Born in 1647 France to a Huguenot minister, Pierre Bayle organizing the world in absurd terms has been seen by historians as a reflection of him being unable to make sense of the world around him. Although the Protestant minority in France was somewhat protected by the Edict of Nantes, they were still politically, socially, and economically isolated. As a result, Bayle was unable to enjoy a quality education like many of his contemporaries, with him being homeschooled until the age of 21. Seeking a real educational opportunity, Bayle did the unthinkable and converted to Roman Catholicism to attend a Jesuit institution. Following this, he once again returned to his father’s sect and was forced to flee to Geneva as a heretic.
As an older man, Bayle was able to subtly return to his home country, working as a teacher and publishing unsuccessful works of theology. During this time, the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685. The Huguenot institutions Bayle worked for and built his life around faced direct suppression from the French government, shifting his life of relative comfort to one of chaos and uncertainty. Similarly, his scholarly focus shifted from seeking to answer specific theological questions to making sense of the lack of moral logic and chaos he viewed around him.
The result of Bayle’s questioning was his 1696 Historical and Critical Dictionary, his most famous and commercially successful work. Like his worldview, this book appeared to be unfocused, using unconventional lines of argumentation to answer a variety of loosely connected questions; however, many, including influential philosophers like Voltaire and Leibniz, have found within it a clear worldview. Throughout the dictionary, Bayle demonstrates that basic principles of reason fundamentally contradict Christian doctrine. This resulted in the French government and many contemporaries of accusing him of being a secret atheist, deist, or Jew, despite still professing his Protestant faith. Many historians and philosophers, however, point out that this interpretation of Bayle ignores a critical theme in the dictionary. Instead of rejecting Christ as absurd in terms of reason, he rejects reason as absurd in terms of Christ. To Bayle, logic, best personified in the French government’s decision to oppress the Huguenot minority, does not hold up to his standard of truth as well as the divine does. In order for reason to be true, therefore, it must come from the divine. Looking at his surroundings—a life and a world defined by persecution—Bayle firmly rejected that perceived logical principles could come from God.
Bayle continued to live for another decade until 1706 when he died of heart attack. In this time, he continued to refine his arguments for absurdism and extended them to incorporate a moral demand for religious toleration; one that comes from God, not reason. Following his death, Bayle scholars have identified the “Bayle Enigma,” a question as to whether his works had ever achieved his ultimate purpose. The unfocused nature of his work allowed philosophers, both contemporary and future, to his work to argue for a wide variety of positions, ranging from Judaism to Calvinism to atheism. Bayle scholars, to this day, are tasked with figuring out, through his words and life experience, what he truly believed and sought to demonstrate in his writings. Some believe that finding a concrete answer to this question is the only way to fully unlock the knowledge stored in his works.