Rizals religious perspective was humanistic blended with some forms of existentialism.

These he articulated very clearly in his February 22. 1889 letter to the Women of Malolos
as follows: You know that the will of God is different from that of the priest; that
religiousness does not consist of long periods spent on your knees, nor in endless
prayers, big rosarios, and grimy scapularies [religious garment showing devotion], but
in a spotless conduct, firm intention and upright judgment. You also know that
prudence does not consist in blindly obeying any whim of the little tin god, but in
obeying only that which is reasonable and just, because blind obedience is itself the
cause and origin of those whims, and those guilty of it are really to be blamed. God
gave each individual reason and a will of his or her own to distinguish the just from
the unjust; all were born without shackles and free, and nobody has a right to
subjugate the will and the spirit of another thoughts, seeing that thought is noble and
free.
GOD: Rizal believed in God, he pounded this belief in his letters to Fr. Pablo Pastells
which goes: I believe firmly in the existence of God the CreatorI firmly believe in
His wisdom, His infinite power (my idea of the infinite is so limited), His goodness
manifested in the marvelous creation of the universe; in the order that reigns in His
creation; His magnificence that overwhelms my understanding; His greatness that
enlightens and nourishes all. His wisdom is so great that it humiliates human reason
and makes me dizzy with vertigo for my own reasoning is imperfect and confused.
Many times my reasoning leads me to raise my eyes to Him. I believe Him to be in the
immense system of planets, in all the aggregation of nebulae, that bewilders and
stretches my imagination beyond my comprehension that I am filled with dread, awe
and bewilderment and leaves me dumb with wonder

How can I doubt God when I am convince of my own existence? Who recognizes the
effect recognizes the cause. To doubt God would be to doubt ones conscience and
consequently, to doubt everything; and then, what is life for?
JESUS CHRIST:

Rizal did not believe that Jesus Christ was God, during his exile in Dapitan in his letter to
Fr. Pastells, he wrote: "Who died on the cross? Was it God or man? If it was God, I do
not understand how God could die: how a God conscious of his mission could cry out
in his bitter agony: 'My God, my God why has Thou My forsaken Me This cry is
absolutely human; it is the cry of a man who was banking on the justice of God and
worthiness of his cause, and then found himself surrounded by every type of injustice
without any hope of salvation.., all the words of Christ on the cross reveal to us, true

enough, a man in torment and agony. But what a man!'

Dec
12
The Religious Philosophy of Rizal

by Sir Gil C. Fernandez, KCR

Jose Rizal was born and grew up in a very devout Catholic family. His education, from
elementary to college, was from the prestigious Catholic schools of the period. It was
expected therefore, that he should have been also, a devout Catholic. Although he was for
a while, however, in later life he developed a religious philosophy not totally in accord
with the Catholic religion. Why the transformation? It all started when Rizal first went
abroad in 1882. At the age of 21, he enrolled at the Universidad Central de Madrid,
working for degrees in medicine, philosophy and literature. In Spain he found the
boisterous atmosphere of freedom: where conservatives and liberals, socialists and
anarchists, protestants and Catholics, atheists and agnostics, debated and discussed at
meetings, in cafes, on street corners, in the taverns and more especially in the press, without the fear of being apprehended. Rizal was amazed and pondered an obvious
question: Why did Spain forbid such freedom in the Philippines?

Rizals contacts with the great thinkers, leaders, scholars, scientists and philosophers of
the progressive libertarian movement in Spain and other European countries
revolutionized his religious philosophy. He met with Austrian Ferdinand Blumentritt who
was one of the European specialists on the Philippines. He read the radical theological
writings of Felicite R. de Lamennals, who advocated that Christian must serve the poor
and fight injustices including those perpetuated by the Catholic Church. Men like Rafael
Labra, Manuel Luis Zorilla and Francisco Pi y Margall, who struggled to reform Spain
antiquated feudal system, were close friends of Rizal.

