Free examination

Like such, the concept of free examination is made up of the terms Libre and Examen and means to even consider attentively with reflection an object without it being given by it beforehand the Vérité, while endeavouring to forget it if she were already taught. The free examination is thus contrary with the preliminary Jugement, i.e. with the Préjugé, the Argument of authority and the Dogme, even with the Croyance.

The free examination also maintains the close relationships with the concepts of free will and Liberté of Conscience, and especially of Lucidité.

It should be noted that the Apocope librex is regularly employed in the place of the free term examination.

The free philosophical examination

In philosophy, the spirit of examination names also Critical spirit.

The practice of the spirit of examination goes up with the Origine of philosophy in the ancient Greece, with particulièrment Socrate which opposed to those which claimed to know a wisdom (the Sophistes): " I know that I do not know anything " , Irony which led to the Maïeutique.

the spirit of examination knew these last centuries various expressions like the humanism of the Renaissance with, inter alia, Rabelais, Montaigne and Pierre Charron, the Rationalisme at the 17th century with in particular Francis Bacon, Descartes and Spinoza, the development Scientifique, the free examination Théologique, the examination Positiviste also at the 19th century, and the free examination of engagement like currently in Belgium.

The philosophic attitude of the free examination was stated literally by Condorcet in 1791, Philosophe of the Age of Enlightenment, in its Premier report on the state education , entitled " public education must be limited to the instruction" , third reason: " Because a public education would become contrary with the independence of the opinions". As follows:

" the truth alone can be the base of a durable prosperity, and that the lights growing unceasingly do not make it possible any more the error to be flattered of an empire eternal, the goal of education cannot be any more to devote the established opinions, but, on the contrary, to subject them to the free examination of successive generations, always increasingly enlightened ".

Kant affirms in a more individual direction in its opuscule of 1784 What the Lights?: " Sapere Aude! IEA courage to serve to you as your own understanding! Here is the currency of the Lights ".

The Expérience of Milgram at the XXème century constitutes the demonstration concretes most significant of the possible consequences of the argument of contrary authority to the exercise of the free examination.

The free theological examination

The free thought characterizes the free examination more that the Libre-pensée which regards a priori the religions as the worst obstacles with the emancipation of the thought while being unaware of, primarily since mobility Trotskiste, the theological Libéralisme whose Victor Hugo was however a large defender.

The Catholic Dictionary of Theology in 15 volumes and 33 volumes (Vacant Abbot, Letouzey editions and Ané, 1923-1950) comprises an article for Libre examination with only two words: " to see Protestantism ". Such a position returns to the modernistic Crise.

The formula of free examination is not as such under the feather of the Reformers of the 16th century, to start with Luther, author in particular of a treaty of the Serf referee (1525) in answer to the treaty of the free will (1524) of Erasme, two works at the origin of a long polemic. The free examination is not more under the feather of Calvin, theologist of the Protestantisme more strict than Luther. On the other hand, the right of lexamen (Prüfung) is firmly and on several occasions affirmed by Luther and Calvin, in agreement with the Bible where he is written: " Examinez (test) all and keep what is good " (I Thessaloniciens 5:21), or " the spiritual man judges all and is judged by nobody " (I Corinthians 2:15). It is the assertion by the Protestant Reform of the authority of the Bible or principle of the Writing alone (Sola will scriptura) which must be enlightened by the Holy Spirit, correlative of the faith alone or Sola fide, and of the universal Sacerdoce.

The free examen' is also ignored on Internet site of the Protestant federation of France of the Hundred cards of synthesis on Protestantism which present some thématiquement or alphabetically the most important concepts.

It is the liberal Protestantisme as from the 19th century which states the free examination with, for example, Pasteur Samuel Vincent who writes in 1829: " the bottom of Protestantism, it is the Gospel; its form, it is the freedom of examination " (Sights on Protestantism in France, Nimes). This propensity which can lead to the radical Critique of the Bible and to the Incroyance, to even be reduced to the Libre-pensée, will be constestée then by the protesting Fondamentalisme.

This fundamentalism of 1895 towards Protestant liberalism is not without pointing out the preceding history of the Synode of Dordrecht in 1618-1619 against the Fraternité remonstrante and the Arminianisme related to the Dutch theologist Jacobus Arminius which was favorable to the free examination.

the Encyclopedia of Protestantism (Stag/Labor and Fides, 1995) devotes an article to the free examination by pointing out article 4 of the Confession of the La Rochelle where the Protestants look at the only Writing like regulates faith " not as well by the common agreement and the assent of the Church as by the interior persuasion of the Holy Spirit " , and that consequently it is not possible to the Protestants to refuse the free access to the Bible.

Laurent Gagnebin, theologist Protestant, directing from the drafting of the monthly magazine Gospel and freedom , however concludes its article entitled Concerning the “free examination” appeared in the review " Luthériennes" positions; (n° 3,1981, p 207-220):

" Between the risks of the authority leading to excesses of ecclesiastical or pontifical infallibility, and those of freedom leading to the privileges of the examination, even of the free examination, let us choose with all Protestantism, the risks of the freedom which, all made accounts, made less evil with the Church and made run less blood than those of the authority ".

