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Jeremiah Alberg

My Trip through Hell or Forgiving Rousseau

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PAPER

To interpret,

as the pilgrim’s quest for Beatrice shows,

is to be impelled by love.[1]

[N.B.: This paper does not presume an in-depth knowledge of the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, nor, for that matter, of Dante’s Divine Comedy.]

Introduction

Jean-Jacques Rousseau began his life as a writer by prophesying: “I foresee that I will not easily be forgiven for the side I have dared to take” (Discourse on the Sciences and Arts, CW 2:3).[2] He understood that his position or “side” both required forgiveness yet made it “difficult.” This paper is a brief exploration of that requirement and its difficulty. It is the story of how I came to read Rousseau in a certain way, a way that forgives him. I present some reflections on my method of interpretation by rooting it in the hermeneutic tradition of allegory.

I will give the briefest of overviews of my overall interpretation of Rousseau’s system and then lay out the connection that see between the way I arrived at this interpretation and Dante’s hints at how to interpret his Divine Comedy. By reflecting on this connection I hope to deepen the overall interpretation with which I begin.

An Overview of the Interpretation of Rousseau

My interpretation begins with the problem of “natural goodness.” Rousseau is famous for proclaiming that humans are naturally good and made corrupt by society. Natural goodness appears as an independent principle, but, in fact, it is completely dependent on Rousseau’s (ultimately unsuccessful) rejection of a specific point of Christian revelation, namely, the doctrine of original sin.

Many other commentators would agree that natural goodness is connected with Rousseau’s rejection of the doctrine of original sin. Some of these have even seen how natural goodness is dependent in a negative way on Christianity—in the sense that this principle could not have been arrived at by a pagan Greek. I argue that even these interpreters have not penetrated Rousseau’s thought deeply enough because they have failed to see that the Christian account of original sin is itself derived from something more fundamental, namely, the revelation of God’s forgiveness in Christ. Rousseau’s rejection of original sin is, in fact, a reaction against this more fundamental revelation. Moreover, because Rousseau misunderstood original sin, he is not entirely conscious of what he is rejecting.

To interpret, as some have done, Rousseau’s system as based on the principle of natural goodness, with the rejection of original sin as its corollary, is to accept both Rousseau’s state of nature and original sin as fundamental realities. It is to accept that original sin is an accusation against humanity and that the state of nature will deliver us from that accusation. In fact, the state of nature is not simply an origin; it is a conclusion that Rousseau reaches. In this it holds the same status as the dogma of original sin does for Christianity--it is also a teaching that one reaches as a conclusion, not as a principle. Thus, we will not interpret Rousseau’s system from either the perspective of natural goodness or the rejection of original sin.

It was the understanding that neither natural goodness nor the rejection of original sin could serve as the foundation of Rousseau’s system that led me to look for another.[3] To put my thesis in its baldest form: it is Rousseau’s refusal of forgiveness in Christ, which is the most fundamental definition of scandal, that renders sin epistemologically inaccessible and thus leaves him with “natural goodness” as his conclusion.[4] For Christianity it is only in the light of that salvation, in the light of forgiveness, that reality of sin, especially original sin, becomes epistemologically accessible.[5] To refuse that salvation would involve a loss of that light and thus of the epistemological access it provides.

Thus, Rousseau’s system cannot be interpreted as the straightforward development of his principle of natural goodness. Since Rousseau’s reaction against proffered forgiveness is the abiding source of the principle of natural goodness, his system finds its ultimate ground not in the principle but in this reaction. The theological term for this reaction to forgiveness offered by a crucified savior is “scandal.” Hence, my thesis is that Rousseau’s system is rooted in scandal. It comes out of his scandal at Christ, and it leads to his giving scandal to others. These two senses of the term “scandal,”—refusing forgiveness and leading others into sin—are two sides of one coin: inhabiting a universe in which there is no forgiveness.

