Atheism dispute

In 1798, Johann Gottlieb Fichte was accused of atheism after he had published that year his essay Ueber den Grund unsers Glaubens an eine göttliche Weltregierung ("On the Ground of Our Belief in a Divine World-Governance"), which he had written in response to Friedrich Karl Forberg's essay "Development of the Concept of Religion" in his Philosophical Journal.

In his brief essay, Fichte attempted to sketch some of his preliminary ideas on philosophy of religion formulated within his Wissenschaftslehre (doctrine of science).

[2] The documents confirm that: The Weimar minister Christian Gottlob Voigt wrote to his colleague, Johann Wolfgang Goethe that the letter in which Fichte threatened to resign if he were reprimanded by Duke Carl August had given only the "pretense" that the ministers had sought to "get rid of" Fichte.

[3] Saxony and Prussia had threatened to prohibit their subjects from enrolling at the University of Jena if Fichte continued teaching there, and Russia and Austria had already introduced such a boycott.

The real reason for those governments' continuing unhappiness was his two 1793 anonymously-published books in which he had showed sympathy with the French Revolution, Zurückforderung der Denkfreiheit von den Fürsten Europens, die sie bisher unterdrückten and Beiträge zur Berichtigung der Urteile des Publikums über die Französische Revolution.