How Did It Enlightenment Influence Religion and the Art
The Enlightenment and the church had a complicated and frequently hostile relationship. Read a variety of books about liberal theology or atheism versus Christianity, and you'll hear people talk most how the Enlightenment has affected conversations about organized religion. If you lot didn't study philosophy in college, you lot might exist confused by this. Here's a bones await at what the Enlightenment was and how it affected the church.
What Was the Enlightenment?
Sometimes also called the Age of Reason, the Enlightenment was a new movement of ideas that started in the terminal seventeenth century and continued until the early on nineteenth century. Different scholars place unlike date ranges on it, which means sometimes the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation are considered role of the movement, sometimes not. Not simply that, but the Enlightenment intersected a lot with political events and scientific discoveries at the time, informing each other. As a result, it's hard to perfectly summarize the movement.
Broadly speaking though, the Enlightenment emphasized questioning religious authorities had described the Bible, preferring reason and scientific discipline's ability to prove things over traditional authorities. The Encyclopedia Britannica's article on the history of the Enlightenment has an interesting quote about Isaac Newton, the man who discovered the laws of gravity. It says that Newton's book Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy presented new theories for science that eventually led to "the great idea of the Enlightenment: that man, guided by the low-cal of reason, could explain all natural phenomena and could embark on the study of his own place in a world that was no longer mysterious."
Many scientists and thinkers who contributed to the Enlightenment were Christians (Newton for one). Nonetheless, as a whole, the movement became about rejecting Christian ideas in favor of classical philosophy (ancient Greek, Roman, etc.) and the idea that one did not demand faith in God to explain the world.
What Is a Brief Timeline of the Events of the Enlightenment?
Equally noted before, it's hard to create a actually definitive view of what the Enlightenment was, which makes information technology hard to summarize its fundamental moments. Here are some of the seminal events, generally limited to the philosophical works that define the era'due south behavior.
1687: Isaac Newton published "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy." This book showed mathematical principles that accurately showed and predicted how planets moved. This may non sound similar much, but it was shocking at the time: information technology meant that the universe had strict laws which could be predicted. Enlightenment thinkers took upwards this idea and many reached the conclusion that people could describe the universe while leaving God out entirely. Math and reason were sufficient for explaining how things work.
1689: John Locke publishes "Essay Concerning Human Understanding," where he argued that there are no universally best-selling truths and that humans are born without any innate knowledge. Among other things, this promoted empiricism, the belief that nosotros know things only through what we tin can sense or experience. This rules out the idea that all humans take an innate thought that God must be, and many thinkers used to reject the idea of noesis coming from anywhere except what we tin find (i.e., no divine revelation).
1746: French geologist Jean-Étienne Guettard publishes "Mineralogical Memoir and Map on the Nature and Location of the Terrains That Traverse France and England." Guettard's research had many effects, merely on the main ones was it seemed to show the earth was older than Onetime Testament timelines suggested at the time. This led to much fence most whether the Bible was reliable.
1759: Voltaire publishes his fictional work,Candide. Voltaire wrote philosophy as well equally fiction (and many other things), and his philosophy is probably more influential just it's hard to choice one philosophical book that was most important. Candide is notable because information technology was a controversial book that satirizes government and religious leaders, which summed the cynical view of authority that became so important to the Enlightenment.
1776: Thomas Jefferson writes the Declaration of Independence. While Jefferson used many Judeo-Christian ideas in his writing, he also drew a lot on Enlightenment ideas that church building and state should be separate and that humans have inalienable rights to liberty and happiness (wording that earlier Enlightenment thinkers like John Locke had used). Jefferson would later get notorious for disregarding supernatural elements in the four Gospels and produced The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (or "the Jefferson Bible") which tells the Gospels with most of the supernatural elements removed.
1789: The French Revolution takes place. While both the American and the French Revolution were based around thinkers who used Enlightenment ideas, the French Revolution took a more secular approach. Information technology was a revolution with God removed from the equation entirely and all the emphasis on reason. Writers such as Os Guinness take suggested that much of what we see today in modern secular liberalism owes more to the French Revolution's ideas than annihilation else.
