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 Descartes
3. Select figures of the Enlightenment: Voltaire, Hume &
Kant
4. Major characteristics of the Enlightenment
5. Modernity’s heroes: Feuerbach, Freud, Darwin
6. 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.’