The Lack of Forgiveness and Hell

When I title this paper, “My Trip through Hell,” I intend something more than some sort of emphatic statement that reading Rousseau is difficult. As anyone who has read the Inferno knows, hell can be quite entertaining, fascinating even. By means of this title I am evoking my experience that reading Rousseau resembled reading the Inferno. This may seem strange. Before I give a description of the similarities in reading their texts, let me point out a few similarities between Dante and Rousseau that are quite striking. Both authors can still scandalize readers.  All of Dante’s greatness as a poet has not, as William Franke remarks, eliminated “a certain taste of scandal attaching to so audaciously self-centered and self-willed an outlook on a such a megalomaniac scale.”[6] This could be applied verbatim to Rousseau. Further, both authors involve themselves in the text in such a way that it can be very difficult to differentiate between the text and the author. The interpenetration of author and character in their writing makes it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction, autobiography from story. Franke summarizes these last two point: “Dante’s poem programmatically places this ineluctable structural condition [the complementary indebtedness of every poetic production to some historically existing individual and that individual to some historically conditioned poetic fictions] center-stage of the fiction itself, blurring the boundary between fact and fiction in reaching toward their common origin in interpretation, in this instance in the mutual belonging of Dante as literary invention and as historical personage together, since the one would not be what it is at all without the other” (Franke 3-4). As regards Rousseau, I ask, who would the historical Rousseau without his literary creation of Jean-Jacques?

Beyond these broad similarities between the authors, I want to focus on my experience of reading the Inferno compared with reading Rousseau’s texts. In his writings Rousseau presents the reader with a vision of humanity abandoned to itself, that is, abandoned by God and this is, roughly, Dante’s definition of hell. Dante, for his part, makes clear that, for the reader, a trip through hell is not without its dangers.

As a reader of Rousseau I felt like the character Dante standing outside the city of Dis in Canto IX of the Inferno. Virgil and Dante’s descent reaches an impasse at the gates of this city. The guards of the city refuse to let them pass. The Furies appear and threaten the appearance of Medusa. Virgil has to cover Dante’s eyes with his own hands to make sure that he does not look upon the Gorgon and turn to stone. One look would be enough to make sure that Dante could not continue the journey. These feelings of frustration, danger, being threatened with blindness and turning to stone were evoked in my reading of Rousseau.

            Dante, the author, chooses this moment to directly address the reader.

O you who have sound intellects,

look at the doctrine which hides itself

beneath the veil of the strange verses.

                                   (Inferno, IX, 61-63)

At the moment in the story that the character Dante’s vision is blocked, the author commands the reader to look more deeply and interpret. In this way “the reader[‘s], […] immediate vision, or literal reading, encounters a veil that hides a deeper truth. Indeed, the reader, no less than the protagonist, has been absorbed in the spectacle of Hell as Dante as vividly depicted it up to this point, but is then called upon to see through to the doctrine veiled beneath the myth.”[7] The author is encouraging the reader to repeat the character’s action and close his or her eyes to the surface meaning, while opening them to a veiled meaning. In effect, one has to look away and approach the text indirectly, through certain hermeneutical procedures. It seemed to me that this applied to more than just the Inferno.

The thoughts that this scene and these lines evoked were enough to cause me to look at some commentators. According to John Freccero, this particular instance of direct address has “always represented something of a scandal in the interpretation of Dante’s allegory, primarily because they seem to fail their didactic intent: the “dottrina referred to in here remains as veiled to us as it was to the poet’s contemporaries.”[8] Freccero overcomes the scandal by seeing it this text an example of Dante’s Christian allegory, which is “identical with the phenomenology of confession, for both involve a comprehension of the self in history within a retrospective literary structure.”[9]

            To gain this comprehension of the text or of the self, the reader has to avert his eyes from Medusa and see the veiled doctrine of the text. The petrification that Medusa threatens is an interpretative as well as a moral threat and as Freccero reminds us “the act of interpretation depends upon a moral condition.”[10] Only a mind that is not petrified will be able to see the truth.

            Still following Freccero’s lead, the figure of the veil that hides the doctrine is an allusion to the Pauline tradition of biblical hermeneutics. In the Second Letter to the Corinthians Paul speaks of the veil that covered Moses’ face as the figurative relationship between the two Testaments. Paul contrasts the Old and New Testaments, the former’s letters veiled, while the latter’s spirit is Christ who reveals.

The significance of the letter is in its final term, Christ, who was present all along, but revealed as the spirit only at the end, the conversion of the Old Testament to the New. Understanding the truth is not then a question of critical intelligence applied here and there, but rather of a retrospective illumination by faith from the standpoint of the ending, a conversion.[11]

William Franke aptly summarizes Freccero’s position in holding that “the Medusa lines up […] with the letter that kills while the Pauline image of lifting the veil, or ‘revelation,’ figures a hermeneutic procedure whereby the spirit gives life.”[12]

The obstacles to Dante’s journey seemed to parallel the obstacles of my journey through Rousseau’s writings. I somehow felt that Rousseau’s texts not only threaten petrification and so represented a letter that kills, but that they promised the possibility of a spirit that gives life.  