How the Enlightenment Negatively Affected the Church
Some of the near notable Enlightenment thinkers were Christians and many of their ideas did benefit society. In some cases, scholars still argue whether sure Enlightenment ideas were anti-church or just applied incorrectly. This means that information technology wouldn't be accurate to say the Enlightenment was totally negative. Withal, there were Enlightenment ideas that damaged the church in many ways, including the post-obit:
Challenging divine revelation. The Enlightenment argued for basing knowledge on what we know and that we can't be born with the cognition of things (such as a sense of the divine or an objective moral code). This led to debates near whether God tin can communicate with people. As a result, notable Enlightenment thinkers like Jefferson and Thomas Paine were Deists, a philosophy that argued God existed only didn't communicate with people. We can as well meet the emphasis today in arguments for moral relativism.
Challenging Christian societies. Considering the Enlightenment favored classical civilizations and means of viewing the world, information technology set upwardly the idea that civilizations bound past Christian ideas had missed the gunkhole. This led to the popular idea of religious societies as existence archaic or night, stereotyping the Christian medieval menstruation every bit essentially foolish or unhealthy.
Challenging the Bible. While Charles Darwin would not release Origin of the Species until afterward the Enlightenment, the essential conflict of development versus creationism debates was fix in the Enlightenment. Geology research had shown the globe was older than Old Testament scholars described it, which challenged the Bible's view of history and how the universe developed. This "faith versus science" or "religion versus reason" argue has continued to frame many debates about evolution, Biblical history, and scientific discipline.
Strangely, the "faith versus reason" fence has even affected fields fighting confronting "the Enlightenment effect," such equally Christian apologetics. It has become very popular to present arguments for Christianity using modern scientific discipline, such equally arguing that based on current physics the universe could but exist if it requires a creator. This kind of apologetics can assist and it works when apologists are honest about what tin be shown with science. However, many have gotten used to the pseudo-Enlightenment thought that science can't be disputed. In fact, continuing enquiry means scientists' ideas are always changing equally they get new information. This means in the aforementioned way that secular scientists tin't throw out the Bible entirely considering it doesn't fit their theories, apologists can't add a lilliputian science to their arguments and flaunt their ideas as undisputed truths. Nosotros accept to be honest virtually what scientific discipline tin (and cannot) bear witness.
How Can Christians Respond to the Bear on of the Enlightenment Today?
While there are a number of things Christians should do nigh Enlightenment thinking, here are iii things we can practise all do near its legacy:
Encourage reading history. It's not until we go back to original sources, considering what people said and why they said it, that we really gain the information we demand to fully challenge ideas. This is especially important with the Enlightenment, where we have some thinkers who were anti-Christian and others who had more nuanced views. Nosotros need to read about the Enlightenment earlier we can understand its mistakes and its benefits. This is especially true correct now in America, where many people challenge America's foundations and argue whether it has Christian ideas in its foundation. Understanding how the Founding Fathers' ideas fit with the Enlightenment and with Judeo-Christian ideas (especially as compared to the French Revolution) allows usa to sympathize whether America can be considered a "Christian nation" or not.
Promote a better understanding of science. While we can debate development and whether the Bible describes an exact historical timeline that doesn't fit geology, scientific discipline and faith don't accept to exist seen as utter opponents. The more than nosotros understand science and its inherent limits, the more than nosotros detect the idea that science serves every bit a substitute for religion doesn't piece of work. Many times scientific theories have dash nosotros don't notice until we study them in-depth, and what seems to be opposed to Biblical ideas may complement them. The more we encourage people to look carefully at science, the more we can avert like shooting fish in a barrel "religion versus scientific discipline" arguments that have things out of context and don't get anywhere.
Betoken out what humans can and can't know. One of the distinctly negative effects of the Enlightenment was it created the impression that humans could be all-knowing, figuring everything out themselves. Every bit scientific discipline has helped us to understand how much our view of the globe is informed by environmental factors or things we don't fully sympathize (such as quantum physics), we're moving back to the understanding that homo beings are fallible and there are many things nosotros don't (or tin't) know. Recognizing that truth volition help united states of america see science's limits and that we aren't smart enough to live without a space for God.
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Source: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/history/how-did-the-enlightenment-impact-the-church.html
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