2a. The Age of Enlightment and Spiritual Awakening

Question 1

How did Europeans rediscover the philosophers?

Answer 1

When they began to interact with Muslim Arabs. The result was a renewed interest in math, philosophy, and REASON.

Question 2

What was one of the major implications that the Enlightenment had on the American Church?

Answer 2

The church began to embrace reason and started to shy away from the reality of a world with evil and demons. The supernatural was abandoned.

Question 3

What were the two major contributors to the movement that began to be known as the Enlightenment? In other words, what spurred it on?

Answer 3

The Reformation, but especially the Thirty Year War of 1618-1648. Europe fought between Catholics and Protestants, and Christendom had failed. The political and spiritual reality of a united Europe was questioned and a time of deep uncertainty was felt. People started looking for answers outside of the church, and scripture and religion began to lose power. People began to study the philosophers to find answers. The church was no longer the authority.

Question 4

As the Enlightenment developed, what questions did it raise against Christianity?

Answer 4

The authority of the church, the relevance of the Bible and theology, and issues of faith in general.

Question 5

Where did the Enlightenment hit the hardest?

Answer 5

In Western Europe, mostly in France and England in the late 1600s and early 1700s.

Question 6

What impact did the Enlightenment have on politics?

Answer 6

People began to question the nature of the individual versus the community. If God gave us reason, then maybe the community can come together and govern itself. So countries began to question kingship, and began to embrace the idea of democracy.

Question 7

What was Isaac Newton’s impact on theology?

Answer 7

Principia Mathematica. It basically said that the cosmos were governed by laws of physics, and were predictable.

Question 8

Who wrote Principia Mathematica, and what impact did it have on issues of faith?

Answer 8

Sir Isaac Newton. The cosmos could be understood through the laws of physics and math. God gave us reason to understand things. The universe is not as mysterious as we thought. All of a sudden the heavens weren’t a mystery, and neither was God.

Question 9

Who wrote “Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, and what did it say?

Answer 9

John Locke. Knowledge comes through experience. The mind has the ability to learn about the world.

Question 10

What is the relationship between Newton and Locke?

Answer 10

Locke provided the argument, that the mind can learn about the world. That experience leads to knowledge. Newton provided the process or method (scientific inquiry, or method).

Question 11

Why didn’t the Enlightenment have an impact in the East?

Answer 11

Because the population was stuck in a feudal system, and the Lords controlled the economic system. They began to tax the peasants more, so they moved to the countryside. There was less urbanization as a result, and people weren’t around centers of learning. Also, many of those centers were ruled by Islam, so there was little interaction with the Enlightenment. And, a lot of the people were stuck in old ways of doing things that hadn’t changed or hadn’t been challenged. And, the clergy in Russian were illiterate, so they wouldn’t have been able to read everything that was coming out anyway. Basically, the East was a lot more backwards than the West.

Question 12

How was the Enlightenment received in American Churches?

Answer 12

There were churches who moved to a more “rational” faith. And there were those embraced some of it and found it useful in areas of faith, but rejected other parts. So its a mixed bag.

Question 13

Charles Chauncey and Jonothan Mayhew

Answer 13

Both of these men founded the Unitarian church as a “rational” Enlightenment response to the excess emotion they saw in the First Great Awakening. Evidence for how Christians used the Enlightenment towards weird and heretical ends.

Question 14

Cotton Mather

Answer 14

Matther was a pastor who used science to inoculate residents in Boston from smallpox. People saw the disease as a punishment from God, but Matther saw the sure as a gift that God had bestowed on the people. Evidence for how Christians used the Enlightenment for good.

Question 15

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Latin America?

Answer 15

With the growth of understanding in economics, people began to question the dealings of the Jesuits. They were stripped of their large property holdings. They were also stripped of their schools, because the education of the American masses threatened Enlightened Spaniards.

The Enlightenment also began to move the leaders of Spain and Portugal into secularization. People began to move away from God. The separation of Church and State begins here. The church is in charge of the spiritual realm, but the state is in charge of the natural realm. As a result, the church lost a lot of land, and religious orders lost their power.

The last major impact that the Enlightenment had on Latin America was the growing gap between men and women. Education was for the make elite, making them richer, and leaving women uneducated and poor.

