In order to understand where the Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire and Rousseau really came from, you have to first “bridge the gap” between what happened with the Protestant Reformation and its connections with the Machiavellian strategies of some secular rulers at that time, along with the growing scientific discoveries that were happening as all that was going on. If you put all that together, what you end up with is a gradual shift in philosophical outlooks and worldviews.
Remember, the situation was basically this: there were countless “religious wars” throughout Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries that the Protestant Reformation sparked and that Machiavellian rulers were all too eager to stoke for their own political gain. As “religion” was being co-opted by the State for political purposes, it is not that hard to see that “religion” was getting a bad name. Then, when you consider that it was during this time that numerous scientists were employing the scientific method to unlock the mysteries of the natural world, you can see why so many people gravitated to this “new way of knowing,” and began to think it was time to do away with “religion”—after all, it seemed to only bring war and strife. Why not embrace the rationalistic methods of science in order to come to a better understanding of what is true?
The War Between “Faith” and “Reason”
In that sense, the seeds of the modern mentality that sees “faith and religion” as at war with “science and reason” were sown during this time. The ironic thing to all this, though, was that the men of science who spearheaded the scientific revolution were, in fact, Christian men of faith who did not see a conflict between faith and reason. The problem was that Europe was in flames precisely because other so-called men of faith were killing other so-called men of faith because they didn’t adhere to the same particular theological nuances, and those theological nuances were seen in terms of political stances and allegiances.
And so, just as we see today, the tendency always seems to be:
(A) to overlook the faith of godly men and women who are committed to building up society, be it through science, literature, the arts, or through truly Christian works of charity,
(B) to focus solely on the “bad seeds” of the faith who are often too bound up with political power and who end up bringing destruction,
(C) and then to conclude that “faith” is the problem.
That is precisely what happened during the Enlightenment. Therefore, when faced with the question, “What should we put in place of this destructive ‘faith’ of Christianity?” the answer that was shouted during the Enlightenment was “reason!”
The Gradual Shift: Bacon, Locke, Descartes
Of course, before this secular creed was shouted during the Enlightenment, it had been whispered and discussed in the two preceding centuries. As soon as the Protestant Reformation ignited the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, there were those throughout Europe who began to proclaim that there was a better way than “faith and religion”—namely, that of science and reason.
First, there was Francis Bacon (1561-1626 AD) who argued that there were four different types of idols that were “fit for destruction”: (1) idols of the tribe (namely, those rooted in human nature), (2) idols of the cave (those due to each person’s individuality), (3) idols of the market-place (those which arise from people’s interactions with each other), and (4) idols of the theater (namely, man-made philosophies and religions that simply reflect the viewpoints of the people who made them). When it came to ascertaining truth, Bacon declared, “Get rid of them all!” And in their place, put the only true method that can settle disputes over matters of fact and truth: the scientific method.
Then there was John Locke (1632-1704 AD), who argued that the human mind was a tabla rasa, a blank slate. Therefore, knowledge is not something that is inherent, but rather is something that is derived solely from the senses—human beings are thus shaped from their experiences alone. Therefore, Locke denied the concept that human beings were born sinful—he claimed that people are born with a moral nature, and that one’s “goodness” or “badness” was dependent upon one’s education. After all, since a person is a tabla rasa, it was up to his environment and education to “construct” him into either a moral or immoral human being.
Locke also was the precursor to many modern ideas. He denied the divine right of kings, and proposed that a better basis for government would be essentially a contract between the governing authorities and the governed people. He argued for religious tolerance, namely tolerance between Protestant denominations, (but certainly not for Catholics).
Like Bacon before him, Locke held to an elevated view of reason. Reason wasn’t simply a tool to help explain faith. Locke saw it as the standard for judging all supposed revelations and truth claims. In contrast to Augustine, who said, “I believe in order to understand,” Locke not only said one should use his reason to understand and come to belief, he said one’s reason should be the judge of any and all faith claims. For him, Christianity was nothing more that believing the validity of certain tenets based on the test of reason.
This increasing focus on autonomous reason can also be seen in the work of the Catholic thinker Rene Descartes (1596-1650 AD). His now famous motto, “I think, therefore I am,” was the culmination of his attempt to look for a basis upon which to understand the world, and it became the starting point of all philosophy going forward. He decided to doubt everything until he came to something he could not doubt—that would be the basis for all knowledge.
His conclusion was that the fact that he thinks proves his existence, and therefore becomes the basis for understanding the world. Essentially, Descartes marked a monumental shift in philosophy, from the previous “God-centered” way of thinking to a modern “human-centered” way of thinking. It is what is called the subjective turn. No longer was knowledge understood as objectively rooted in biblical revelation. Cartesian philosophy ushered in the view that knowledge was subjective and authenticated by human reason. As Andrew Hoffecker writes in Revolutions in Worldview, “Descartes’ philosophical treatment of God illustrates the modernist shift from seeing God as a transcendent, personal sovereign, who is worthy of worship, pious devotion, and personal obedience, to seeing him as a ‘deity’ who serves the philosopher’s ends by tying together his system as a whole” (255).
