Leibniz on the “Dangerous Nonsense” of Saint Worship
In 1677, a heated polemical war broke out between Lutheran heavyweight Hermann Conring and the Capuchin monk Dionysius Werlensis. The subject? The Catholic practice of worshipping saints. The debate inspired Leibniz to write down his own views on the subject: “On the Worship of the Saints”. While he is often remembered for his later, more conciliatory attempts to reunite the Catholic and Protestant churches, this early text captures him in a remarkably sharp and critical mood.
Leibniz approaches the topic not just as a believer, but as a logician. He asks a devastatingly simple question: If God is the source of all mercy, and God possesses virtues in the highest degree, why is there a need to appeal to the saints? He mocks the convoluted explanations for how saints hear prayers. Does God reveal the prayer to the saint so the saint can then bring it back to God? Leibniz calls this a “circular argument” and “quite incongruous”. He even touches on the absurdity of local rivalries, noting how absurd it is to think the Virgin Mary favours those who pick her as a patron over a less powerful saint.
“It is certain that it is more dangerous to worship the saints too much than too little... that God should be honoured is the fundamental principle of all piety”.
Leibniz doesn’t just find the practice of saint worship logically shaky, he finds it socially and politically destructive. He outlines four primary harms caused by the abuse of saint worship:- Superstition: It traps the “ignorant populace” in a cycle of “absurd accounts of miracles” and “spiritual privileges” sold for profit.
- Atheism: Leibniz argues that when intelligent people hear “silly fables” from the pulpit, they stop believing in religion altogether. They fail to distinguish the “genuine from the fake” and reject the whole of Christianity.
- Schism: He identifies these abuses in worship as the single greatest barrier to church reconciliation, claiming that as long as these practices aren’t purged, Protestants cannot in good conscience reconcile with Catholics.
- Global Scandal: He notes that Jews and Muslims find the practice of worshipping the saints abominable, hindering the spread of the faith in the East.
Leibniz’s advice to Catholics was simple: “abolish all forms of worship of the saints which do not clearly express the difference between God and a saint”. In other words, abolish any appeal to a saint that goes beyond a simple “Pray for us”, any repetitive recitations like the Rosary, and anything that smacks of superstition.
“On the Worship of the Saints” offers a fascinating window into Leibniz’s early thinking about religious division, and shows us that for the younger Leibniz, the path to religious reconciliation wasn’t through tolerating differences but through a rigorous cleaning of the intellectual and spiritual house.
“On the Worship of the Saints” is just one of the treasures found in the first decade of Leibniz’s Hanover years. You can find the full translation—based on Leibniz’s own corrected manuscripts—in the Religion and Theology volume of the new edition of Leibniz’s Philosophical Papers 1677—1686.
— Lloyd Strickland, 6.v.2026
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