ABSTRACT
Lessing defined the theological discourse of his day as “natural religion.” He marks the fateful departure from unequivocal fealty to Christianity, demoting “Christian” to an attributive status, historically and culturally determined rather than universally valid, with the corollary that these limits hold true of all religions. In promoting rational inquiry as of foremost importance to human endeavor, Lessing furthers the humanist project of a gradual self-perfection, ever in process yet sufficient and independent of all allegedly transcendental bonds. This is the first answer given to Nietzsche’s query on the killing of God: how do we replace Him?
Turbulent and polemical in temperament he uses drama as oblique homily, writing plays exposing Christians’ failure to live up to love for their enemies, as Scripture enjoins. He lionizes Jews as morally superior, giving as well the Enlightenment’s nod to the humanity of Islam as another cudgel with which to beat Christian hypocrisy. He expressly prefers the open end of spiritual questing to affirmations of faith and of doctrine.
Lessing’s famed controversy, on de-sacralization of the Bible via historical criticism, catches him between orthodoxy and the modern “neological” view that scoffs at tradition. His pantheism is a variant of deism and, like his pale ecumenism in Nathan der Weise, a whistling in the dark. Nietzsche hails him for his “restless playful” energy, both of them dodging the consequences of their departure from their fathers’ house.
