(1647-1706)

Pierre Bayle was born November 18, 1647, the son of a Huguenot (Protestant) minister in southern France. He was sent to a Jesuit college in order to get the best education, and was converted to Catholicism there. When he returned, he converted back to Protestantism! This made him a relapsed heretic, a very dangerous thing to be at the time.

So his father sent him to Geneva to study, where he discovered Descartes. He taught for a while in France, but then found it necessary to escape to Rotterdam, in Holland, where he eventually became a professor. He suffered from headaches and depression and never married.

In 1682, he anonymously published Diverse Thoughts on the Comet. Referring to a recent comet that had everyone abuzz, he wrote against the various superstitions of his day and the belief in miracles. In the book, he noted that as far as actions and morality are concerned, he could see no difference between Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Jews and Moslems and pagans and even atheists!

In Amsterdam in 1684 he began a magazine called News of the Republic of Letters. He wrote all the articles himself! In the meantime, both his parents and his brother were killed during the persecution of the Huguenots. So he wrote a book on tolerance. But tolerance was not on the Protestant agenda, either, and he lost his professorship. “God preserve us from the Protestant Inquisition!” he wrote.

His major work was The Dictionary, which was really more of an encyclopedia of philosophy, religion, literature, etc. Writing 14 hours a day, he wrote 2600 pages. In this massive work, he “deconstructed” (as we would say nowadays) a great number of Biblical stories, religious beliefs, and philosophical theories, including such tidbits as the doctrine of original sin and the trinity. He even suggested that, if God and Satan actually exist, Satan is winning! He would always add, after making these extreme statements, that of course no good Christian would ever believe such a thing!

After years of condemnation by the religious establishment, he died of tuberculosis on December 28, 1706. But The Dictionary would become immensely popular among intellectuals throughout Europe, and have a great influence on thinkers for more than a century.

As we enter the 1700's, we find religion fighting a losing battle against the forces of reason and science. While average people still went to church, baptized their babies, and prayed for forgiveness, the educated elite turned to deism, pantheism, and even atheism. This included the intellectuals of Catholic France as well as future "founding fathers" in colonial America: Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and even George Washington were deists, and John Adams was a Unitarian. Scientific discovery and invention would steamroller traditional society for the next 300 years. Psychology would attempt to follow, but would lag behind for some time to come!

© Copyright 2000, C. George Boeree