Was the Enlightenment an attack on Christianity?

by graymond11 (student)

University Degree Historical and Philosophical studies

Glenn Raymond

Was the Enlightenment an ‘attack on Christianity?’

The Enlightenment to Immanuel Kant was, “man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another”[1]. In light of this, the Enlightenment was a period where man believed himself to be illuminated/enlightened in his own reasoning abilities beyond the need for religious revelation, with Kant himself seeing the Enlightenment as liberating humanity from what he called ‘immaturity’[2]; the locus of this ‘immaturity’ being religion. The mere concept of religion was seen as a ‘hindrance to intellectual progress[3]” and educated man to “fear invisible tyrants.[4]” Ernest Cassirer even stated that the Enlightenment’s, “fundamental feature is obviously its critical and sceptical attitude towards religion.[5] This essay will, therefore, try to discuss the Enlightenment’s motifs and whether it was actually ‘putting Christianity on trial’ and intentionally strived to deconstruct ‘the religious interpretation of life[6]’. However, there is an aspect of this all being completely unintentional with regards to the Enlightenment, with some scholars claiming it was not explicitly an attack on Christianity; this essay will also delve into this possibility. Alternatively, we will also explore the notion that thinkers and writers were making very serious and engaging efforts at finding ways to reconcile the ideals of the Enlightenment with Christian revelation, itself. Firstly, however, the essay will develop on the crux of the essay with the Enlightenment being an ‘attack on Christianity’ starting with French Deism.

The period after 1660 saw the emergence of the first sustained attack on Christianity from within Europe since the triumph of the Christian Church under Constantine in the fourth century.[7] English Deism had now gained prominence in France creating its own anti-religious views which eventually merged into atheism, pantheism, and skepticism[8]. Peter Gay had argued that the secular Enlightenment, which was by no means dominated by deists, is the deists' “rightful heir”[9]. In his view deism was not merely a radical Protestantism of an extreme kind but really was a complete attack and break with Christianity: 'If it is true that the deists took only a single step, it is also true that the step they took was across an unbridgeable abyss.[10]' A prominent figure in French Deism who instigated the break and subsequent ‘attack’ on Christianity was Voltaire. In his Dictionaire Philosophique (1764), he attacked faith in a Christian God and the superstitions in the teachings of the Catholic Church, raising an element of doubt over many old practices of the Judeo-Christian tradition also proclaiming that man had lost reason since the reign of Christianity: “The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reasoning[11]”. He also argued that morality does not depend on Christian revelation or on clerical intermediary but on natural morality rooted in the conscience and reason of every man[12]. This was a sceptical approach certainly from Voltaire who, essentially, denounced certain Christian dogma as suppressive and unnecessary; man had a moral compass, regardless of the guiding hand of Christianity, which could enable him to break away from Christian orthodoxy and virtue. He was also quite radical in his approach as Voltaire’s often-cited his battle cry ‘ecrasez l’infˆame’ (‘crush this infamous thing [the church]’!). This was important part of deconstructing Christianity in Deisms’ attack upon it. However, Deism, even In France, was not viewed as the most effective form of ‘attack’ on Christianity.

This is a preview of the whole essay

We need to recognise the rejection of Deism by some scholars to understand the evolution of absolute Anti-Christianity. Deism rose as a philosophical form of theism that used reason as its source of knowledge of God. Without revelation to give detail to natural theology, knowledge of God was minimal.[13] “Man had lost all initiative and the independent guidance of their own destiny”[14], according to Holbach, denouncing Deism as an amorphous hybrid and a weak compromise[15] to restore man to his former glory. Diderot reiterates this belief: “Deism had cut off a dozen heads from the Hydra of Religion, but that from the one head that had been spared, all the others would grow again.”[16] Thus far we can tell that pivotal figures in the Enlightenment are suggesting only complete rejection of religious faith in general, no matter what arguments support it, is the only solution to “free man from the yoke of religion[17]” and catalyse the ‘purge’ of Christianity. This idea seems to be supported by Cassirer: “ It seemed henceforth (rejecting Religion) to be the only means to free man from slavery and prejudice and to open up the way for real happiness.[18]” Diderots’ metaphor epitomises the philosophy now that is beginning to surface in the 18th century, especially in France where Diderot is co-pioneering Encyclopaedism which declared war openly on Christianity and its claims to validity and truth[19]. David Hume succinctly led Deistic criticism and raised it to the level of modern scientific method by “emancipating it from the conception of a deity conceived through the reason and by abandoning its characteristic interpretation of history.[20]” With Deism denounced by some prominent figures in the Enlightenment, we can see now the emergence of radical religious scepticism.

