The Enlightenment and Christianity

The European Enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries posed the most fundamental intellectual challenge Christianity had faced since its encounter with Greek philosophy. Enlightenment thinkers championed reason, empirical evidence, and individual autonomy as the supreme authorities, displacing the traditional authorities of Scripture, Church, and tradition. This lesson examines the key Enlightenment critiques of Christianity — Deism, biblical criticism, and the philosophical challenges of Schleiermacher and Feuerbach — and evaluates their lasting impact on Christian thought.

The Enlightenment Project

The Enlightenment (also known as the Age of Reason) is broadly characterised by several commitments:

The supremacy of reason — human reason, not divine revelation or ecclesiastical authority, is the ultimate arbiter of truth. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) defined Enlightenment as ‘humanity’s emergence from its self-imposed immaturity’, calling on individuals to ‘dare to know’ (sapere aude)
Empiricism — knowledge should be grounded in observation and experience. Claims that cannot be empirically verified — including many religious claims — are suspect
Scepticism toward authority — inherited traditions, institutions, and dogmas should be subjected to critical scrutiny rather than accepted on trust
Progress — humanity is capable of continuous moral and intellectual improvement through the application of reason
Tolerance — religious wars and persecutions demonstrated the dangers of dogmatism; the Enlightenment championed religious toleration and freedom of thought

Deism

Deism was the characteristic religious position of many Enlightenment thinkers. Deists affirmed the existence of God on the basis of reason and the observation of nature, but rejected revealed religion, miracles, prophecy, and the supernatural elements of Christianity.

Key Deist thinkers include:

Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583–1648) — often regarded as the ‘father of English Deism’. He identified five ‘common notions’ of natural religion that he believed all rational people could accept: (1) there is a God; (2) God ought to be worshipped; (3) virtue is the chief part of worship; (4) humans should repent of their sins; (5) there are rewards and punishments after death
John Toland (1670–1722) — author of Christianity Not Mysterious (1696), which argued that true Christianity contains nothing contrary to reason or above reason. Anything in Christianity that appears mysterious or miraculous is a corruption introduced by priests and theologians
Matthew Tindal (1657–1733) — his Christianity as Old as the Creation (1730), sometimes called ‘the Deists’ Bible’, argued that the true religion is the religion of nature — a set of moral principles accessible to all rational beings. Revealed religion adds nothing essential to what reason can discover unaided
Voltaire (1694–1778) — the most famous Enlightenment critic of organised religion, particularly the Catholic Church. Voltaire affirmed the existence of God as the ‘Great Watchmaker’ but rejected the doctrines of original sin, the Trinity, and the divinity of Christ as irrational superstitions

Key Definition: Deism — the belief, prevalent during the Enlightenment, that God created the universe and established its natural laws but does not intervene in its operation through miracles, revelation, or supernatural acts. God is conceived as a cosmic architect or watchmaker who set the world in motion and then withdrew.

Biblical Criticism

The Enlightenment gave birth to historical-critical study of the Bible, which subjected the Scriptures to the same methods of analysis applied to any other ancient text. This had revolutionary implications for Christianity:

Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677) — in his Theological-Political Treatise (1670), Spinoza argued that the Bible should be interpreted using the same rational methods applied to nature. He questioned the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, identified contradictions and inconsistencies in the biblical text, and argued that the Bible’s authority is limited to its moral teaching, not its claims about the natural world
Richard Simon (1638–1712) — a French Catholic priest regarded as the ‘father of biblical criticism’. His Critical History of the Old Testament (1678) demonstrated that the Pentateuch was not written by Moses alone but was composed from multiple sources over time
Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) — his posthumously published Fragments (edited by G.E. Lessing) argued that Jesus was a failed Jewish political messiah whose disciples fabricated the resurrection story and transformed him into a divine saviour after his death. Reimarus launched the ