Enlightenment & Great Awakening: Quick Notes

Part 1: How the Enlightenment began

  • Age of Reason (16th–17th c.): more education and literacy; people questioned traditional authority and believed humanity could improve through rational thought.
  • Enlightenment thinkers questioned state‑controlled religion; dedication to state religion declined.
  • First Great Awakening partly an effect of the Age of Reason; suppression of non‑Anglican religions after the Glorious Revolution (1688) spurred a move toward personal, emotional religion; belief that religion rests in individuals, not government.
  • Printing press and the print revolution: mass printing of books and pamphlets enabled rapid spread of new ideas; Ben Franklin’s printing business exemplifies the era; Licensing Act repealed after 1688, allowing freer printing.
  • Transatlantic flow of ideas connected Europe and the American colonies; growing literacy fueled by print culture.
  • The scientific revolution and anti‑monarchy sentiment created an environment ripe for new ideas about mankind and government.

Part 2: What Europe was like in the seventeenth century

  • Puritan worldview: truth via the Bible; nature understood through scripture; progress by following God’s laws; success seen as favor from God and a sign of being predestined; law to prevent sin.
  • Mid‑century Scientific Revolution: Newton’s laws became the backbone of physics; idea that universal laws apply to nature encouraged search for universal laws governing mankind and government.
  • Key Enlightenment concepts:
    • Reason: truth through logical thinking, observation, and the scientific method; reduces superstition.
    • Nature: order and beauty in the world; universal laws for nature, politics, and economics; coexistence with a divine creator is possible.
    • Progress: society can be perfected through reason.
    • Law: liberty and laws exist to improve lives, not just control them.
  • Relationship to monarchy: absolute monarchs and divine right argued against; English Civil War and Glorious Revolution highlighted limits of absolute rule; Enlightenment thinkers proposed new ways to govern.
  • Newton’s laws of motion (as context):
    • First law (inertia): An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by a net external force.
    • Second law: F=maF = ma
    • Third law: F<em>12=−F</em>21F<em>{12} = -F</em>{21}

Part 3: How the Enlightenment affected seventeenth‑century ideas

  • Thomas Hobbes: man in a state of nature is brutish; needs a strong, absolute ruler; social contract supports absolute monarchy and divine right in rational terms.
  • Jean‑Jacques Rousseau: man is basically good in nature; civilization corrupts; change through education; humane punishment.
  • John Locke and Voltaire: human beings can discover good through reason; rights to life, liberty, and property; defense of rational thought and free inquiry; Voltaire popularized freedom of speech and deistic religion.
  • Kant and others: some Enlightenment thinkers argued reason could render belief in God unnecessary (controversial); many remained religious and sought harmony between reason and faith.
  • British vs French: moderates (Locke, Adam Smith) tended to be more traditional about religion and property; radicals in France pushed more sweeping reforms.

Part 4: How the Enlightenment affected thought in the American colonies

  • Religious and ethnic diversity in America created pluralism and vigorous intellectual exchange; later amplified by the Great Awakening and transatlantic ideas.
  • Science and rationalism challenged witchcraft and superstition; Salem witch trials highlighted dangers of superstition and contributed to the decline of Puritan influence.
  • Economic and social changes reduced strict Puritan discipline; colonists pursued wealth within new religious and intellectual frameworks.
  • Benjamin Franklin as a hallmark figure: printer, library founder, fire company organizer, and University of Pennsylvania founder; symbol of colonial Enlightenment.
  • Rise of new colleges to train ministers and support religious movements: Harvard (1636), Yale (1701), College of William & Mary (1693), College of New Jersey/Princeton (1746), King’s College/Columbia (1754), Brown University (1764).

Part 5: How the Enlightenment affected religion

  • Established churches resisted rational criticism and revivalism; suppression of non‑Anglican practice in England contributed to religious reform.
  • Pietism in Germany emphasized personal piety; revivalism spread to America, giving rise to the Great Awakening.
  • Great Awakening (1730s–1740s): revivalist preachers (Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield) emphasized individual salvation and emotional religious experience; revival meetings in fields or open spaces when established churches blocked itinerant preachers.
  • New congregations and denominations emerged (Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists); old lights vs new lights debate reflected tension over authority and emotion in religion.
  • Establishing colleges to train ministers reinforced new religious movements and education (Harvard, Yale, William & Mary, Princeton, Columbia, Brown).

Part 6: How the Enlightenment and Great Awakening influenced the development of the colonies

  • Both movements promoted individual judgment and the right to choose; contributed to a culture of self‑government and suspicion of distant tyranny.
  • Colonial resistance to imperial control drew on experiences of self‑governance, evolving ideas of liberty, religious diversity, and critique of corruption in imperial governance.
  • The combination of Enlightenment thinking and revivalist religion helped lay the groundwork for the American Revolution in the late 18th century.