Week 7 Notes: Transformation of Christianity and the Enlightenment lecture

17th and 18th Centuries: Transformation of Christianity

Context: Increased authority of science due to the scientific revolution (Copernicus to Isaac Newton). Transforms the world and creates reactions against modernism's rationalistic impulses and church orthodoxy.

Philosophy and Theology

• During the Middle Ages, philosophy was considered subservient to theology.

• Scholastic theology (University of Paris) became prominent.

• Aristotle's influence on Thomas Aquinas was significant.

• In the 17th century, theology and philosophy intertwined.

• Philosophical writings are best understood against the backdrop of religious controversies.

The Confessional Age

• Many Protestant thinkers held firm convictions about truth.

• They defended their beliefs in political disputes.

• Believed God revealed truth in two books:

  • The Bible: divine special revelation.

  • The Book of Nature: general revelation.

• Philosophers used the Bible alongside reason.

• Philosophy became critical thinking, heralding the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment

• No singular, unitary influence on Western culture; varied across regions.

• Rationalism: Exploring the world with humanity's powers of reason.

• The Enlightenment began when rationalism became the philosophy of the European intellectual elite in the 17th century.

• Truth is intellectual and deductive in rationalism.

• Continental rationalism is associated with mathematical methods.

• Aristotle's view stimulated empirical investigation of individual things.

Empiricism

• Stresses reasoning from observation or experience to grasp truths.

• A posteriori ideas prevail over a priori ideas.

• Opposes rationalism by prioritizing sensation and observation over reason as the source of knowledge.

• Views modern science as the paradigm of knowledge.

• Hands-on, down-to-earth approach.

• Trust senses, observe carefully, perform experiments, and learn from experience.

• Skeptical of non-observable entities (gods, souls, immaterial minds, metaphysical concepts).

Rationalism vs. Empiricism

• Status of Mind:

  • Empiricists: passive mind acting mechanically.

  • Rationalists: active mind acting on sensory information and giving it meaning.

• Determinism:

  • Empiricists: experience, memory, associations, and hedonism determine thoughts, actions, and morality.

  • Rationalists: rational reasons determine desirable acts or thoughts.

• Reasoning Process:

  • Empiricists: induction (generalizing from observables).

  • Rationalists: deduction (inferring from principles, as in mathematics).

British Empiricism

• A movement in epistemology during the modern period of philosophy.

• Major figures: John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume.

• Aristotle: forerunner of modern empiricism due to his critique of Plato's non-empirical forms.

• John Locke: most influential on America's founders.

• Argued that Christianity was the most reasonable religion, teaching nothing not available to reason.

John Locke

• Father of classical liberalism.

• His social contract theory influenced Voltaire, Rousseau, Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, and American revolutionaries.

• His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

• No Innate Ideas: human beings have no inborn ideas at birth (tabula rasa).

• Mind as a Blank Slate:

  • Rationalists claimed the mind has fundamental principles at work from birth.

  • Locke: the mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) on which experience writes all that we know.

  • Automatic instinctual behaviors are not ideas or contents of consciousness.

• Experience is the source of all ideas.

• Two kinds of experience:

  • Sensation: experience of the outer world (colors, shapes, density, etc.).

  • Reflection: experience of the inner world (fear, love, willing, doubting, affirming, etc.).

  • Interpretation of sensory experiences helps form consciousness of ideas.

Deism

• Religion of nature: a form of rational theology in the 17th and 18th centuries.

• Insisted religious truth should align with doctrine.

• Rejected supernatural elements of Christianity (miracles, prophecies, divine portents) as superstitions.

• Castigated doctrines like original sin, Genesis creation account, and the divinity/resurrection of Christ as irrational.

• God: a benevolent, distant creator whose revelation was nature and human reason.

• Applying reason to nature taught that God organized the world to promote human happiness.

• Greatest religious duty: further that end through morality.

Origins of Christian Deism

• Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury (early 17th century) laid out the basic deistic creed in "On Truth" (1624).

• Reacted to religious strife in Europe since the Reformation.

• Hoped deism would quell religious strife by offering a rational and universal creed.

• Established God's existence from the cosmological argument.

• Humans duty to worship God, repent of failings, strive for virtue, and expect punishment and reward in the afterlife.

• Creed based on reason, making it universally acceptable regardless of religious background.

Deism in England and America

• Had little impact in England for most of the 17th century.

• Major source of controversy in English religious and speculative culture from 1690-1740.

• Capitalized on two developments:

  • Transformation in understanding nature (Galileo, Kepler, Isaac Newton).

  • Articulation of John Locke's empiricist theory of knowledge.

