Erkenntnistreben und Humanität. Zu Wielands Versuch einer Zusammenlegung verschiedener Begriffe der Religion im Agathodämon

Abstract

Around 1800, in Europe, and especially in German speaking countries, there was much intense rethinking of the past in which traditional elements were represented in radically new forms. In one of his last novels, Ch. Martin Wieland deals with a number of questions deriving from the crisis of the certainties of the age of enlightenment and the appearance of the first ideas of romanticism, in particular questions regarding religion. This paper investigates how Wieland examines every set of ideas or beliefs (from traditional orthodoxy to the spiritual end esoteric practices typical of the 18th century) from a strongly critical point of view. In each one he identifies two parallel approaches to religion: the desire for knowledge and self development, considered as an exquisitely personal fact regardless of any orthodoxy (as in the early romantic authors) the socially useful function of temporal religious institutions, as in Herder. In his analyses he continuously moves from one approach to the other and back again, without hiding the intentional contradictions inherent in this method.