For me, the question became, can one read Rousseau, read the story of humanity without God and of Rousseau isolated more and more from everyone and still find the retrospective illumination by faith from the standpoint of the ending, a conversion? The words of Rousseau posed the danger of turning my heart to stone. I also felt the possibility that read in a certain light they could manifest a deeper truth. I felt the constant danger of getting stuck on the surface, the literal meaning, of Rousseau’s text and never penetrating to the deeper meaning. I constantly encountered obstacles to understanding. I was looking for a hermeneutics that could transform the deceptive veil of Rousseau’s writing into a revelation that would allow the continuation of the journey.

In the story of Dante’s descent Medusa did not appear. A messenger from heaven comes, disdainful of all, rebukes the devils and opens the door. The journey continues, although it will be further beset with obstacles. The story offers at least two lessons applicable to reading Rousseau. First, if the reader stares directly into his work she may turn to stone. Second, if approached correctly, that is if the reader has a guide and a messenger from heaven, then the true doctrine hidden beneath the veil may be revealed. As Christ sheds light backward on the Old Testament, he can shed light forward on Rousseau.

The Application

            I have already given my overall interpretation of Rousseau as a universe without forgiveness and have indicated some of the ways in which it seems to echo Dante’s Inferno. In doing this I have been raising the questions, is there a guide for the texts of Rousseau and will the heavenly messenger come? My guide has been René Girard and the grace that came was the idea of forgiving Rousseau. More explicitly, I interpret Rousseau so that the Cross of Christ is the interpretative key of the text and through this we see the graced and sinful aspects of his thought. This allows me to be both harsher and more gentle with Rousseau than others. The light of Christ is a bright light indeed and so can make things appear harsh, but it only reveals sin as forgiven, or at least in the light of a proffered forgiveness.

            Girard gave me some hermeneutical tools, a practice, that allowed me to get beyond the surface scandal of Rousseau’s texts and see their veiled meaning. His way of reading allowed me to imagine that Rousseau’s texts were structured around someone who was not there. In other words I interpret Rousseau by showing how his thought is structured by an expulsion and the system organized around that expulsion. By restoring the expelled one, I create a new whole that does not destroy but perfects Rousseau’s sytem.

An Example

To make this as concrete as possible, I want to use the following example. Its historical context is the following: In 1750 Rousseau published his Discourse on the Sciences and Arts in response to a prize question from the Academy of Dijon . The question was whether the renewal of the sciences and the arts had purified morals. Rousseau, of course, responded in the negative. Five years of controversy followed the publication of his Discourse.[13] One theme throughout the Controversy was the criticism of Rousseau for causing scandal by blaming the fruits of civilization for depraving people and proclaiming savages to be more virtuous than Europeans. Of course, Rousseau was scandalized that the very things that brought weal were the cause of such woe. Still, the question was whether he should propagate that scandal.

Stanislaus Leszinski, the King of Poland, wrote a Reply to the Discourse.[14] In it he poses the most direct question to Rousseau concerning his thoughts on scandal. The King asks whether Rousseau would have the veneer of society simply thrown out, since it often serves as a mask for hypocrisy. “Would he wish then for vice to appear openly, for indecency to be joined to disorder and scandal to crime?” (CW, 2.34). Rousseau is quite certain that he would prefer to have vice appear openly, rather than it hiding and attacking him from behind. Society would be safer as a result. But as to whether scandal should be joined to crime, Rousseau’s answer is “I do not know” (CW, 2.49). I know of no other objection raised in the Controversy to which Rousseau admits that he does not have an answer.[15] In fact, the First Discourse is a frontal, public, scandal-inducing attack on the arts and sciences, but Rousseau cannot say this. Instead Rousseau gives us, in a very lapidary form, his position concerning scandal. Because of its importance I will quote it in full:

I prefer to have my enemy attack me with open force than to come up treacherously and strike me from behind. What then! Must scandal be combined with crime? I do not know, but I surely wish that deceit were not combined with it. All the maxims about scandal to which we have been treated for so long are very convenient for the vicious: if one wished to follow them rigorously, one must allow himself to be robbed, betrayed, and killed with impunity, and never punish anyone; for a scoundrel on the rack is a very scandalous thing. (CW, 2.49)

If the King’s question reveals the depth of the political implications of scandal, Rousseau’s answer reveals its theological and even Christological dimensions. Rousseau’s answer allows for two interpretations. The first interpretation runs along the following lines. The King’s objection presupposes that scandal is to be avoided in order to assure public order. Rousseau accepts this presupposition and argues that, since “the scoundrel on the rack is a very scandalous thing”, one could not even punish criminals, if one were to follow the maxims on scandal rigorously. But if criminals cannot be punished, much more disorder would ensue. This contradicts the presupposition and so the presupposition, that scandal must be avoided, is false. In this way the maxims on scandal can be set aside, even by a good citizen.