• Newtonian Universe: compared to a clock due to its regularity and adherence to mathematical laws.

• Argument from design: the clockwork order of the universe implied an intelligent designer (God as the cosmic clockmaker).

• Locke insisted that the only judge of truth was sense experience aided by reason.

• Anthony Collins (Locke's disciple) argued the Bible was a human text and its doctrines must be judged by reason.

• Miracles and prophecies violate the laws of nature (confirmed by Newtonian mechanics) and cannot be credited.

• True deist piety: moral behavior in keeping with the golden rule of benevolence from a benevolent god.

• Locke's reasonableness of Christianity opened doors for considering how theology and philosophy fit together.

• Matthew Tyndale's "Christianity as Old as the Creation" (1730): argued that the religion of nature was recapitulated in Christianity and the purpose of Christian revelation was to free humans from superstition.

• Some deists considered Christ a divine moral teacher but held that reason, not faith, was the final arbiter of religious belief.

• Harvard instituted lectures in 1755 spreading deistic ideas.

• Colonial deists in America downplayed distance from orthodox neighbors and kept it private.

Deism Post-Independence

• Began to change after independence.

• Ethan Allen published "Reason, The Only Oracle of Man" (1784), critiquing atonement and sparking controversy.

• Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" (1794) brought militancy to deism and influenced the founders.

• Paine lambasted superstitions of Christianity and vilified the clergy.

• Believed Christianity was the last obstacle to the secular age of reason and human happiness.

• Elihu Palmer spread deistic ideas through lectures and newspapers criticizing Christianity.

• By 1806, Palmer founded deistic societies in New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore.

• Deism stressed morality and rejected the divinity of Christ.

• Figures like George Washington are often identified as deists, but evidence is thin.

• Deists never amounted to more than a small percentage of the population.

Thomas Jefferson and Deism

• Created his own version of the Bible based on deistic thinking focused on Jesus as a moral teacher.

• Cut out passages that didn't align with deistic thought and focused on Jesus as a moral teacher.

• Kept it private due to separation of church and state.

• Wrestled with views of Christianity throughout his life.

• Owned a copy of the Quran to understand Islam due to enslaved individuals coming from Africa and being Muslim.

Spiritualism

• Adherents believe themselves to be directly in touch with the divine spiritual realm without mediation of church structures or rites.

• Distinct from 16th-century Anabaptist versions but indebted to them.

Jacob Burma

• German Lutheran layman and Christian mystic.

• Writings about salvation and nature of the cosmos influenced later religious movements and philosophers.

• A cobbler, his ideas aroused opposition, and he was exiled for a year.

• Emphasized personal faith and individual religious experience over dogma.

• Developed explanation of conflict between divine wrath and divine love within God generating creation.

• Emphasized will as the prime motivating factor within God and taught humans have the will to seek divine grace.

• Taught that the fall of humanity was a necessary stage in the evolution of the universe.

• Published posthumously and influenced other thinkers.

Emmanuel Swedenborg

• Scientist who founded the discipline of classification of Christables.

• Scientific knowledge led him to desire religious relationship.

• Believed God is an infinitely loving entity at the center of our being.

• Viewed life on Earth as continuous cycles of regeneration.

• Read the Bible as having an inner spiritual meaning that guides our lives.

• Believed that life continues after death in a spiritual world.

• Wrote about heaven and hell.

• Established an agency for these ideas called the Church of the New Jerusalem (Swedenborgian Church).

George Fox and the Quakers

• Came to the conclusion after leaving his job as a cobbler that the various sects in England were an abomination.

• Criticized ostentation and structured worship forms.

• Felt insights were revealed directly by the spirit.

• Founded the Society of Friends (Quakers).

• Believed God speaks directly to each person through the inner voice of the heart.

• Purpose of meetings: commune jointly in silence with the indwelling spirit.

• Quaker ideals: equality, social justice, peace, stewardship, integrity, and simplicity.

• Emphasized silent worship and pacifism.

• No priest or institutional church but meeting houses.

• Equality of all people allowed women and those without education to participate.

• Simplistic dress and manner and against oath swearing in court.

• Margaret Feld, helps him start this denomination.

• Women Quakers preached messages.

• Knowledge of Quaker ideas comes from Quaker journals emphasizing God's presence in the world.

• William Penn asked Charles II for the land Pennsylvania as a safe place for Quakers to settle.

• He negotiated with the native peoples for the use of the land in what was Pennswoods that later became Pennsylvania, known for religious tolerance and religious freedom.

Pietism

• Maintains doctrinal commitments of orthodoxy.

• Emphasizes small group Bible study in large parishes of European Protestantism.