Roman Catholicism

The Scolastique traditionally defines the liberum arbitrium like “facultas voluntatis and rationis” (faculty of the will and the reason: cf Thomas d' Aquin, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 82, a.2, obj. 2).

This expression is exact if it indicates the collaboration of these two faculties in the genesis of the free act, but erroneous in a more technical direction. Strictly speaking, the free will is a power of the will (ibid, Q. 83, A. 3); better, it is the will itself as a will performs choices.

The Roman Catholic church believes that the man with faculty natural to know God: it is Capax Dei. However, neither the Dépôt of the faith nor the crowned dogma is subjected to the free examination. To preserve the unit, it is necessary to share a common faith and to recall Pentecost.

The least traditional theologist Franciscain Jean Duns Scot, called the subtle Doctor, béatifié in 1993, adversary of the Dominican Thomas d' Aquin, affirms that the freedom of the divine creation perhaps apprehended individually by the reason, comprehension being preferable with the belief.

The encyclical Fides and Ratio of the Pope Jean-Paul II in 1998 on the relationship between the faith and the reason is one of the current expressions of the Roman Catholic church concerning the state of the free examination in the plan of the reason.

According to catholic theologists, the fast fragmentation of Protestantism in very many Sectes is caused by individualism and literalism. Luther and Calvin formed two Churches because they had two different points of view.

The Belgian example

The free examination as a principle and a method is explicitly marked in Belgium where it is practiced in the direction of laic engagement. This originality of the free examination also included/understood as philosophical Laïcité does not find an equivalent in another country of Europe or in the world, that whose historical origin undoubtedly goes back to the Fraternité remonstrante against the Confessio Belgica.

In France, at the 20th century, the concept of free examination is not developed as such and remains ignored, including within laic associations. The catalogs of the National library of France attest some in particular.

The free examination constitutes the principal reference of the first article of the statutes of the Universit3e libre de Bruxelles:

" the Universit3e libre de Bruxelles bases teaching and research on the principle of the free examination . This one postulates, in any matter, the rejection of the argument of authority and the independence of judgment ".

The free examination is as central for the organized Laïcité in Belgium, thus the Laic Center of Action considers as the free examination constitutes a " laic value par excellence " and that it adopts " the free examination like method of thought and action " , or more exhaustively:

" Laic value par excellence, the free examination implies not only the assertion of a right, that of the absolute freedom of conscience, but especially the assertion of a duty: that not to recognize any dogma and to proceed with critical spirit to the setting in question of the generally accepted ideas, all the generally accepted ideas, including those anchored in oneself, most pernicious, those of the clear conscience and the prejudice ".

In 2005, the Laic Center of Action entitled its annual convention " Let us build the school of the free examination " with for stake " to discover ethics under the label ". According to its meaning in Belgium, the free examination implies the rejection of the Argument of authority in any matter, the setting in permanent question of the ideas, the critical reflection, the active research of the emancipation of the human being with regard to all forms of Conditionnement, Assujettissement and Discrimination. The principle of the free examination also implies the Non-conformisme and the Critique of the received values. But the setting in question of the values is not identified with their automatic rejection. " free exaministes" precisely seek the fundamental values which resist criticism and leave reinforced criticism of which they are the object.

Other quotations

Pierre Larousse: " Free examination: right to believe only what the reason shows and to push back what an unspecified authority tries to impose on the spirit ".

Henri Poincaré: " freedom is for science what the air is for the animal; deprived of freedom, she dies of asphyxiation like a private oxygen bird. And this freedom must be unbounded because, if one wanted to impose some to him, one would have only one half-science, and that a half-science, it is not any more science, since that can be, that is inevitably a false science. The thought should never be subjected, neither with a dogma, neither with a party, neither with a passion, neither with an interest, neither with an preconceived idea, nor with anything, if it is not with the facts themselves, because, for it, to subject would be to cease being ".

Pierre-Theodore Verhaegen: " Endowed with faculty to conceive the ideal, the man has in him the need there tend without slackening, and it can tend there only by the exercise and the energy of its free will. It is that freedom is the instrument of our perfectibility. It only can give to all the goods life their actual value, and not only in front of the men, but still in front of God, he can have neither virtue there nor perfection, if they do not rest on freedom. But all freedoms would be illusory without the absolute freedom of examination, generating principle of any progress, arises essential from the moral and intellectual life, and flag of this University ".

Herve Hasquin: " If a believer can be free-exaministe with the proviso of not yielding with the wills of a Church which obliges it to accept dogmas considered as intangible, the atheist or agnostic is not therefore free-exaministe if it is made the instrument of domination of a political clericalism ".

Internal bonds

External bonds

Circle of the free examination of the ULB
Universit3e libre de Bruxelles
Laic Center of Action
Gospel and freedom
Profiles of freedoms
Protestant federation of France
Free-exaministe and Protestant?
Encyclical Fides and Ratio
Texts of more than 1000 saints catholic to freely examine…
on the free examination produced by the ULB in 2005

Random links: