Freemasons often claims that they do not have a doctrine. They have, however, a distinctive method, behind which a “philosophical horizon” may be discerned.
by Massimo Introvigne
Article 8 of 8. Read article 1, article 2, article 3, article 4, article 5, article 6, and article 7.
Anderson’s Constitutions in the sixth charge exclude “Religion, or Nation, or State-Policy” from the subjects that can be discussed in the lodges. There seems to be very little left. Indeed, it would be difficult to derive a “doctrine” from the Constitutions. The only precise references are to “moral Law” and the “Religion on which all Men agree.” Although Anderson’s was a deism leaning toward a personal theism, there is no “Masonic” doctrine about God. And many Freemasons would argue that there is no “Masonic doctrine” in general.
Freemasonry as reflected in its British founding charters is not a doctrine, but a method. It proposes the free discussion of problems and their solution according to what seems true and right to the majority of the brethren. Discussion has a positive limitation: it is not permitted to question the existence of God. However, God can be conceived in a wide variety of ways, even far from what traditional religions propose. The attempts to narrow the notion of God admitted in Freemasonry to only Christianity or “monotheism” have always been rejected even by “regular” Anglo-American Freemasonry.
In addition to its positive limitation, Masonic discussion also has a negative one: everything can be questioned except the method itself. Those who would propose the dogmatic and “non-negotiable” uniqueness of a truth, a religion, or a philosophy would automatically place themselves outside the Masonic method.
A Belgian-born French Masonic leader who also participated in attempts at dialogue with Catholics, Alain Gérard (1932–2022), affirmed in words that many Freemasons would share even outside the Grand Orient of France that Freemasonry “is neither a religion nor a philosophy, but only a method.” This method, according to Gérard, would not prevent anyone from having well-defined opinions but it requires everyone to “question” their opinions when the lodge work begins, accepting the hypothesis that they may possibly be false or in need to be subsumed into a higher synthesis. The Masonic method “does not mean that one does not have clear ideas; it only means that one accepts to question them. This questioning cannot really take place if one first declares that, whatever the outcome of the discussion, there are points on which one will continue to be convinced that one is right” (“Franc-maçonnerie et catholicisme,” Humanisme 181–82, September 1988, 33–8),
The idea Gérard wanted to convey was that those who accept the Masonic method must be willing to put their ideas on the table, to “put them in question,” and to accept with an open mind what will emerge from the discussion conducted according to the principles of free debate. It is precisely this idea that has led the Roman Catholic Church and other religious bodies that insists that their dogmas and principles are “non-negotiable” to counsel their members not to join Freemasonry.
Sometimes, religionists accuse Freemasons of promoting “relativism.” Most Freemasons consider this criticism unfair and referring to a kind of disregard for truth that they do not profess. They observe that, on the contrary, there have been in history numerous Freemasons so convinced of an idea—national, political or social—that they gave their lives for it.
There is often a confusion here between two different philosophical categories: skepticism and relativism. While the theoretical skeptic thinks that there is no truth, and the practical skeptic that it is unimportant, the relativist is sometimes sincerely attached to a relative truth but, despite this, considers truth as something dependent on an independent variable which determines it. This independent variable can be human reason in rationalist relativism or the reasons of the heart in other forms of relativism. Most of those who claim that the Masonic method lies within the horizon of relativism do not to accuse Freemasonry as a whole or individual Freemasons of denying the existential relevance of truth. They just claim that the Masonic method promotes a view of truth as relative and conditioned by independent variables that determine it—and this, precisely, is one of the definitions of relativism.
It is in this sense that the Masonic method is related to the sociological origin of Freemasonry and its success. In one of the most serious investigations into the socio-historical significance of Freemasonry in the United States, Lynn Dumenil wrote that “For men unsettled by controversies surrounding the Bible and the validity of Christianity, Masonry provided a religious experience that was comfortable, not disturbing. [A Masonic convention declared that] ‘To the Lodge room the soul perplexed by religious differences may flee and bee at rest.’ With the important exception of the sectarians, Masonry offered the assurance that the questions science and history had brought into play were largely irrelevant, because they had challenged only creeds, not God. [A Masonic journal stated that] ‘While the warfare of science drives wedge after wedge into the rigid ecclesiastical dogmatism of creeds, it has no power over the subjective religion of the heart, in which alone man can be made to agree and which, therefore, is the religion of Freemasonry.’ Masonry could thus have special appeal to men who persisted in believing, but who were uncertain about what they believed” (“Freemasonry and American Culture 1880–1930,” Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984, 70).
