In one form or another, the church is a state church. Since the middle ages, even, church and state have constituted a unity, this unity being based upon identity of general outlook. Theology furnishes the official outlook of the state, and in conformity with this unity, society is theocratically organised.
Philosophy, therefore, as philosophy of religion, is a criticism, not merely of theology, but in addition of theocracy, of church doctrine, church morality, church politics—of official doctrine, morality, and politics in general.
§ 41a.
IT must be carefully noted that the opposition is between philosophy and theology, not between philosophy and religion. It is true that philosophy is opposed to the religion of the churches.
Hume's scepticism was directed against metaphysics and theology, but in addition he rejected religion on the ground that it was an inherited system of tranquillisation. Since he considered that the essence of religion was anthropomorphism, religion was in his view equivalent to superstition.
The Kantian criticism endeavoured to show that transcendental concepts and ideas lack critical justification. In the last resort, however, Kant was willing to tolerate a "more subtle" anthropomorphism when it was necessary to discuss the concept of God, the most important of all concepts. The tendency to anthropomorphise transcendental concepts of the reason was in Kant's view the outcome of natural and inevitable illusions and sophistications of the pure reason itself, illusion and sophistications from which the wisest of mortals cannot hope to be free.
After Kant, Auguste Comte developed yet further the contrast formulated by Hume between anthropomorphism and sceptical critical thought. Three stages, said Comte, can be recognised in the historical development of the human race: the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive (or scientific). The theological stage may be subdivided into three: fetichistic, polytheistic, and monotheistic. The metaphysical stage is no more than transitional.
Here Comte was merely developing Vico's ideas systematically. According to Vico the first of the three stages of human development was the era of gods, demigods (heroes), and men.