Question 16

What was the impact of the Enlightenment on Africa and Asia?

Answer 16

They fueled the Enlightenment with resources. The growth of the middle class in Europe and Latin America meant that more products needed to get manufactured and shipped. There was increased demand for cheap labor. So for Africa, the impact was slavery. The African slaves were the ones being used to drive the machine of “progress”.

Question 17

What were the positive effects of the Enlightenment on Africa and Asia?

Answer 17

Education, Transportation, and Medical Aid.

Question 18

What was the main question the Enlightenment asked of Africans?

Answer 18

Whether or not they had souls.

Question 19

Rites Controversy

Answer 19

The Dominicans and Franciscans publicly criticized the work of the Jesuits in China because they charged them with syncretism. The Jesuits had been in China because of Francis Xavier. After this the Catholic Church is kicked out of China.

Question 20

Jonothan Edwards

Answer 20

One of the greatest early pastor in the United States. He led the First Great Awakening. He was influenced highly by the Enlightenment, and was a Puritan.

Question 21

First Great Awakening

Answer 21

Revival in the 1730s and 1740s that spread throughout the colonies and Britain. People felt a strong need to have a personal relationship with Jesus and repent. Stressed personal commitment to Jesus over ritual and doctrine. This movement was more in the church, it led to deeper pietism. People would feel the holy spirit and have a huge love for God, they would be transformed. The Second Great Awakening took place in 1800, and was more focused on the non-churched.

Question 22

Essay Question:1. As Jonathan Edwards and his successors faced the rise of the era known as the Enlightenment, they responded by affirming their faith, by accepting from the Enlightenment what they believed to be compatible with that faith, and by refuting the rest. How would you assess their success in meeting the challenges to their faith that the Enlightenment posed?

Answer 22

It depends who you ask, and by what criteria do you determine that. I think they largely failed.

In America and elsewhere, the church let go of an understanding of evil and demons in the world. They let go of that biblical worldview that talked about the supernatural. It couldn’t be explained, therefore it wasn’t real.

The work of Locke, who said that knowledge came through experience, paired with Newton’s scientific methodology, meant that the experience of Christians could not be known because it was scientifically impossible to prove.

There are those who completely embraced a “rational faith”, like Chauncey and Mayhew.

And then there were those who used what the Enlightenment had to offer to bless people, like Matthers, who cured smallpox in Boston.

Things didn’t get better later when Kant comes on the scene, and it’s not until Barth lays the smack down that things get “better”. But in general, current church attendance in Europe is 3-5% because of the questions brought about by the Enlightenment. People asked the questions and lost their faith. That’s still true today. Maybe that’s why God us using the Pentecostal they way he is.

I need something on the First Great Awakening.

Question 23

Essay Question: 2. As we face what some call a postmodern or post-Enlightenment era, a transition that holds as much uncertainty and possibility as did that which Edwards faced, what have you learned from your reading that will help you respond in a positive way to its many challenges?

Answer 23

1. People will ask questions, and we need to answer them. But at the end of the day I don’t think God can be totally rationalized. I think I need to talk about Barth in this one.

Talk about Newton, and Locke, and their beliefs about knowledge coming through experience and what is observable. Then talk about Kant.

Talk about the Pietist, and Wesley, and Jonothan Edwards.

Question 24

Essay Question: 4. Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, and Latin America each faced the Enlightenment in different ways. Based upon your readings and this lecture, outline their unique approaches, and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses that surfaced during this process.

Answer 24

Western Europe: 
Newton and Locke
Scientific Method
Democracy vs Kinship
Principia Mathematica

Eastern Europe:

• kept feudal system, most people were serfs
• Got stuck in middle ages
• Lord’s tried to tax, so people moved away from cities, affected economy.
• large illiterate population, even in the clergy, so they couldn’t read what was happening.

Latin America:

• understanding of economics led to greater scrutiny of Jesuits.
• secularization of leaders led to separation of church and state
• disparity between men and women in Latin America because women couldn’t get education

United States

• embraced what they liked, but forgot about supernatural, miracles and demons
• some came up with a rational faith, like Chauncey and Mayhew
• some, like Cotton Matter, used it to cure small pox and give God the glory