Enlightenment Now

Dawkins (though he otherwise does not endorse mythicism) promoted a talk by Joseph Atwill on Twitter.

That’s cringy even considering. He has a mythicist article on his website, too. Sometimes we must consider how fortunate we are to actually know about the scholarship.

Western society has also been shaped by the Industrial Revolution, the rediscovery of Greek and Roman philosophies, and a massive increase in agricultural output which resulted in a new middle class. IOW, Western society and culture had a whole class of people who didn’t have to work in the fields everyday and also had access to more information than almost any generation before it. Surely that had an impact as well.

It would seem to me that if the Enlightenment is a product of Christianity, then why did it take 1700 years? Why did it happen when it did happen?

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It would seem to me that if the Enlightenment is a product of Christianity, then why did it take 1700 years? Why did it happen when it did happen?

That’s probably the easiest (yet complicated) question you asked in your comment, and it’s pretty clear the way I see it. Firstly, there is no 1,700 year period. Christians first became the ones in power in the Roman Empire after 300 once Constantine converted. Before then, they were (and remained for a short while thereafter) a minority under the constant grip of Roman persecution and oppression, spending their days working, and defending their faith. So, the timeframe from 300-1700 is 1400 years. Secondly, there isn’t quite 1400 years after. The Roman Empire quickly fragmented, and in the 470’s, the Western Empire collapsed causing an effective dark age period in the Western Empire rifed by poltiical turmoil, fragmentation, barbarian/viking incursions, etc.

It took until after 1000 for Europe to recover, and this is where some of the lost Greek work is rediscovered, and where we get enormous intellectuals like Anselm and Aquinas. The Enlightenment had to wait of course, because science wasn’t advanced to a sufficient state for the Enlightenment to be produced. There were a number of necessary intellectuals that laid the foundations for the Enlightenment to take place, including Newton, Galileo, and various other figures. The Enlightenment figures didn’t appear out of a vacuum. They appeared as soon as it became possible.

You note that Western society has also been shaped by the Industrial Revolution. Well, of course it was, but the Enlightenment started before the Industrial Revolution pal. The rediscovery of Greek works was important at reinvigorating intellectual philosophy, but by no stretch of the imagination did it produce the Enlightenment. That is quite a stretch, to be sure. There is only one confusing part about your comment that I’d like clarification:

IOW, Western society and culture had a whole class of people who didn’t have to work in the fields everyday and also had access to more information than almost any generation before it. Surely that had an impact as well.

I frankly don’t see how any of this has to do with the production of the Enlightenment values, which are obviously in continuity with much of the Judeo-Christian values that preceded them.

It was actually an outgrowth of the Reformation, and I think that’s like asking “Why did it take 1400 years for the Reformation to happen?”. Looking at the architects of the Enlightenment, most of them were religious; Locke, Smith, Rousseau, Franklin, Hutcheson, Bacon, Jefferson, Descartes. Concepts such as separation of church and state emerged directly within Christianity, among sects such as the Socianians in the sixteenth century. These Christians also prioritized reason over dogma, and evidence over blind faith, and they were religiously motivated to do this. Here are the roots of the Enlightenment.

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The Christian church supported divine right and Christian theocracies during that time. If the Enlightenment views of secular law with an abolishment of divine right and theocracies was the Christian view, why didn’t we see it over that time period? This should have been the way those Christian societies ruled themselves throughout that time period if it was truly the system Christianity leads to.

At least from my reading, the Enlightenment was a repudiation of the last 1400 years of Christian history as it relates to governing.

Does that question have an answer?

Yes it does. There were several previous attempts at reformation which didn’t succeed the way The Reformation did. The political and religious landscape had to change before The Reformation was possible.

I guess the question I have is why they had to change. Weren’t those previous religious and political systems as much a product of Christianity as the Reformation was?

[Added emphasis mine]

Important and well-chosen words, those. “Leads to” is not the same as “teleports to”. History doesn’t work that latter way.

[I should add that this is a general observation regarding the appearance of enlightenment more than a specific response to how the “divine right of kinds” or theocracy governance was promoted or opposed. But the principle of gradual change is the same regardless of these contexts I think.]

