Bekker, Balthasar. The
Dutchman, Rev. Dr. Balthasar Bekker (1634-98) in his De Betoverde Weereld,
or The World Bewitched (1691), “openly assaulted the doctrines of
witchcraft and of the devil. . . . As a reward for his exertions to enlighten
his fellow-creatures, he was turned out of the ministry, and assaulted by
nearly all the writers of his age”—Chares W. Upham. Bekker followed Descartes
and another Dutch rationalist, Simon Stevin, who rejected belief in miracles.
He was the last of the Dutch thinkers from Johan Weyer to Grevius who had kept
Holland free from the abuses of the witch hunters. The liberal climate thus
engendered had made Holland the only country where Reginald Scot had been
translated. In 1683, Bekker had attracted attention by publishing his Inquiry
into Comets, showing that they were not portents of evil. In 1691, first in
Dutch, then in 1693 in German, he published his attack on belief in witchcraft,
on the only logical basis possible: that spirits either good or bad (the
existence of which Bekker did not deny), could exercise no influence over human
affairs; nor should seemingly paranormal effects be attributed to witchcraft.
Since the belief in the influence of spirits had crept into Christianity from
paganism, Said Bekker, there was no reason to credit the pact between the witch
and the Devil, the core of the theory. In fact, Bekker added, the theory of
witchcraft was invented by the papacy “to warm the fires of purgatory and to fill
the pockets of the clergy,” who burned witches to confiscate their property and
to pay the salaries of the inquisitors.
The English translation (1695) put
it:
It has come to that pass that men
think it piety and godliness to ascribe a great many wonders to the devil, and
impiety and heresy, if a man will not believe that the devil can do what a
thousand persons says he does. It is now reckoned godliness, if a man who fears
God fear also the devil. If he be not afraid of the devil, he passes for an atheist,
who does not believe in God, because he cannot think there are two gods, the
one good, the other bad. But these, I think, with much more reason, may be
called ditheists. For my part, if, on account of my opinion, they will give me
a new name, let them call me a monotheist, a believer of but one God.
As Bekker had foreseen, he was himself called an atheist for questioning the whole system of the witch delusion, and was attacked by the Calvinist divines. “They protected the survival of superstitions of the pagan past in order to save the further from losing faith in the revealed word of God”—Adrian J. Barnouw. Refusing to recant, on August 21, 1692, Bekker was expelled by the Reformed Dutch church, expelled by the Reformed Dutch church, but the Amsterdam, magistrates prevented a public burning of his book and continued to pay his ministerial stipend. He was still outside the church at his death, June 11, 1698.
Many writers engaged in a war of
words, attacking and defending Bekker’s views, especially his denial of
demoniacal possession. Bekker himself refused to participate in the debate,
but in 1692 defend himself in Die Friesche Godgelehrheid. After his
death, rumors circulated that he changed his views, but this suggestion was
repudiated by his son, Jan Hendrik Bekker. Balthasar’s stand was continued by
Christian Thomasius. (Rossell Hope Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft
and Demonology [New York: Crown Publishers, Inc., 1959], 45-46)
