Posted on 01/01/2020 12:12:14 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion
Modern science, medicine, political freedom, the market economy—all of them, we’re told, are the result of a sort of miracle that took place 250 years ago. That miracle is called the Enlightenment, a moment in history when philosophers suddenly overthrew religious dogma and tradition and replaced it with human reason. Harvard professor Steven Pinker puts it this way: “Progress is a gift of the ideals of the Enlightenment.”
There’s just one problem with this claim. It isn’t really true.
Consider the U.S. Constitution, which is frequently said to be a product of Enlightenment thought. But you only need to read about English common law—which Alexander Hamilton and James Madison certainly did—to see that this isn’t so. Already in the 15th-century, the English jurist John Fortescue elaborated the theory of “checks and balances,” due process, and the role of private property in securing individual freedom and economic prosperity. Similarly, the U.S. Bill of Rights has its sources in English common law of the 1600s.
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The truth is that statesmen and philosophers, especially in England and the Netherlands, articulated the principles of free government centuries before America was founded.
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The greatest catastrophes of modernity were engineered by individuals who claimed to be exercising reason.
In contrast, most of the progress we’ve made comes from conservative traditions openly skeptical of human reason. The Enlightenment’s critics, including John Selden, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Edmund Burke, emphasized the unreliability of “abstract reasoning” and urged us to stick close to custom, history, and experience in all things.
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(Excerpt) Read more at prageru.com ...
I am no fan of the Enlightenment. It is inherently anti-Conservative. It moved western culture away from Classical values and away from religion, seemingly believing that anything New must be better than anything Old.
We see it continually in education where idiotic ideals keep getting adapted.
“The Enlightenment saw God as a threat to human freedom, and the fulfillment of ultimate goals in the eschaton as a cheapening of history’s significance. Modern thinkers and revolutionaries have replaced Christian hope in eternal life with an immanent religion of progress. It is important, however, to recognize that this is no reversion to a pre-Christian paganism, but rather the creation of a Christian heresy, which accepts history’s progressive nature. This heresy deforms Christian faith in God’s providence into faith in the power of technology to create a more perfect life here and now. And as we are seeing, with no clear goal to guide technological development, change for its sake exerts a destructive power.
No one has diagnosed the heresy of modern progress better than Pope Benedict XVI in his encyclical Spe Salvi. Speaking of the revolution of thought beginning with Bacon, Benedict laid out the program for modern progress as seeking redemption and paradise without God:
[A] disturbing step has been taken: up to that time, the recovery of what man had lost through the expulsion from Paradise was expected from faith in Jesus Christ: herein lay “redemption.” Now, this “redemption”, the restoration of the lost “Paradise” is no longer expected from faith, but from the newly discovered link between science and praxis. It is not that faith is simply denied; rather it is displaced onto another level—that of purely private and other-worldly affairs—and at the same time it becomes somehow irrelevant for the world. This programmatic vision has determined the trajectory of modern times and it also shapes the present-day crisis of faith which is essentially a crisis of Christian hope. Thus hope too, in Bacon, acquires a new form. Now it is called: faith in progress.
In Benedict’s view, our understanding of time relates directly to our concept of hope. Christmas is a time of hope, because God has come to us and has inaugurated the Kingdom of God. If the new year simply reflects a chronological addition, history flattens in its significance, and we are left without any true joy or reason to celebrate. Celebration becomes distraction.”
(Excerpt)
- R. Jared Staudt
“Why Catholics celebrate the New Year”
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/why-catholics-celebrate-the-new-year
that took place 250 years ago
What? My secular history books in both Elementary, Secondary and college, and my church teaching all stated without question that the Age of Enlightenment started with the Guttenberg Bible in 1455, which is 470 years ago.
Prior to the Guttenberg Bible, most everyone depended on the “educated” clergy for knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom came by authority.
With mass production of the Bible, everyone could read and interpret it for themselves. The printing press made possible the printing of many books, pamphlets, etc. The printing press created the age of enlightenment.
Many now saw that the screen you and I are now looking at created the age of gullibility... no longer seeking the truth .... but seeking the celebrity, the popular, the puff piece.
