Key Arguments

• Rousseau insists on minimalism and clarity: 'The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary,' to avoid sectarian elaboration and dispute.
• He enumerates its 'positive dogmas': 'The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws,' combining basic theism, eschatological justice, and the sacralization of the political order.
• Civil religion also requires a negative dogma aimed at excluding intolerance as such: 'Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected,' indicating that intolerance itself is to be treated as religiously and civically unacceptable.
• Rousseau rejects the distinction some make between civil and theological intolerance: 'Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken. The two forms are inseparable,' asserting a necessary connection between beliefs about salvation and political attitudes.
• He explains why: 'It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them.' This psychological–theological logic guarantees that doctrinal exclusivism spills into persecutory praxis.
• Therefore, 'Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforth priests are the real masters, and kings only their ministers,' showing that toleration is a condition of maintaining political sovereignty against clerical domination.

Source Quotes

If any one, after publicly recognising these dogmas, behaves as if he does not believe them, let him be punished by death: he has committed the worst of all crimes, that of lying before the law. The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary. The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas.

The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary. The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas. Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected.

The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas. Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected. Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken.

Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected. Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken. The two forms are inseparable. It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them.

The two forms are inseparable. It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them. Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforth priests are the real masters, and kings only their ministers.

It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them. Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforth priests are the real masters, and kings only their ministers. Now that there is and can be no longer an exclusive national religion, tolerance should be given to all religions that tolerate others, so long as their dogmas contain nothing contrary to the duties of citizenship.

Key Concepts

• The dogmas of civil religion ought to be few, simple, and exactly worded, without explanation or commentary.
• The existence of a mighty, intelligent and beneficent Divinity, possessed of foresight and providence, the life to come, the happiness of the just, the punishment of the wicked, the sanctity of the social contract and the laws: these are its positive dogmas.
• Its negative dogmas I confine to one, intolerance, which is a part of the cults we have rejected.
• Those who distinguish civil from theological intolerance are, to my mind, mistaken. The two forms are inseparable.
• It is impossible to live at peace with those we regard as damned; to love them would be to hate God who punishes them: we positively must either reclaim or torment them.
• Wherever theological intolerance is admitted, it must inevitably have some civil effect; and as soon as it has such an effect, the Sovereign is no longer Sovereign even in the temporal sphere: thenceforth priests are the real masters, and kings only their ministers.

Context

Continuation of Rousseau’s doctrine of civil religion in Book IV, Chapter VIII, where he specifies the precise articles of the civil creed and argues that intolerance must be excluded because it inevitably turns religious doctrines into instruments of clerical political domination.