The first step to Enlightenment was a new scepticism, which attacked Christian dogmas. Writers and Scholars of the Enlightenment who ‘attacked’ Christianity had to, however, adopt the persona of a deist or fideist as a means of concealing a more extreme religious scepticism[21]. Hume used all of the rhetorical devices at his disposal[22] and left it to his readers to decode his most controversial conclusions on religious subjects. Hume was one of the most influential philosophers during the Enlightenment and rejected a monotheistic God and partly lead the ‘War on Christianity’ . Hume, however, accepted Berkeley’s empiricism which made God the source of perception (‘to be is to be perceived’), which claimed that our ideas are of particular things and not universal things[23]; but Hume’s empiricism led him to religiously sceptical conclusions. He held that our observations about the world do not warrant belief in the God of theism[24]. Design, for example, is manifestly imperfect; furthermore, a good God would not allow evil. If our observations point beyond the world at all it might be to a finite god[25], or even a number of gods. So the concept of God must be rooted not in reason but in emotion and the will[26]. Emotion and will were viewed as being subjective thus illogical and relative. Hume may have therefore being insinuating that believe in God was ‘illogical.’ Kant also rejected empirical knowledge as a way of knowing God. In fact, he maintained that God cannot be demonstrated at all, yet neither can his existence be disproved[27]. Kant changed the perception of god from being objective to subjective thus it being a matter of interpretation rather than an absolute truth. Kant didn’t necessarily attack Christianity, however, but advocated a more rational church that did encourage independent thinking. Kant’s works created Anti-supernaturalism: “nothing of God, nothing supernatural, ever enters the world of experience”[28]. This understanding eliminated most Christian essentials including miracles and revelation. Anti-intellectualism developed, too. Since nothing of God enters the world of sense perception, nothing of God enters the world of knowledge[29].

Therefore, The Enlightenment’s attack and criticism of traditional Christianity was actually grounded upon the principle of “the Omni competence of human reason”[30] . The Enlightenment’s ‘war on Christianity’ could possibly be summarised by the status and capabilities of man being elevated, placing him, rather than God, at the centre of the world. Replacing the former “I believe in order that I may understand” with “I believe only what I can understand.[31]” Or again, the paradigm for Christian theology was no longer “faith seeking understanding” but rather “faith requiring justification.[32]” The arbiter of truth is no longer an external religious authority, whether Scripture or the church, but human reason. “No longer were thinkers willing to accept the old dogmas merely on the basis that they belonged to the received system of church doctrine. The light of reason possessed by each individual dethroned the ecclesiastical hierarchy as the foundation of authority.[33]” However, the replacement of the Omni-essence of God left man with no higher echelon, essentially, than his own existence. ‘Freedom from Slavery’ had been the maxim of the Enlightenment and the ‘war on Christianity’ had restored man’s ability to reason free from the dogma of Christianity in now secular states. Man had, therefore, been ‘restored’ to its former glory in Ancient Greece. However, not every aspect of the Enlightenment was explicitly a focused attack on Christianity, nor a necessarily intentional attack.

The seventeenth century had been the period of great philosophical enquiry, which ranged from the works of Galileo to the publication of Newton’s Principia (1687). These thinkers intended no assault on Christianity, nor implied any in their scientific writings[34]. Western understanding of nature had been so significant and taking man’s knowledge in radically new direction; it had been relentless. Piously it was believed that the Bible said that the earth was in the centre of the universe[35]. In 1543, Copernicus argued that mathematically it made more sense to put the sun in the centre of our universe which was the basis of his heliocentric theorem in De revolutionibus. Fifty years later Galileo went further[36]. He challenged the basic medieval scholastic assumption that only the earth was a real body, that all other heavenly bodies were made of a fine ethereal matter[37]. In 1610 he trained his telescope on the moon and proclaimed that the shadows he saw were best explained as mountains[38]. The celestial and terrestrial worlds were beginning to look increasingly like the same matter, heavy and measurable, just configured differently[39]. Galileo, for instance, discovered the Milky Way which allowed him to induce that there probably was more galaxies and universes out there contrast to the pious words of the Bible: “The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.”

These new metaphysical assumptions about nature and the ‘heavens’ galvanized the religious crisis of the 1680s incidentally as the ‘heavens’ were not aesthetically perfect as scholastic doctrines would have you believe. However, these new scientific findings were not a direct attack on Christianity. The findings of Copernicus and Galileo signified man’s newly elevated position in relation to God and did not doubt his existence but challenged the Scholastic Aristotelian fundamentals which had dominated Christian orthodoxy for the last fourteen centuries. Man was evolving or restoring himself to former glory through the values of rationalism, relativism and logic and was seeking to reconcile these views in line with the Church and showing that the two can operate separately through secularisation. These views were not attacking Christianity intentionally but started to show contradictions and anomalies in Scripture with both the Old and New Testament galvanising radical scepticism towards Christianity altogether. However, there was some Christian theologians, like Newton and Locke, who looked to reconcile Science and the Church thus trying to make the latter more progressive and less reactionary towards scientific discoveries.