Dumenil’s remarks refer properly to Freemasonry in the United States in a certain historical era—and not all Freemasonry adheres to Anderson’s Constitutions either. Beginning in the 19th century, but with prodromes at least one century earlier, Latin Freemasonries in particular have at times repudiated the obligation not to take a position on religious, social and political matters and have developed a more precise set of doctrinal positions promoting anticlericalism and secularism in all areas. Battles such as that against religious schools, for divorce, and later for abortion and euthanasia were openly promoted by some Latin Masonic obediences, whose anticlericalism took on heated if not virulent tones in various historical periods. “Regular” Freemasonry, of course, was keen to point out that these were typical positions of obediences separate from the United Grand Lodge of England, which violated Anderson’s Constitutions.
In any case, what all Freemasonries have in common is method, just as many computers may have in common the same program or programs with such modest variations as to be considered minor. What comes out of the program may vary according to the data entered—different obediences and different Freemasons may take different positions on almost any problem—but the method remains common.
The Masonic method, moreover, is not simply a technology. Its practice implies an ethical-philosophical horizon that must be shared by those who participate in lodge work. Otherwise, the method would run the risk, on the one hand, of not being understood and, on the other, of leading not to variable results within the limits we have examined but to an absence of results that would prevent its very operation.
The most influential volume on the mindset of American Freemasons in the 20th century was probably “The Builders” by Reverend Joseph Fort Newton (1876–1950), a pastor serving several Protestant communities. He first published this seminal work in the United States in 1914.
Newton admits the centrality of method, but bases it on what he calls “Masonic philosophy,” the central tenet of which would be the following: “Because the human soul is akin to God, and is endowed with powers to which no one may set a limit, it is and of right ought to be free. Thus, by the logic of its philosophy, not less than the inspiration of its faith, Masonry has been impelled to make its historic demand for liberty of conscience, for the freedom of the intellect, and for the right of all men to stand erect, unfettered, and unafraid, equal before God and the law, each respecting the rights of his fellows. What we have to remember is, that before this truth was advocated by any order, or embodied in any political constitution, it was embedded in the will of God and the constitution of the human soul” (“The Builders: A Story and Study of Masonry,” Cedar Rapids, IA: The Torch Press, 1914, 271–72).
Newton’s reference to God and faith would not be found in the same terms even among all Freemasons in the United States itself, and it certainly would not emerge in Freemasonry inspired by the Grand Orient of France. But neither does the latter lack reference to an ethical and philosophical horizon that founds and governs the method. From the ethical point of view, the method is based on the primacy of tolerance and freedom of conscience, which expands into a more general perspective on liberty and solidarity.
Philosophically speaking, the horizon of the Masonic method , without which the method itself would become unintelligible, includes:
(a) a realist epistemological principle, according to which the world and humans have an independent existence on which it is possible to enunciate statements that, if not definitive and “dogmatic,” are nonetheless reasonable. Although important exponents of philosophical idealism have been Freemasons, all the most authoritative attempts to construct a Masonic philosophy, and the founding documents themselves, seem to take a realist epistemological horizon for granted;
(b) an anthropocentric anthropological principle, according to which humans are free and at the center of their world: if this were not so, there would be grounds for questioning the validity of any result of the Masonic method;
(c) a spiritualist philosophical principle, according to which there is something more in the world and in humans than what falls under the domain of the senses and sciences, whether this “more” is immanent or transcendent. A purely materialist perspective, which would exclude from the arguments to which the Masonic method can be applied those pertaining to the “more” by declaring them simply meaningless, would be at odds with the founding documents of Freemasonry. It was cultivated only in circles of the Grand Orient of France, with parallels in other Latin countries, in a specific historical period where the influence of anticlericalism and anti-religious ideas on Freemasonry was all-pervading.
In this very general key, referring to a horizon rather than to a doctrine, it is legitimate to speak not only, in the plural, of different Masonic philosophies, proposed by individual obediences or individual authors in support of their particular perspective. It is also possible to posit the question of what Newton called a “Masonic philosophy,” since proposing a method already means proposing the philosophical horizon on which the method is based. In the absence of such a horizon there would be no argument for suggesting that one method is preferable to another.
Freemasonry is not a philosophy, and certainly it is not a religion. It is, however, a method to look at history, morality, and what can improve human beings and society—behind which, if not a philosophy, a philosophical horizon may be discerned.
