The Enlightenment and Religion

Religion in America

Principles of the Enlightenment

¡ From “Age of Faith” to “Age of Reason”

¡ Futility of religious war & fear of fanaticism

¡ Arguments for toleration: Milton, 1644, & John Locke, 1689

¡ Search for universals

¡ Reason + Nature = Truth

¡ Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

¡ Universal morality

¡ Universal human nature

¡ Man good by nature

Growing Arminianism

¡ Reason and Religion

¡ John Locke, The Reasonableness of Christianity, 1695

¡ Reason & the moral sentiment

¡ Cotton Mather, Essays to Do Good

¡ Opposition to the Great Awakening

¡ Arminianism comes out of the “closet”

¡ Charles Chauncy, Jonathan Mayhew of  Boston

Religion of Nature

¡ “Book of Nature” and “Book of Revelation”

¡ Cotton Mather, Christian Philosopher

¡ Deism: religion of reason

¡ Matthew Tindal, Christianity as Old as the Creation, 1730

¡ No miracles or revelation

¡ God known from nature

¡ God wants men to act morally, and be happy

¡ Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography

¡ I never doubted ... the existence of the Deity; that He made the world, and governed it by His providence; that the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished, and virtue rewarded, either here or hereafter.