Theologian: Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781)
General summary of his theology: Lessing rejected all external authority such as the church and Scripture as unnecessary once the human race reaches its own autonomy. Lessing therefore would not believe in any of God’s transcendence because it was not something he could see and touch, rather a greater emphasis would be placed on the impenitent qualities of God. Lessing’s view of revelation is very anthropocentric (it is all about us and all about me). It is about my autonomy as well as the autonomy of the human race as a whole. His view is a perversion of the idea of the progress of revelation. Revelation is simply humanities development of religious sensibilities, in other words, at each stage of human development, (childhood, youth, adulthood) we see a necessary period whereby humanity is gradually purified and matured to go on its own. Autonomy! We can see through Lessing the change in thinking from history (and revelation) being more centered around God to where it is centered on humans. We see this in Lessing’s thoughts on revelation.