• Religious movement originating in Germany stressing Bible study and personal religious experience.

• Interested in devotional experiences and practices.

• Emerged from parties of the diverse movement, Bible study groups known as colleges of piety.

• Biblical truth must be manifested in daily life of practical piety.

• Pastor Johann Arndt wrote "True Christianity", leading to concepts like regeneration and being born again.

Philip Jacob Spinner

• Usually identified as the father of Pietism.

• Talented Lutheran pastor from the region that had become Lutheran during the reformation.

• Disappointed with the practice and the piety of the church of his day.

• Preoccupied with the priesthood of all believers.

• Emphasized laity's responsibility to undertake disciplined Bible study.

• Advocated small group Bible studies.

August Frank

• Influenced by Spinner, the organizer of Pietism.

• Founded the University of Holly in Southern Germany.

• Engaged in organizing activities on behalf of the poor, orphaned, and aged.

• Administered Lutheran work in foreign missions.

• Linked social justice and foreign missions to Pietism.

• Emphasized study and discussion of the Bible, application to daily practice in a pious life, and the Holy Spirit as the illuminator of the Bible.

• Good works become an expression of true religion.

• The University of Holly became the center of the missionary effort.

• Indifference to doctrine led some to adopt a philosophy of idealism.

• Pietism resulted in the founding of the Moravian Church.

Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf

• Studied at Holly and Wittenberg.

• Provided Moravian refugees a home on his estate and became their leader.

• Emphasized a life of definite personal devotion to Christ.

• His deacons and missionaries went to Greenland, the West Indies, North America, India, and Africa.

• Their North American missionary effort influenced John Wesley.

Lazar Readers Movement

• Involved gathering believers into few free churches and emphasizing being born again.

• Celebrated the Lord's Supper for believers only.

• Met as mission friends to pray and send movement.

John Wesley and Methodism

• From Pietism, there is a revival of the third religious awakening in England with John Wesley.

• John Wesley was one of 19 children born to Samuel and Susanna Wesley.

• Wesley narrowly saved from death when the home burns in seventeen o nine, enters Oxford in 1720, and is ordained a priest in 1728 into the English Anglican church.

• Leading person in the holy club, members of this club were nicknamed Methodist.

• 1735 to 1737, John Wesley then comes to The United the colony of Georgia as a chaplain.

• Reading Luther's preface to the commentary on Romans, Wesley has a conversion experience.

• Organizes a Methodist society and builds a chapel in Bristol, England in 1739.

• 1784 the Methodist Church in America sets up its own national organization.

• Belief in the possibility of Christian perfection in this life.

• This was not sinless nor perfect perfection, but rather the possibility of sinlessness in motive.

• Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church came out over the issue of the slave trade.

George Whitefield

• Became a Christian in 1735.

• Began open-air preachings in 1739 and organized converts into societies.

• Wesley borrowing from Whitfield with this idea of open air meetings.

• Wesley ordained in the Anglican church, didn't wanna break with it.

• Death, 1791, the Methodist of England organized themselves into a church separate from the Anglican church.

• Before his death, 1784, John Wesley himself ordains men as ministers and sets them apart in America, Thomas Coke as superintendent.

• The gospel should have an impact on society, opposes liquor, slavery, and war, helps establish the free medical dispensary in England in 1746

American Religious Context

• Pilgrims: nonconformist separatists refusing to conform to the Church of England, settled Plymouth Colony (Mayflower Compact).

• Puritans: conformist reformers seeking to purify the Church of England, settled Massachusetts Bay Colony.

• Religious controversy led to Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams being expelled.

• Roger Williams founded Rhode Island supporting separation of church and state and religious tolerance.

The Great Awakening

• Emerged in Great Britain and influenced the American colonies.

• Fundamental premise: conversion of individuals from sin to a new birth.

• New England Puritans required church members to undergo a conversion experience.

• Series of local awakenings in the Connecticut River Valley led to a general outpouring of the spirit.

• Split Congregational and Presbyterian churches into "New Lights" and "Old Lights".

• New Lights carried the Great Awakening into the Southern Colonies.

George Whitefield

• One of the greatest evangelists of all time.

• Ordained in the Church of England and made seven visits to America.

• His popularity was such that he was actually compared to George Washington

• Preaching tour of the colonies ran from 1739 to 1741.

• Sermon in Boston attracted as many as thirty thousand people.

• His voice, presentation, and message were similar to modern televangelists.

Jonathan Edwards

• One of the most important American preachers during the Great Awakening. Revival at his church in Northampton, Massachusetts, considered a harbinger of the awakening. In 1740