Rizals religious perspective was humanistic blended with some forms of existentialism.
These he articulated very clearly in his February 22. 1889 letter to the Women of Malolos
as follows: You know that the will of God is different from that of the priest; that
religiousness does not consist of long periods spent on your knees, nor in endless prayers,
big rosarios, and grimy scapularies [religious garment showing devotion], but in a

spotless conduct, firm intention and upright judgment. You also know that prudence does
not consist in blindly obeying any whim of the little tin god, but in obeying only that
which is reasonable and just, because blind obedience is itself the cause and origin of
those whims, and those guilty of it are really to be blamed. God gave each individual
reason and a will of his or her own to distinguish the just from the unjust; all were born
without shackles and free, and nobody has a right to subjugate the will and the spirit of
another thoughts, seeing that thought is noble and free. In the same letter, he tried to
influence the attitudes, habits and beliefs of the Filipino women who tended to believe
and rely on superstitions, myths and miracles. The letter was written originally in
Tagalog. I would like to quote a portion of it verbatim as follows: Ano kaya ang
magiging supling ng babaing walang kabanalan kundi ang mag bubulong ng dasal,
walang karunungan kundi awit, novena at milagrong pang ulol sa tao. (What offspring
will be that of a woman whose kindness of character is expressed by mumbled prayers;
novenas, and the alleged miracles used to fool the people?)
RELIGION: Rizal believed in religion, in his letter to his mother in 1885, he articulated
this very eloquently when he wrote: For me religion is the holiest of things, the purest,
the most intangible, which escapes all human adulterations, and I think I would be
recreant to my duty as a rational being if I were to prostitute my reason and admit what is
absurd. I do not believe that God would punish me if I were to try to approach Him using
reason and understanding, -his most precious gift. Rizal opposed the perversions, abuses
and hypocrisy of the Catholic hierarchy and the colonial government that he manifested
in his two novels.

REVELATION: Rizals fourth letter dated April 4, 1893 to Fr. Pablo Pastells, he wrote: I
believed in the revelation but in that living revelation of Nature that surrounds us
everywhere, in that voice, potent, eternal, incessant, incorruptible, clear, distinct,
universal as the Being from whom it proceeds; in that revelation that speaks to and
penetrates us from the moment we are born until we die
Dr. Maximo Viola in his Mis Viajes con el Dr. Rizal (My Travels with Dr. Rizal), he
mentioned that the religion of Christ was the most perfect, but due to the
modifications introduced into it, by malice or religious fanaticism, it has become like
an edifice, which because of so many modifications has been so disfigured and
threatens to fall apart."
HEAVEN: Rizal wrote in his Mi Ultimo Adios his last poem. "For I go where no
slave before the oppressor bends, where faith can never kill, and God reigns
everywhere."
As regards to hell, Rizal wrote to Fr. Pastells. God cannot have created

me for my harm: for what harm had I done Him before being created
that He should will my damnation?
Rizal gave the greatest importance to human capacity to reason. His
Christianity did not rely on friar orders; neither did he follow mandatory
performance of religious rituals, sacraments and ceremonies. He said, God
does not require candles, He has more candles than the light of the
sun.

rizal's 1st departure

. In my town perhaps they are looking at the same moon as I do. Perhaps my
mother and my sisters, looking at it, are thinking of me as I'm thinking of
them. If instead of looking at a point, our gazes would meet...
Tonight the moon rose up in the midst of the solitude of the sea; its steady
and silent passage through the pure blue of the skies reflected a golden
current over the tranquil waves of the sea. Beautiful and bewitching, it
reminded me of my native land ... Oh! How many are now gazing at you!
Alas! And only in you will our thoughts meet! Oh! If your gilded and brilliant
disk could only reflect my loving sentiments on the beautiful land of my
country! Fortunate are you who can see and dwell in the immense spaces;
now you bathe with your silvered light the hospitable roof of my parents!
Blessed are you, silent queen of the night, celestial body of love and gentle
melancholy! I have always loved you.
After God the mother is everything to man. She taught me how to read, she
taught me how to stammer the humble prayers that I addressed fervently to
God, and now that Im a young man, ah, where is that simplicity, that
innocence of my early days?
Oh, education, oh, shame, that obliges us to hide our sentiments and to
appear different! How much beauty, how many tender and pathetic scenes
the world would witness without you!
-rizal