The entire “Enlightenment” movement is based upon evolution - we are still “evolving” and getting better and better - therefore, beliefs from the past must be re-investigated in light of new/better knowledge. Of course, this is contrary to Biblical teaching, but we all like to think that “our” generation has the answers the “old” ones missed.
Humans have not evolved - we are still the same creatures - flaws and all - with the capacity for great good and great evil - as our oldest ancestors.
It snuck in through the cat flap.
Not to be confused with The Reformation . .
The Protestant Reformation was also problematic in some ways. And I think in the coming years you will find more and more Protestant scholars and intellectuals concluding as much...and calling for a need to recover the Catholic worldview and foundation for civilization.
I will watch the video, but have not done so yet.
Defining “Enlightenment” is like defining “Love.” It means different things to each person.
The origination of the term was due to the radiance of “Light” around people who were grown spiritually to a higher level if consciousness. Just as the Bible describes in Acts, the is profound knowledge associated with enlightenment.
Light is a natural attribute of higher consciousness. The Holy Spirit is described as “Light.” The Bible states many places that “ God is Light.”
From a neuroscience perspective, enlightenment is when the brain wave frequencies of an individual move from the beta frequency into the gamma frequency. The increased frequency results in an increased processing speed and capacity to store I formation for processing.
The Enlightenment. Isn’t that when they turn on the lights...
the enlightenment put the state above God. The marxists were just the extreme version of this.
Human consciousness has 3 stages of development while in the physical body.
The first is dependency stage where the soul surrenders to another soul like a child to a parent.
The second stage of soul development is self actualization. This can not happen without FREEDOM. The changes creating the “enlightenment period” were freedoms and the self empowerment associated with the Bible and other scriptures being translated into common man’s language where they could read themselves and think independently of the priests and educated class.
The period of reformation was the beginning of the glorification of the ego of common man.
In a lot of ways, humanity has DEVOLVED. I read ordinary conversations from the 18th and 19th Century, and the language was much more descriptive and "flowery" than what you see now. Also, as we breed further generations you see the genetic code deteriorating. For all those who believe that a race should remain "pure", that eventually devolves into something similar to what you see in Muslim countries with all the in-breeding. The Nazi Aryan ideal would've resulted in lots of genetic defects.
When Christ came to save the world, He said that there was no slave, no free, no Jew, no Gentile, no barbarian if you are in Christ.
“What was the Enlightenment?”
A catastrophe.
“calling for a need to recover the Catholic worldview and foundation for civilization.”
Lol.
I don’t know a single Bible-believing, God-fearing Protestant or evangelical who wants to embrace the Roman church and its doctrines of salvation by works, co-redemptrix Mary, infallibility of a Pope, gay clergy, liberation theology etc. That’s not to say that we non-Catholic Christians don’t have our own issues. The mainline Protestant churches often abandon Gospel. And there is plenty of antinomianism and seeker sensitivity trash on the evangelical side. But...as to real principled moral leadership, I know of very few Catholics who exhibit this. And I can speak from a position of experience, having married (then divorced) a Catholic and survived the duplicity, narcissism and frank dishonesty of fake pious Catholic ex-inlaws who wanted to deprive me the right to be a father to my offspring.
Why is it Catholics are so obsessed with bringing Christians to the Roman church? Focus on cleaning up the priest pedophilia, socialism, support for illegal immigration and other garbage would be more fruitful for you.
No offense intended to decent individual Catholic fellow freepers.
Deleting 16 Centuries of Christian history and tradition from your spiritual consciousness is not what Martin Luther or John Calvin had in mind. Your loss.
There is far more to Catholicism than its ongoing scandals and sins. And there is far more harm that Protestant extremes have wrought to the modern mind and to modern society than you may be willing to acknowledge.
Recovering what was good and true about the past rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater may prove to be a blessing and enrich your personal walk with the LORD this side of eternity. Why let self-righteousness blind you to Pharisee-like proportions?
Be blessed and Happy New Year.
Christian history exists in spite of the Roman church, which simply merged elements of Christianity with paganism.
No Phariseeism here. You were the one suggesting we could do better. I suggest you consider the fruits of the average Catholic, which in my experience is to pretty much behave like a heathen between visits to Mass.
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