Perhaps a more extensive quote will put what Becker wrote on this
subject in better perspective. The following begins on page 80.
"It is not enough" said Diderot, referring to the theologians, 'to know
more than they do: it is necessary to show them that we are better, and
that philosophy makes more good men than sufficient or efficacious
grace." [If that were a predominate philosophical opinion of the 18th
century, I'm reminded of Arius, the founder of a heresy in the early
Christian Church. People flocked to him because he was ascetic, had
impeccable morals, was modest and humble. The fact that his personal
life could not be attacked perhaps allowed his theological views to
become more widely accepted than might otherwise have been the case. If
philosophers of the 18th century were hopeful of showing themselves
better men than priests and pastors in the Christian church, they may
have failed.]
"Well, it would be difficult, would it not, for philosophy to make more
good men than sufficient or efficacious grace if it could offer nothing
more reassuring than the doctrine that 'the original source of things
has no more regard to good above ill than to heat above cold.' There is
a profound significance in Diderot's feeling that it would be better not
to defend virtue at all than to fail in the attempt; a philosopher who,
having demolished the foundations of Christian morality, should fail to
provide a natural foundation for it, would indeed be, in the eyes of
common men, 'an apologist for wickedness.' Morality and social order
had so long been founded on faith in God, the good life had so
confidently been associated with an overruling Providence, that the
prospect of a world in which men should be left to their own devices,
unguarded against the evil impulses of the natural man, was not all at
once to be contemplated with equanimity. Apart from all conscious
motives and personal considerations, the Philosophers instinctively felt
that to profess atheism would be no less a confession of failure than to
return like lost sheep to the Christian fold. Atheist! The very word,
in that climate of opinion, sounded ominous, ribald, antisocial.
Enlightened? Surely the Philosophers were enlightened. But the essence
of enlightenment was intellectual security, the most prized possession
of the philosopher was assured knowledge; and what was atheism if not a
confession of ignorance? Locked away in Hume's desk was the proof of
it: the Christian mystic Demea, and the skeptic, Philo, following Reason
to the bitter end found themselves in the same camp, agreeing only in
this, that Reason is incompetent to answer any fundamental question
about God, or morality, or the meaning of life. The Philosophers could
not afford to accept this conclusion. For more than half a century they
had leveled the batteries of Reason and common sense against the
strongholds of ignorance and superstition: had made a great noise in he
world in order that men might be more enlightened, society more solidly
based, morality and virtue more secure. What a fiasco, then would all
this noise of battle have been for them had they been compelled in the
end to put off their complaisant optimism, to renounce their dogmatism,
to cease their clamor -- to announce, in short, to an expectant world,
in a small voice, this: 'Reason tells us after all that there is no God,
that the universe is only matter in spontaneous motion, and that, like
the priests whom we have denounced for their ignorance, we also, we
Philosophers know nothing.'"
Lawrence
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