A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.

--Oscar Wilde.

I may disapprove of what you say, but I will die for your right to say it.

--Francois-Marie Voltaire.

Enlightenment and the making of Modernity

1. Reformation: two crises 2. Forerunner of Enlightenment: Rene Descartes3. Select figures of the Enlightenment: Voltaire, Hume &

Kant 4. Major characteristics of the Enlightenment5. Modernity’s heroes: Feuerbach, Freud, Darwin6. How can Christian theism be defended today?

Reformation: two crises

1. Crisis of the certainty of salvation– Lifted up the notion of individual faith & conscience

2. Crisis of the authority of the Church– Created the possibility for social change– Caused religious wars in Europe– Relationship between faith & reason reconsidered.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

• French philosopher, father of rationalism

• Radical skepticism• Cogito ergo sum • Searched for one method that will

yield certain knowledge• Autonomous self as the source of

certain knowledge• Major writings: Discourse on

Method (1637) & Meditations (1647)

Voltaire (1694-1778): Christianity is immoral

• French philosopher• Criticized Christianity for

superstition, ignorance, false piety & hypocrisy

• Criticized religious intolerance

• Advocated the freedom of speech.

Notre Dame became a ‘Temple of Reason’

David Hume (1711-1776): Christianity is irrational

• Scottish philosopher, father of agnosticism

• Argued against: – Miracles– Proofs of God’s existence– Providence.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): morality independent from religion

• German philosopher, father of objective idealism•All empirical reality is mind-constructed• Wrote Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone• Reduced Christianity to ethics of duty.

Major characteristics of the Enlightenment

• ‘Age of Reason’• Autonomous self v. traditional beliefs• Numerous challenges to traditional Christianity

– Moral criticism– Criticism of Christianity’s intellectual core– Attempts to fit Christianity into emerging patterns of

rationality• Not uniformly anti-religious.

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872):An alternative theory of religion

• German philosopher• Reduced theology to

anthropology: claimed that God was a projection of human ideal.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1936): An alternative theory of human nature

• Father of psychoanalysis• Religion is an illusion• God is an expression of the

fundamental human need for care and protection.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882): An alternative theory of human origins

• British naturalist• Major work: The Origin of

Species (1859)• Non-theistic evolution:

random mutation of genes + natural selection (i.e., death)

• Denied intelligent design.

Karl Marx (1818-1883): An alternative interpretation of history

• German political philosopher

• Major writing: The Capital• Interpreted human history

as the struggle of classes• Religion is the ‘opium for

the people.’