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Because it’s difficult to have a reformation when the nation is ruled by a theocracy which totally outguns you. Here’s an example. The fifteenth century Hussites were members of the Bohemian Reformation, which took place before the Protestant Reformation of the next century. The Catholic Church and its allies attempted to suppress them, resulting in five crusades against them during the Hussite Wars. The war ended when moderate Hussites made a treaty of sorts with the Catholic Church, acknowledging its authority.

The Bohemian Reformation did not have the religious influence, or the military numbers, or the concentration of authority, necessary to sustain itself or carry its message beyond the borders of Bohemia, so it gradually died out after the wars. In contrast, the Swiss Reformation of the sixteenth century was far more influential because it arose in a different religious and political context.

The religious systems were, but the political systems (the monarchies, fifedoms, etc), were already in place long before Christianity. The Swiss Reformation was successful because the Swiss cantons had successfully fought the Church for political independent in the fifteenth century, to the extent that the cantons were under secular authority by the sixteenth century.

Consequently, when the Swiss Reformers called for sweeping changes to the monasteries, priesthood, and other components of the Church on theological grounds (with Zwingli leading a reformation based on humanist values, showcased in the infamous Affair of the Sausages), the Church lacked the military force to suppress them. Meanwhile the secular cantons were only too willing to lend a hand to the Reformers, and took over property and administrative roles which had previously belonged to the Church.

With the Church powerless to resist, city after city converted to Protestantism, and Zwingli’s humanist Protestantism spilled over the borders.

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Then I am left with the impression that Christianity can lead to diametrically opposed political and religious institutions. You could just as easily say that Christianity leads to divine right and authoritarianism as much as it does liberal democracies.

That would be a Christian theocracy led by people who believed in God as much as John Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers. Those Christian rulers considered those theocracies to be justified by their beliefs.

Those monarchies and fiefdoms continued even after the Christian church took control, and through divine right they were supported by the church. The Vatican and other religious institutions had armies of their own, and they used those armies to enforce political systems that the Enlightenment pushed back against.

Let’s say a drunkard and womanizer becomes a Christian. Initially, he is still a drunkard and a womanizer, but as Christ transforms his life, he stops drinking and womanizing.

Could we then say, “I am left with the impression that Christianity can lead to diametrically different lifestyles,” in reference to this fellow? That would be misunderstanding the line between faith and practice, practically speaking.

You might say, “well, yes, but the guy didn’t justify his drinking straight from the Bible,” which is a good point. These things work differently in micro and macro scale. But the New Testament doesn’t come with step-by-step instructions about how Christianity relates to political systems. The implications of the Gospel for society had to be worked out in real-time, interacting with ideas about power that pre-date Jesus.

For 1400 years? Also, whose to say that the Enlightenment thinkers are not the drunkards and womanizers? Such accusations were certainly laid at the feet of people like Voltaire.

Well, we could look and see. How many Christian theocracies do we find around the world today? Maybe there are some (other than the Vatican?) I really don’t know. But among the major powers there aren’t so much now. Why a [potentially] good influence should have to produce culturally transforming results according to some fast time line is not a leap I can make with you. It would be as if we were debating whether the scientific revolution was a good thing or not, and some of us were asking … “well if it was such a good thing then why did it take over two hundred years before we had any computers? or Airplanes? Space flight?” You would be right to reject such thinking. And if inventing things takes a lot of development of thought over many lifetimes, imagine how much time cultural / civilization transformation takes!

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Why only today? Why not look back 1,000 years when theocracies were supported by the church?

Christianity was as responsible for those theocracies as it was modern liberal democracies. In fact, one could argue that the church was more responsible for the theocracies of the past.

There is a big difference between the two. The scientific revolution required the accumulation of knowledge that wasn’t available to the earliest scientists. Christianity, on the other hand, had everything from the beginning. The Bible hasn’t really changed since 300 AD. All of the tenets of Christianity are the same throughout.

