CHURCH HISTORY II Lesson 21 Enlightenment & Romanticism “We are all born in the enlightenment and bred in romanticism” ‘ The Great Divide’

CHURCH HISTORY IICHURCH HISTORY IILesson 21Lesson 21

Enlightenment & Romanticism

“We are all born in the enlightenment and bred in romanticism”

‘The Great Divide’

Voltaire

1694-1778

Diderot

1713-1784

Jefferson

1743-1826

“The smile of Reason” Sir Kenneth Clark

I. ENLIGHTENMENT

“a self conscience break with traditional values and authority, producing a new intellectual climate in which reason was enthroned” Dr. Frank James

A. The Promise of Science

Isaac Newton 1642-1727

“Nature and natures laws lay hid in night;

God said, ‘Let Newton be’ and all was light”

Alexander Pope

Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica,

For the past three hundred years the umbrella civilization of Western man has been modern paganism, or secular humanism…It is probably the most creative, the most liberated, the wealthiest, most dehumanizing, and most murderous civilization in the history of our species”

Chaim Potok, Wanderings

B. The Progress of Philosophy

1. Rationalism of Descartes

Rene Descartes 1596-1650

“like a spider, producing cob-webs from his own mind”

Lord Bacon

Methodical Doubt

2. Empiricism of John Locke

Not Thinker but Investigator

Both arrived at the same conclusion:

The Growing Autonomy of Human Reason

The Reasonableness of Christianity

1632-1704

CENTRALITY OF MORALITY

Tyndale “Christianity as Old As Creation”

Jefferson “The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth”

DEISM

Lord Sidney Herbert of Cherbourgh (1583-1648)

John Toland (1670-1722) Christianity Not Mysterious

God Exists

God is nice

We are too!

David Hume “the frown of reason”

II. ROMANTICISM

Rousseau

1712-1778

“I feel, therefore I am”

ROMANTIC CREED

1. Importance of feelings

2. Sanctity of Nature

3. The role of the artist

“The artist stands on mankind like a statue on its pedestal….Only an artist can divine the meaning of life” Novalis

Religion within the limits of reason

Kant (1724-1804)

Inner religion-absolute dependenceSchleiermacher (1768-1834)

SUBJECTIVE THEOLOGY

How I feel/think/believe

Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson

(1803-1882)

“Obey Thyself”

Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. WH AUDEN September 1,1939

“Go to the eighteenth century…Read the stories of the great tides and movements of the Spirit experienced in that century. For a preacher, it is absolutely invaluable”

Lloyd-Jones, Preachers and Preaching, p 118

“The world begins to feel a warmth from the fire of God which thus flames in the heart of Germany” Cotton Mather, 1715

Did You Know

"For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed." (Malachi 3:6)

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8)

"The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." (Isaiah 40:8)

"But the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that was preached to you" (1 Peter 1:25 ).