Scandal as both Forbidden and Necessary

Another interpretation is possible and even demanded by the text. I say “demanded” due to the presence of the word “betrayed” in the passage quoted above. I believe that its presence needs to be accounted for. Normally, the criminals who would rob and kill someone, do not “betray” the person. Rather the word leads the reader necessarily to think of a particular case of scandal and in this way reveals Rousseau’s thought on the issue.

The presupposition of the argument in the second interpretation remains the same as in the first: scandal is to be avoided to assure public order. And again, due to the scandal of the punished criminal, criminals could not be punished. Rousseau understands that the result this time is not an increase in disorder, but that he would have to allow himself to be made like Christ, i.e. to be robbed, betrayed and killed with impunity as Christ was. This Rousseau is not prepared to do. Thus, the presupposition must be false. In other words the seemingly innocuous rejection of some moral maxims on scandal involves a refusal on Rousseau’s part to be made like Christ. Rousseau is trying to ensure that the distinction between him and the scoundrel on the rack is fixed, otherwise he could end up in the same position. I am not here arguing about the moral status of this refusal, I am trying rather to show the level at which Rousseau’s argument operates and the necessity of multiple interpretations for his texts. I am not reducing the text to a theological level, I am expanding the possibilities of interpretation. Thus, it is not merely a political debate over which maxims lead to greater stability, although this is one moment in the argument. Rather, it is a question of what is involved politically in following Christ. Rousseau sees deeper than many believers.

There is, however, a still deeper element that underlies both interpretations. The ultimate reason why the maxims about scandal will cause disorder (emphasis of the first interpretation) or will cause one to become like Christ (emphasis of the second interpretation) is contained in the final phrase: “for a scoundrel on the rack is a very scandalous thing”. That is, Rousseau is scandalized by this sight and it is important to note that this is not a self-evident reaction. We need to ask, even if Rousseau did not, why “a scoundrel on the rack” is such a scandalous thing? “A scoundrel on the rack” is not, in and of itself, “a very scandalous thing.” It is only so in a culture that has been touched by the Gospels. Otherwise, and often enough even there, a scoundrel on the rack is a rather satisfying sight.[16] It only becomes scandalous, because Christ himself was once that scoundrel on the rack[17], and with that act he identified himself with all the outcast, the criminal and the marginalized. It is only when the scoundrel ceases to be seen as a scoundrel and becomes a human being, i.e. the brother or sister of Christ, that the sight of him stretched out on the rack becomes capable of producing scandal. In this way Christ himself creates the possibility of scandal.

Rousseau brings into relief something that is difficult even for Christians to grasp – the relationship between Christ as the cause of scandal and the moral maxims forbidding scandal. How is it that Christians can admit the cross of Christ is a scandal and yet forbid the causing of scandal? Through Rousseau’s text we see how linked these two responses to scandal are. Everything, including the prohibition of causing scandal, flows out of the “essential scandal”[18] which the cross is. God does not “cause” scandal and yet the cross of Christ is an occasion of scandal. It remains such an occasion and yet there is another possible response to it – faith. As Kierkegaard so aptly expressed it, scandal must always remain “as an annulled possibility…an element in faith.”[19]  Rousseau is ultimately scandalized, not merely by a society in which appearances do not match reality, but by the fact that the Son of God chose to appear as “a scoundrel on the rack.”

A Return to Divine Comedy

            This image of Christ on the rack brings us back to Dante’s Inferno and to another view of looking at the surface. In Canto XXIII Dante and Virgil enter the eighth circle of Hell in which the hypocrites are being punished. Dante is about to let forth what would probably have been an invective against the hypocritical friars when he is stopped mid-sentence: “I said no more, because to my eyes came one, crucified in earth with three stakes” (XXIII, 109-111). Words fail him before this spectacle. It is Caiaphas the high priest. In the presence of the crucified “one” language becomes fraught. Whatever condemnation or judgment Dante was about to render is cut short. For Virgil, the image of reason, this encounter simply astounds him. He marvels at the “parodic image of the unique event that is the ultimate interpretative key in a Christian universe.”[20] Still, he has nothing to say – reason can only take one so far.

