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THIERRY DE DUVE

as in Christianity. It is simply a matter of seeing that, if the religion of incarnation seems
to have taken the entanglement of the political and the religious to its limit, this religion
also permits and prepares for its disentanglement. If Gauchet is right, humanity’s exit
from the religious, far from presupposing denial of and revolt against Christianity, implies
going a long way with it, accompanying its thinking processes, coping with the results,
and working through the consequences. ‘‘Come on, humans, one more effort if you want
to be post-Christians!’’—such might be the optimistic message of Gauchet’s book, whose
acknowledgment might be found in Pastor Grosboell’s surprising new brand of enlighten-
ment. I made Gauchet’s message echo Sade’s ‘‘Franc ̧ais, encore un effort si vous voulez
eˆtre re ́publicains’’ on purpose because, in this essay, I want to try my hand at a modest
exercise in translation involving precisely that groundbreaking moment in modern, en-
lightened secularism, the French Revolution.
Its motto—Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—seems to me to translate the three Christian
maxims expressed in the ‘‘theological virtues,’’Faith,Hope, andLove,into the political
register. The two threesomes are congruent, and I don’t think it will be hard to show that.
But why do so? At first glance, to demystify the modern claim to secularism and state its
failure to provide a (hasty and partial) explanation for the stubborn persistence or the
vengeful return of the religious in the public sphere. Actually, I expect more than this
from the exercise. I expect it to show, above all, that the motto of the French Revolution
takes charge of the three Christian maxims and that it is only by doing so that it opposes
superstitious, unenlightened religiosity and represents a major step forward on the way
out of religion. Next, I expect it to show that the Revolution still insufficiently takes charge
of the three Christian maxims. At the risk of seeming to condone religiosity, I shall argue
that the maxims of faith, hope, and love must be endorsed, pondered, and understood
for what they are before we can make out how their translation by liberty, equality, and
fraternity really points to a possible exit from religion—at the same time, incidentally, as
they offer an incipient response to the dead end of political thinking bequeathed by the
Enlightenment.
To start with, it is striking that the three theological virtues should have been con-
ceived and practiced in this order: first faith, then hope, and, last of all, charity or, better,
love. It is striking, too, that liberty, equality, and fraternity should be listed in that order.
This is enough to suggest a term-by-term match. That love and fraternity should be one
and the same thing is readily understandable, provided we are not fooled by the gendering
of the word ‘‘fraternity’’ (which, needless to say, we must address in due course). That
faith and liberty should be inextricably linked is a little harder to understand, but only a
little. Liberty only assumes its meaning if we understand thereby the freedom of the other.
Laying claim to freedom for oneself without granting it to others obviously runs counter
to liberty. It follows that an act of faith lies at the root of liberty—faith that the other will
make good use of his or her freedom. The most enigmatic pairing is the link between
equality and hope. Equality in the face of death is the only one that is certain. Yet hope

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