Lesson 55:

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CHURCH HISTORY IILesson 21 Enlightenment
Romanticism
The Great Divide
We are all born in the enlightenment and bred in
romanticism
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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
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A. The Promise of Science
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica,
For the past three hundred years the umbrella
civilization of Western man has been modern
paganism, or secular humanismIt 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
Nature and natures laws lay hid in night God
said, Let Newton be and all was light
Alexander Pope
Isaac Newton 1642-1727
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B. The Progress of Philosophy
1. Rationalism of Descartes
Methodical Doubt
like a spider, producing cob-webs from his own
mind Lord Bacon
Rene Descartes 1596-1650
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2. Empiricism of John Locke
Not Thinker but Investigator
The Reasonableness of Christianity
Both arrived at the same conclusion The Growing
Autonomy of Human Reason
1632-1704
CENTRALITY OF MORALITY
Tyndale Christianity as Old As Creation
Jefferson The Life and Morals of Jesus of
Nazareth
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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
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II. ROMANTICISM
I feel, therefore I am
ROMANTIC CREED 1. Importance of feelings
Rousseau 1712-1778
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
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Religion within the limits of reason
Kant (1724-1804)
Inner religion-absolute dependence
Schleiermacher (1768-1834)
SUBJECTIVE THEOLOGY How I feel/think/believe
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Transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson
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
(1803-1882)
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Go to the eighteenth centuryRead 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
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Did You Know
"For I the Lord do not change therefore you, O
children of Jacob, are not consumed." (Malachi
36) "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and
today and forever." (Hebrews 138) "The grass
withers, the flower fades, but the word of our
God will stand forever." (Isaiah 408)
"But the word of the Lord remains forever. And
this word is the good news that was preached to
you" (1 Peter 125 ).