Lecture 16: Christianity made reasonable ! “early Enlightenment” ca 1680-1720 as it affects religious thought (independent of scientific developments) ! Some assessments of English intellectual climate: ! Bishop Sprat in 1667: "the influence which Christianity once obtained on men's minds is now prodigiously decayed." ! Thomas Burnet, a bishop's son, in 1719: "I cannot but remind you with joy how the world has changed since the time when, as we know, a word against the clergy passed for rank atheism, and now to speak tolerably of them passes for superstition." ! ! they agree on decline in respect for traditional religion and clergy; they disagree on assessing this change John Thornton Kirkland, Increase Mather, president president of Harvard, of Harvard, 1685-1701 1810-28: a unitarian orthodox Calvinist Cotton Mather, son of Increase (1663-1728) Cotton Mather: God visits punishments and rewards on humans through the workings of nature and special providence End of executions for religious heterodoxy: ! Giordano Bruno - 1600 ! Salem, 1692: 22 people executed for witchcraft but protests against the legal procedures were lodged throughout the process. Increase Mather questioned use of spectral evidence; Cotton Mather mostly defended the trials. 1703 convictions that could be (e.g. excommunications) were reversed; 1722 symbolic compensation paid to families of victims ! End of executions for religious heterodoxy: ! ! 1697 Thomas Aikenhead, a Scottish student, was last person executed in Britain for blasphemy: denied that Bible is sacred, denied the Trinity and the incarnation, supporting eternity of the world. Expressed this publicly and refused to recant; was an orphan (no connections). ! But others expressed similar views privately… ! executions after that include charge of sedition=political rebellion 1680-1720: new ideas articulated more broadly ! Toleration: John Locke (1689) ! ! Some causes: disgust with religious controversy (lots of it among both Prots and Caths in 17th) ! religion as a matter of personal conscience more than community purity ! ! ! Religious controversies ! Jansenists vs Jesuits over grace and over casuistry 1650s ! Arminians/Remonstrants vs. orthodox Calvinists over grace and double predestination 1610s- ! Puritans vs Anglicans in England 1640s Ways of resolving religious disputes: ! decrees by authorities -against a certain position -against disputing on a topic (e.g. grace) ! deciding that some matters are indifferent (adiaphora) John Locke, 1632-1704 religious toleration as key to political stability--liberty to individual conscience But limits: do not tolerate those opposed to civil society, Churches that obey a foreign prince (Catholics) + atheists and those who refuse to take oaths on the Bible (Quakers). 1689 law bars them from public office, but no religious penance. Meanwhile in France in 1685 revocation of the Edict of Nantes tolerating Protestants an early advocate of toleration Sebastian Castellio (1515-63) ! forced to leave Geneva, died in Basel Travel literature: impact of the New World discoveries ! Montaigne “on Cannibals,” 1588 Locke, Reasonableness of Christianity (1695) ! natural religion: spark of the divine in everyone e.g. reason and moral conscience ! basic morality and religious worship arrived at from reason alone (existence and worship of God, charity, morality) ! Revelation does not add anything significant to what reason teaches BUT Bible is useful to guide and teach people and to elicit obedience to morality =tool for education John Toland, 1670-1722 born Irish and Catholic, converted to Prot ca age 16 and lived in England after outcry over his book Toland, Christianity not Mysterious (1696) ! Bible teaches nothing beyond reason +anticlericalism: Church has developed lies about mysteries in order to enhance its power, prestige and income. Reason teaches belief in God, but no specific dogmas freedom of conscience ! condemned in 1697; fled to continent. 54 refutations published 1696-1760 Richard Simon (1638-1712), Oratorian priest: Critical History of the Old Testament (1682) book condemned and he was ordered to silence ! Isaac La Peyrère (1586-1676), Calvinist converted to Catholicism: Latin book on Pre-Adamites (1655) --he was imprisoned for a few years, but recanted and was released Baruch/Benedict Spinoza, 1632-77 Jew living in Amsterdam excommunicated from Jewish community there in contact with radical Quakers + an ex-Jesuit who was executed in F for sedition ! =unique! lived undisturbed as lens-grinder with informal followers Spinoza, Tractatus theologicopoliticus (1670) ! libertas philosophandi as key to peace and piety analyze Scripture in the same way as nature i.e.nothing supernatural in Bible Bible useful for the unlearned, without mastery of reason Bible as story of a particular people ! study the original languages, the process of canon formation; distrust authority of any church ! pantheism: Deus sive natura; but no personal God ! Spinoza abhorrred atheism but was considered an atheist; Spinozist=atheist in 18th ct

Manuscript note adding the name of the author ! the book was banned in Low Countries and on Catholic index Pierre Bayle, 1647-1706 ! French Huguenot (after quick exp of Cath), refugee in Low Countries critical of David and other biblical figures ! while Spinoza is a “virtuous atheist”! Thomas Paine, 1737-1809 broadly circulating deism Thomas Paine, Age of Reason (1793)= a deist creed widely diffused (and widely decried) ! “I believe in one God and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy and endeavouring to make our fellows creatures happy.” “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, not by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” ! Tom Paine was a radical in his time--not always liked even in US, wanted for arrest in England and France. But he was also widely read and died a natural death. ! ! Tom Paine on nature vs Church: ! “The word of God is the creation we behold and it is in this word which no human invention can counterfeit or alter that God speaketh universally to man." ! "Of all the systems of religion that ever were invented, there is none more derogatory to the almighty, more unedifying to man, more repugnant to reason, and more contradictory in itself, than this thing called Christianity. Too absurd for belief, too impossible to convince, and too inconsistent for practice, it renders the heart torpid or produces only atheists and fanatics." Tomorrow’s section is being taped ! please come to the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning ! Science Center 316 regular time