The Opium of the Intellectuals

by Raymond Aron

It was Auguste Comte, perhaps, who formulated more clearly than anyone else the ideas which inspire the search for a rationalist religion to replace Christianity. The essence of these ideas is as follows. Theology and metaphysics are incompatible with positive knowledge. The religions of the past are losing their vitality because science no longer permits one to believe what the Church teaches. Faith will gradually disappear or will decline into superstition. The death of God leaves a void in the human soul; the needs of the heart remain and must be satisfied by a new Christianity. Only the intellectuals are capable of inventing, and possibly preaching, a substitute for the ancient dogmas which might be acceptable to the scientists. Finally, the social functions which were fulfilled by the Church are with us still. What will the communal morality be based on? How will the unity of belief, without which civilisation itself is imperilled, be safeguarded or restored among the members of the collectivity?