  Rousseau’s encounter with the “scoundrel on the rack” is equally unsettling. In his short answer to the King’s query, quoted above, the reader encounters Christ twice. Once as the ultimate origin of scandal, the scoundrel on the rack, and secondly as embodying the final result of the one who follows the maxims on not causing scandal, i.e. the one who is robbed, betrayed and killed with impunity. Here Christ occupies both the place of origin and of result – the Alpha and the Omega. He becomes the origin and end of Rousseau’s system in a negative sense. He is what does not fit into the rational system. Christ functions in this way insofar as he is the origin that gets rejected, and the result it is designed to avoid. In this way he is the figure in which all the other figures of Rousseau will be inscribed. Thus, making Rousseau’s writings a kind of parodic third testament. The ultimate origin of Rousseau’s system is indeed scandal, but scandal in a theological and even Christological sense. And yet its ultimate goal is to avoid being made like this Christ, from which it takes its origin. Scandal is that which is necessary to the system and yet at precisely the same moment makes it impossible. Rousseau needs the scandal of the cross to generate his system and yet he must at the same moment reject the cross as incompatible.

We can return here to Rousseau’s admission that he does not know how to answer the King. Rousseau does not have an answer to the King’s objection as to whether it is permissible or not to cause scandal because he cannot answer the question without jeopardizing the entire edifice of his thought. The question remains at the basis of his system as an “undecidable”[21]. This means that it is undecidable between the two extremes of necessity and impossibility. If Rousseau were to answer, as it seems his performance in many of scandalous texts would warrant, “Yes, it is allowed,” this would involved contradicting the teaching of the Church, both Protestant and Catholic, leaving him open to charges of causing social unrest. This is something that Rousseau does not want to have happen.[22] This is the obvious meaning of scandal being forbidden. But this surface reason occludes the deeper truth. That is, scandal is not forbidden due to some external force like the ecclesiastical authorities. Rather, the system itself forbids scandal in order to keep it scandalous. Freely allowed scandal soon ceases to scandalize. In giving into the essential scandal of the cross, Rousseau cannot ever completely free himself from scandal without running the risk of giving up that which drives his whole system. Rousseau is scandalized and ultimately this scandal is rooted in the fundamental Christological scandal. But he refuses to become like Christ and in this way turns away from the fundamental scandal, cutting himself off from his own source. If he were to accept the essential scandal in all of its implications, he would no longer be scandalized and again his system would be no more. Rousseau then has to continue to find the scoundrel on the rack a scandalous sight and yet deny both the source and the consequences of that vision.

Rousseau and Christianity

Rousseau claimed to be a Christian, at the same time he made clear that he did not accept many of Christianity’s central dogmas.[23] Generally speaking, one finds two opposed reactions to this double reality. Either the interpreter holds that Rousseau was not a Christian and that he claimed this simply because of the society in which he lived, that is, out of fear of persecution by ecclesiastical or civil authorities. This interpretation is hard to accept, given the way Rousseau boldly proclaimed so many other “dangerous” truths. He signed his works; he attached his name.[24] Or one allows Rousseau’s claims to stand and holds that he is correct about what Christianity is. That is, it is the religion of the heart that he describes, without the dogma, without the structures of authority. This would be a Christianity that does not cause scandal.

My position is that Rousseau is telling the truth when he claims to be a Christian, and he makes that claim because he has grasped the absolute centrality of the victim. Rousseau cannot live with Christianity and he cannot live without it. With Christianity, Rousseau would have to accept forgiveness, which includes a moment of admission to one’s own complicity in victimizing. He could no longer claim the innocence that he sees as essential to his identity. Without Christianity, it is, in fact, better that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perishes. Rousseau parodies Christianity in structuring his system so that he is one who everyone else has expelled. In so doing he has implicitly identified himself with Christ and yet he denies the identity, not wanting to suffer that fate.

Why Is this Important?

