Enlightenment in the Colonies Krehbiel 2004

1
(No Transcript)
2
Enlightenment in the ColoniesKrehbiel - 2004
3
Enlightenment in the Colonies

• Chapter I - The Age of Reason
• Chapter II - The Enlightenment America
• Chapter III - The Politics of the Enlightenment

4
Chapter I - The Age of Reason
5
The Age of Reason

• Britain
• Late Seventeenth to Mid-Eighteenth C.
• America
• Mid-Eighteenth C. to 1789.  

6
Enlightenment was an extension of the
Renaissance.

• Advances in science during the Enlightenment
• Copernicus
• Solar system
• Galileo
• Telescope (1609)  
• Keplar  
• Mathematics  
• Descartes  
• Analytic geometry scientific method
• Newton  
• Gravity

7
Religious shift - anti-mystic / pro-rational

• Out  
• Biblical authority  
• Incarnation  
• Trinity  
• Christ's deity  
• Depravity of man  
• Original sin  
• Divine grace  

• In  
• Perfectibility of man  
• Man's goodness  
• Environmental conditioning  
• Natural law as proof (Watch and Watchmaker)   

8
Deism

• Not a movement or particular practice, but a way
  of thinking about religion.
• There is a Supreme power in the universe.  
• It must be worshiped.  
• The best form of worship is the good ordering of
  the faculties of man.  
• All vice and evil requires repentance.  
• There are rewards and punishments after this
  life.

9
Benjamin Franklin

• "The most acceptable service to God is doing good
  to man."  

10
Chapter II - The Enlightenment America
11
American Revolution

• Nearly all the leaders of the American Revolution
  were children of The Enlightenment.  

12
Calvinistic society had turned away from
mysticism toward rational practicality as a basis
for morality.  

• One writer of the time stated that reason was at
  least as important as Biblical authority.  
• Mathers' presbyterian theocracy was attacked and
  threatened by congregational liberalism.  
• The Harvard library was now full of books on the
  new Rationalism.  

13
Ben Franklin was a leader of the anti-mystics

• He, more than any other, represents the spirit of
  The Enlightenment in America.  
• Franklin believed life should be a pursuit of
  happiness attained through the art of getting
  along with others.
• The Thirteen Virtues were not just good because
  they were good. He believed they were
  practically useful in attaining happiness.  
• He believed in the "Go-getting" measure of worth
  by success. Success through honest labor was
  desirable.
• He believed moral virtue is the key to "getting
  on" in life.  

14
Thomas Paine

• Wrote The Age of Reason, (1794).
• He believed mysticism destroyed the true values
  of Christianity.  
• He believed religion must be made consistent with
  reason.  
• God is the First Cause (Watchmaker theory).
• God acts through nature for the good of man.  
• He systematically attacked the Gospels as
  superstitious and irrational.
• Because of these writings, he was misunderstood
  as trying to destroy religion.  
• His true intention was to save the best of
  Christian ideals.  

15
The New Rationalism

• The New Rationalism was never a movement followed
  by the masses.
• It was only a philosophy accepted among the few
  highly educated intellectuals.  
• The common people didn't read Franklin, Paine,
  etc.  
• The movement away from Calvinism came mostly from
  the hardheaded desire of small private citizens
  to be productive and successful in this new land
  with an expanding merchant and farm economy.  

16
Chapter III - The Politics of the Enlightenment
17
Radical New View of Politics

• We take these ideas for granted today, but after
  centuries of European thinking about God and
  kings, the new "Enlightened" view of politics was
  radical. It went something like this
• Politics and economics were no longer considered
  divine forces, but they were believed to be
  within man's control.  
• It was Labor, not Property, which was the basic
  measure of value.  
• The highest goal was individual advancement, not
  social authority.  

18
Basic requirements for individual advancement

• The individual must possess initiative and
  self-reliance.  
• He must have a free rein to determine his own
  destiny. He must have freedom of thought,
  speech, and worship.  

19
The Natural Rights of Man

• The English philosopher John Locke wrote that
  nature grants man the rights to life, liberty,
  and property.
• Jefferson changed property to the "pursuit of
  happiness".  

20
Governments are necessary to preserve order

• Government must be a servant of the people.  
• Government must guarantee man's natural rights.  
• The authority of government comes from certain,
  limited rights freely given up by the people, not
  taken from them.  
• The Social Contract any time the rights of
  individuals are forced by government from people,
  the contract is void, and the government is no
  longer recognized.  

21
The real intent if this philosophy is to create a
classless society

• America came closest to this dream of a classless
  society in the Eighteenth C., before and during
  the Revolutionary War.  
• The dream failed due to the lack of education and
  experience of the common man.  
• It was the wealthy, educated men who led us out
  of serious trouble in our first attempts at
  self-government under The Articles of
  Confederation. It was these men who created The
  United States of America.  
• Jefferson believed strongly in the dream of a
  classless society, but even he realized the
  common man wasn't ready without education and
  experience.  

22
The great gift of the Enlightenment

• The period of the Enlightenment was short-lived,
  but gave us a great gift in creating our American
  traditional values.
• The Declaration of Independence.
• The Bill of Rights.
• We still strive to live up to these ideals.

23
(No Transcript)