The Mystical Pushback: Pascal
At the very same time this shift to “modern-autonomous reasoning” was occurring, there was also a push at the other end of the spectrum toward a more mystical experience that opens the door to a deeper kind of understanding. Unlike the cold, hard skepticism of Cartesian rationalism, and unlike the cold intellectualism of previous Catholic scholastics, men like Blasé Pascal (1623-1662 AD) and the movement of which he was a part, Jansenism, emphasized the need to discover God within one’s heart.
His famous work, The Pensees, was nothing like either Cartesian rationalism or the theological treatises of the Catholic scholastics. It was Pascal who famously observed, “the heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” In other words, Pascal was pointing out that there is a different, indeed more profound, way of coming to understanding than mere intellect and reason. It’s not that intellect and reason were bad; they just weren’t the whole story. Hearkening back to earlier philosopher-theologians like Augustine and Anselm, Pascal emphasized the role of intuitive faith in one’s life. He said, “God himself instills faith into the heart resulting not in ‘I know’ but in ‘I believe.’” True wisdom was found in avoiding both extremes—both of which are still blatantly prevalent in our day: (a) the arrogant declaration that autonomous reason is the only means of understanding, and (b) the foolish rejection of human reason in favor of a truly “blind faith.”
It is in this light that we must consider the famous Pascal’s wager, which basically says that everyone essentially bets on whether or not God exists. Now, many misunderstand Pascal’s wager, and think he is basically saying, “You don’t know if God exists or not, but if He does, you better say you believe in Him, or else you might burn in hell.” Quite simply, that is a sophomoric understanding of what Pascal was saying. What he was emphasizing was the fact that reason alone cannot either prove or disprove the existence of God. Therefore, people who either believe or disbelieve that God exists are not basing that conclusion on reason—in that sense belief or disbelief is essentially a wager, a bet.
Therefore, since reason alone can’t prove or disprove God’s existence, and since (let’s admit it) everyone (even Richard Dawkins!) can’t escape that sense of transcendence, that feeling there is “something more” to this world—are you going to heed that sense or deny it? Or in other words, what do you have to lose by “listening to your heart” so to speak? If you listen to your heart, heed that sense of transcendence and step out in faith that there is a God—and He in fact exists, then you’ve gained everything; if He doesn’t exist, what have you really lost? By contrast, if you don’t listen to your heart—and He in fact exists, then you’ve lost everything; and if He doesn’t exist, then you’ll be in the same position as if you had listened to your heart anyway.
Simply put, Pascal’s wager isn’t so much saying, “Say you believe in God (even if you don’t think He really exists) so you won’t go to hell, just in case He really does exists.” Rather, it is saying, “Admit your reason is limited; admit that your reason alone cannot prove or disprove God’s existence; admit that you do have this sense of transcendence that there is something more, and step out in faith based on that—what do you have to lose? Maybe the reasons of the heart give us access to deeper realities that mere intellect cannot.”
Conclusion
As a means of review, I want to just clarify a few key points before we move on to looking at the Enlightenment thinkers:
- The scientific revolution was a result of countless Christians (both Protestant and Catholic) who started to make astounding discoveries about the natural world. The impetus for their study of the natural world was their conviction that God is a God of order and that nature was worth investigating.
- At the same time, there were some very backward people who fought against such scientific discoveries. In the Catholic Church, there were those cardinals who opposed Galileo; within Protestantism, both Luther and Calvin spoke against Copernicus for proposing a view of the universe that went “against the plain reading of Scripture.”
- During this time, though, there was a gradual shift in the thinking of some that tended to elevate human reason to be the sole arbiter of truth. At the same time, there was also a pushback from relying on cold reason alone, and some emphasized the importance of Christian mysticism.
In any case, it is high time we finally do away with the tired old stereotypes of the “science vs. religion” debate. The reason why we need to do so is because that false narrative is doing tremendous harm in our current day. It is obvious that there is a significant strand within modern American Evangelicalism that is decidedly “anti-science,” and that displays a woeful ignorance about not only science, but the basics of philosophy, theology, and biblical interpretation. And at the same time, there is the growing “New Atheist” movement that might embrace scientific discovery, but who are tremendously hostile to “religion” because they don’t know much about history, philosophy, theology, and biblical interpretation either.
Simply put, the “war” isn’t between faith and reason, or religion and science. The “war” is between ignorant Christians and ignorant atheists who have bought into the absurd notion that science and reason are the sole methods of proving or disproving God.
Might want to include Michel de Montaigne in your discussion. He was a French noble, but raised and educated as a classical “renaissance man” (loved him some Socrates!). His response to the madness of the 16th century was to seriously doubt the capacity of humans to reason correctly and encouraged doubt as a means to constantly question our assumptions. He felt that this kind of doubt would check the fanaticism he had witnessed in the French Catholic-Huguenot wars, and encouraged stoic detachment and moderation. He would be a good continental perspective to include.
Well, you obviously know more about him than I do! If you write a nice, concise paragraph on him, I’ll insert it into this post and give all everlasting credit to you!