I have tried to outline the beginnings of what I have called a hermeneutics of forgiveness. There is, however, a misunderstanding that I would like to forestall. This practice does not make interpreting texts any easier. It is not some sort of easy acceptance of whatever the author says. My interpretation of Rousseau is based on a close reading of the texts, and I offers it to readers in the hope that they will deepen their understanding of Rousseau, but also with the knowledge that my readings will be subjected to critical analysis. I welcome that. I am prepared to learn from the criticism where appropriate and to answer it with counterarguments when I deem it necessary. More generally, each author and each text that is to be interpreted will demand a different approach. Forgiveness here is not general absolution and so the encounter cannot be made generic. The specific way in which forgiveness is to be offered has to be carefully calibrated to correspond to the work in question.

Returning to Rousseau, I have made the claim that the light of the Cross makes some realities accessible to my interpretation that otherwise remain in darkness. I have claimed that Rousseau rejected that light and, therefore, claimed that I have not. Again,  this does not mean that I think that my arguments are “above” or “outside” of rational criticism. The usual rules of rational discourse apply.

The problem lies in another direction. I have claimed at the beginning of this paper that Rousseau seeks a “forgiving” reader, and that I would try to be that reader. Here, at the end, I am brought to the realization that I am seeking the same reader  for myself.

The problem is the following: I believe that not just the human community, but human rationality itself is constituted through the expulsion of the victim. The light that salvation brings redeems this rationality, but like the Cross itself, it has to do it by sharing in the same violent situation it is bringing to end. This makes for an inherent ambiguity. People can continue to interpret Christianity as a religion that promises violent retribution against evildoers instead of a religion that presents a God who “causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous” (Matt 5:44). In an analogous way, a reader can interpret my work as yet another accusation against Rousseau. One could read it as accusing him of misunderstanding the doctrine of original sin and refusing the salvation offered to him. My work also appears to accuse him of causing scandal. So, by the criteria I apply to him, I stand condemned of the same things.

But this would be to misread me. If I am arguing for forgiveness, then, yes, the sin will have to appear, but it will appear only as it is passing out of existence. What makes it appear is the new creation coming into existence—the illuminating source now appearing at the heart of Rousseau’s system. If I am correct in my interpretation that Rousseau took scandal at the salvation offered in Christ, then Christ stands in the center of Rousseau’s thought. That he stands there rejected, I do not deny—but for whom is that not in some sense true? The only true Christ is the crucified one. The deep grace of Rousseau’s writing, the new interpretation it receives here, is that it succeeds in being a luminous testimony to the centrality of the one whom it has rejected. Why is Rousseau’s thought so significant, why is it so central? Because behind every page, every work, and behind the whole system stands Christ crucified. This is the truly amazing thing—Rousseau can lead a reader to Christ. More than that, in his muted request for forgiveness, when he writes, “I foresee that I will not easily be forgiven for the side I have dared to take” (CW 2:3), Rousseau avers that on some level, he wanted to lead the reader  there.

That there is both beauty and power in Rousseau’s writings has never been in dispute. This beauty and power is again rooted in Christ. Rousseau’s thought not only continually circles around this forgiving figure, but it also points toward it.

John the Baptist also pointed toward Him , and Christ addressed to him the words, “Blessed is the one who does not take scandal at me” (Matt 11:6). The comparison between John the Baptist and Jean-Jacques Rousseau is not arbitrary. Rousseau shares John’s prophetic stance. No one in his age was clearer in denouncing its evils. No one saw as acutely the way pride infects precisely the highest human accomplishments. And yet, all this vision was blind to the possibility of redemption.

In a sense, contrary to my statement that only forgiveness gives access to knowledge of sin, Rousseau sees sin with great clarity without seeing the redemption. But ultimately, this is not really to see the sin. Thus, Rousseau develops incredible critiques of society, of the theater, and of amour-propre that lead nowhere. In fact, they only serve to spread Rousseau’s outrage and thus lead to consequences that are as bad as the evils that he denounces. In a sense, he propagates the very vices against which he protests.

Let that stop here. There need be no more outrage either with or against Rousseau.

And yet precisely this brings up the paradoxical problem of our age: there is no more outrage against Rousseau. No Christian has raised his or her voice against him since Jacque Maritain. Deconstructionists find Rousseau’s logic to be exemplary. The educational techniques of Emile, the revelation of sexual depravity in the Confessions, and the claim that he is like God in the Reveries no longer seem to scandalize, and this might appear to be a good thing. Still, if the reader is incapable of scandal at Rousseau, then he or she is equally incapable of forgiving him. So again, my hope is that this book can help the reader “annul” his or her scandal at Rousseau and find his or her way to Christ through him.