In the sixth session of Bob Godfrey’s Sunday school class at the Escondido URC, he traces the effects of the Enlightenment upon the West. Drawing upon Carl Becker’s work he highlights four key tenets of the movement:
(1) that man is not natively depraved and that people are basically good; (2) that the end of life is life itself and the purpose is to live for the now; (3) that man is capable of being guided solely by the light of reason and experience with the goal of perfecting the good life on earth; and (4) that the first and essential condition of the good life on earth is freeing men’s minds from the bonds of ignorance and superstition and freeing bodies from the oppression of the politics of our time.
The Enlightenment viewed education and politics as the means to creating a perfect world order in the here and now. This movement, though having some positive effects with which Christianity could agree, also had dangerous ideas that would ultimately lead to all kinds of death and corruption in the name of freedom, especially in the French Revolution. This sixth session is very important for connecting the dots to the thinking that prevails in our current day.
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- Bob Godfrey On “What’s Going on Right Now: Sex, Race, Politics & Power” (1)
- Bob Godfrey On “What’s Going on Right Now: Sex, Race, Politics & Power” (2)
- Bob Godfrey on “What’s Going On Right Now: Sex, Race, Politics & Power” (3)
- Bob Godfrey on “What’s Going On Right Now: Sex, Race, Politics, & Power” (4)
- Bob Godfrey on “What’s Going On Right Now: Sex, Race, Politics, and Power” (5)
- Resources On Christ And Culture
- Resources On The Twofold Kingdom
- The Enlightenment Was Not What You Were Told It Was
- Tillich: Pietism And The Enlightenment Both Fought Against Orthodoxy
- Modernity: The Story Without Its Author
- Carl L. Becker, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers (Yale, 1948).
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
More by R. Scott Clark ›
Just don’t cut any tendons with that tenon saw.
K
Thank you for the warning, Ken – I might have a tendency to do just that.
For the interest of speakers of American English, I’m also old enough to remember Tandon Computers (as a brand I never used).
AND tenons, which I’ve never cut with a tenon saw or anything else – and if I were to try to, I’m sure the result wouldn’t quite cut it.
(I’m flattering myself – it wouldn’t remotely cut it)
John,
What are on about?
Sorry, I can’t have worked the system correctly. This was meant to appear under my entries on Tenets, Tenants, Tennents, and Tennants.
John, “tenets” thanks for this, it’s my fault, don’t blame Dr. Clark. He usually catches all my errors 😉
Typo corrected.
Are you sure this is practically unique and Semantics Sniper has no more work to do?
And there’s also Tennants, which is a brand of lager in the UK (dunno what it tastes like).
More for Semantics Sniper: Tenets, Tenants and Tennents.
Thanks for sharing these. I really enjoy Dr Godfrey’s teaching.