This, I think, is a breath-taking misunderstanding of theism and of religions generally. It is probably the source of much of your confusion for how religion and science relate. Since my lunch break is ending I can’t go on here, but could elaborate more later if needed.

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I fully understand that religious views change through time, but I think that has much more to do with outside influences.

I have a hard time believing the reformation had such a positive impact. The Munster rebellion, violent Anti-semitism promoted by Luther and the fact that England did not make homosexuality punishable by death until AFTER the reformation would testify against this.

Your statement here gives the impression that you think of Christianity as a single monolithic entity (like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odessey) that Christians have submitted to without the use of reason or science.

The Bible is, and always has been, only one aspect of the trajectory of Christianity over time. It’s a complex book, compiled from many different sources over many different centuries with multiple redactions along the way. In the New Testament, there are several viewpoints about Jesus himself, several different viewpoints about what Jesus said, and as many different ideas about how to practice the teachings as there are books in the New Testament. So, from a factual point of view, there’s no truth to the idea that “all the tenets of Christianity are the same throughout.”

Jesus had hardly finished his ministry when different schools of thought sprang up around his teachings. If you’re interested in learning more about these different schools, you can check out a book such as Bart Ehrman’s Lost Christianities.

The process of returning again and again to Jesus’ teachings and trying to understand them has never stopped. Christian doctrines have come and gone over the centuries. New interpretations of the message have been pondered and written about and fought over for centuries as new information comes to light (e.g. through the rediscovery of ancient texts and archeological sites and inscriptions, and through the development of more objective biblical research methodologies). So it’s always been in flux.

Christianity and Judaism have both experienced a long period of evolution – and I mean that in the way a biologist refers to evolution. Theories and practices have changed over time in response to many different kinds of environmental, social, medical, political, military, economic, and scientific stresses. This is possible for Christians and Jews because the ultimate goal for them is to be in relationship with God. When God points out to Christians and Jews that they’ve made a mistake in their understanding of how to be in relationship with God, they’re called upon to go back to the basics and reexamine what they thought they knew about humanity’s relationship with God.

It was this very willingness to reexamine what they thought they knew (which admittedly and most unfortunately is an attitude not shared by all Christians or Jews) which laid the foundations for scientific inquiry and the evolution of the scientific method.

Korvexius is right to point out the relevance of philosophical and scientific inquiry in the Middle Ages to the later unfoldings that came in the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment. Greek thought, in the form of ancient texts that had been preserved in various spots (such as the Middle East, Sicily, Spain, and Ireland) were brought back to Western Europe starting in about the 12th century. These texts were avidly studied by Christian theologians at the universities founded by Christian scholars. So openness to the work of diverse scholars of diverse religious backgrounds has always been part of Christian evolution.

And while we’re on the subject of Greek thought, I have to say that if Western orthodoxy hadn’t been so deeply infected by Neoplatonic thought, Christianity might have moved more quickly than it did toward its “best self.” (I point this out because you seem quite focussed on the theme of how long it took for Christianity to right itself on the sea of competing doctrines.)

Yes, it’s true that many Christians have made many mistakes over the centuries. (And yes, no excuse can be made for Christianity’s longstanding anti-Semitism.) But mistakes, including grievous mistakes, are part of the human condition. We all mistakes (including atheists). The point is to learn from these mistakes.

Although you have many negative things to say about Christianity, it might be fruitful to look at some of the timelines that have been constructed to compare the contemporaneous philosophical and scientific endeavours of various cultures. You won’t find many cultures anywhere at any time who produced a document such as England’s Magna Carta (first drafted in 1215 by the Archbishop of Canterbury).

And, speaking from a woman’s perspective, you sure as hell won’t find many medieval cultures outside Western Christian Europe and Spain (with its interesting religious amalgam) who sloooooowly started to notice that God thinks women are the equal of men.

It’s not like Plato or Aristotle had anything nice to say about women’s equality before God.

Edited, as always, for typos and clarity.

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I don’t see Christianity as a monolith. This is why my brow furrowed when people said that the Enlightenment was this inevitable product of Christianity. It’s a bit like saying that golf was the inevitable product of Christianity because it happened to emerge in a Christian country.