Edmund Burke
...and how this emphasis on religion allowed him to foresee the future events. While analyzing his writings – the “Reflections on the Revolution in France”, “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful”, “A Letter to the Noble Lord”, and the quotations by other authors as well as his biography, the focus of this paper has been kept only on what Burke wrote about religion, its power over men and society and the relations of the Church and the state, while the other aspects in his many writings were consciously ignored.
Being born into a family with a specific religious setting, religion could not be merely a convenient myth for him to keep popular appetites within bounds; his belief in reality revealing itself in history and history manifesting the presence of God foreshadowed aspects of later philosophies of history. He looked at public issues with almost matchless penetration, given that the mundane order was derived from the divine and remaining a part of it. Mansfield considers among observers of modern politics only Tocqueville and perhaps Churchill as his rivals in seeing the meaning of events. Burke perceived the French revolution as a threat for European civilization in its attempt to throw off Christian religion. Viewing prejudices and traditions as representing God’s mind and will, Burke had to confront it, since limiting politics and ethics to a puny “reason” would be an act of folly. I argue that Burke’s view of societies as complicated partnerships of generations interwoven by religion and his perception of the essence of the French Revolution as religious enabled him to foresee the host of violent controversies along doctrinal lines which agitated social and ethical thinking in Europe after the revolution.
Years of formation
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was born to a Protestant father and a Catholic mother and was always...
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