Religion, Tolerance and Christian Unity in the Moral Thought of Edmund Burke

Abstract

At the heart of Burke’s philosophy is religion. Man being a ʻreligious animalʼ, as Burke himself asserts, the Transcendence plays a central role in social life and in politics – the recognition of the Mys-tery is a sort of a duty for the well-informed man. From his education between Anglicanism, Catholicism and Quakerism, through his definition of tolerance and its extension, up to his controversy with Deism and atheism, the paper aims at outlining Burke’s religious opinions, with the final intent of delineating his original philosophical position which emphasizes the common points among the several Christian denominations. In doing so, Burke promotes an ecumenic union between different European countries, which is mainly framed in purely spiritual terms, but which also has political implications mainly designed in an anti-French function.