The article considers a complex of ideas of Pierre Bayle, the famous French thinker of the XVIIth century, related to the religion, morality, and freedom. The great Voltaire, who, like all enlighteners, experienced the strongest influence of Bayle's main work "The Historical and Critical Dictionary", not without reason asserted: "Bayle has everything, you have only to be able to find." The author believes that in the present conditions of the activation of religious institutions the actuality of Bayle's humanistic skepticism will increase.
The article discusses the problems of religious and secular interpretation of faith, knowledge, immortality of the soul on the example of the philosophy of the famous Renaissance thinker P. Pomponazzi. His concepts of free will and divine predestination are also analyzed. According to the author, Pomponazzi's interpretation of religious miracles and religious morality is radical even today. The author considers him one of the predecessors of the Reformation. The undoubted relevance of Pomponazzi's philosophical ideas in the conditions of growing clerical influence and escalation of religious contradictions are pointed out.
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