William Robertson, promoted a ‘broad, world-affirming theology’ lineage throughout the Christian Enlightenment. To him as to many other Christians across Europe, the Enlightenment was more about reinvigorating and redefining religion than destroying it[40]. Enlightened Christians, wherever they were from, agreed on a consensus concerning certain Christian values and ideas. They sought ways to reconcile their faith with the new sciences emerging in Europe[41]. They advocated ‘reasonableness’ in all things, including religion. It was in the name of this reasonableness that they championed a simpler, clearer, more tolerant and morally efficacious religion[42]. Among these Christian Theologians was John Locke who in 1695, wrote The Reasonableness of Christianity which aims at the termination of religious strife through the recovery of the truths of primitive, rational Christianity in line with Scientific believe.[43] Newton's view, however, has been considered to be close to deism but differed in that he invoked God as a special physical cause to keep the planets in orbits[44]. He warned against using the Law of Gravity to view the universe as a mere machine, like a great clock. He said: “Gravity explains the motions of the planets. But it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. Therefore, God governs all things and knows all that is and can be done.”[45] Newton was aligning Galileo’s findings with the dogmas of Christianity, stating that there is one initial ‘prime mover’ or an omnipotent deity governing the newly discovered forces in the world.

The Enlightenment, in some aspects, was a direct attack on Christian supremacy and the church as an entity. We now know, however, that the relationship shared between Christianity and the Enlightenment was far more complex and interesting with regards to the ‘war’ upon it. We realise that the ‘war on Christianity’ was actually concentrated in France[46], and erroneously tended to posit a single independent Enlightenment that was actually attacking the church[47]. There was many differed variations of the Enlightenment with regards to Western Europe and America and throughout, there was not a single universal interpretation of the Enlightenment other than the restoration of man free to reason. Some scholars just critiqued the church as opposed to overthrowing the whole interpretation of life; some, mainly focused in France, decided, whether through Deism or radical atheological skepticism, to challenge and attack Christianity head on. Others, however, notably Locke and Newton, who were Christian theologians, decided to reconcile Science and Religion and find a compromise between both. All had the common goal, however, besides the ‘freedom of man’, in elevating Science to the stature it deserved and ‘enlightening’ all who behold its believes.

[1] Kant, Immanuel. “What is Enlightenment?” , 1784. Kant’s Political Writings.

[2] Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Experience of Freedom.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)

[3] Cf. Holbach, Politique Naturelle ; discourse III. Paris, no date .Pg. 163.

[4] Ibid, 164.

[5] Cassirer, Ernest. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 1979.) pg.134.

[6]

Hazard, Paul. ‘The European Mind (1680-1715).’

[7] Jacob, C. Margaret. The Cambridge History of Christianity - The Enlightenment critique of Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2006.) Pg. 265.

[8] Lively, J.F . Problems And Perspectives In History: The Enlightenment. (Longmans Green and Co. Ltd., 1966)

[9] Gay, Peter. Deism: An Anthology (Anvil Original, 1993)

[10] Ibid.

[11] Voltaire. Dictionaire Philosophique (1764)

[12] Gay, Peter. Voltaire’s Politics – The Poet as Realist (Second Edition) (Yale University Press, 1988) Pg. 259.

[13] Gay, Peter. Voltaire’s Politics – The Poet as Realist (Second Edition) (Yale University Press, 1988) Pg. 259.

[14] Cf. Holbach, Politique Naturelle ; discourse III. Paris, no date .Pg. 163.

[15] Cassirer, Ernest. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 1979.) pg.134.

[16] Diderot, Traite de la Tolerance, ed. D. Tourneux and Catherine II. Pg. 292.

[17] Ibid, 293.

[18] Cassirer, Ernest. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 1979.) pg.135.

[19] Ibid, 136.

[20] Hume, David. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, written in 1751.

[21] Fieser, James. A Bibliography of Hume’s Writings and Early Responses (2005.)

[22] Ibid,

[23] Davis, Stephen T., Logic and the Nature of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983).

[24] Ibid,

[25] Kelly, Joseph F., The Problem of Evil in the Western Tradition: From the Book of Job to Modern Genetics (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002).

[26] Ibid,

[27] Guyer, Paul. Kant and the Experience of Freedom.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)

[28] Ibid.

[29] Ibid.

[30] McGrath, A.E. Historical Theology: Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (Willy-Blackwell, 1998)

[31] Ibid.

[32] Grenz, S.J; Olson, R.E. 20th-Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age ( IVP Academic, 1993) Pg. 15.

[33] Ibid. Pg. 15.

[34] Jacob, C. Margaret. The Cambridge History of Christianity - The Enlightenment critique of Christianity (Cambridge University Press, 2006.) Pg. 267.

[35] Ibid.

[36] Ibid.

[37] Ibid, 268.

[38] Ibid, 268.

[39] Ibid, 268.

[40] Rosenblatt, Helena. The Cambridge History of Christianity – Christian Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 2006.) Pg. 283.

[41] Ibid, 283.

[42] Ibid, 283.

[43] Locke, John. Reasonableness of Christianity, England, 1695. (Regnery Publishing, Inc.,1997)

[44] Brewster, Sir David. A Short Scheme of the True Religion, manuscript quoted in Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton Edinburgh, 1850.

[45] John H. Tiner. Isaac Newton: Inventor, Scientist and Teacher. Mott Media.

[46] Rosenblatt, Helena. The Cambridge History of Christianity – Christian Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 2006.) Pg. 281.

[47] Ibid, 281.