderot: Why not, if one is an honest man?
Marschallin: What do you gain by being a non-believer?
Diderot: Nothing really, madame. But does one believe because there is
something to be gained?
Marschallin: I confess that I believe in God to get something useful.
Diderot: I for one concede I may trust in something unsecured.
Marschallin: One can believe and still behave daily as though one does not believe.
Diderot: And even without believing, one can behave almost as though one believes.
Marschallin: So, after all is said and done, the simplest thing is to behave
as though the old man (God) exists.
Diderot: Even when one does not believe in him!
When he died, although Diderot was a well-known atheist, his reputation
for uprightness was such that no one dared to refuse his burial on sacred ground.
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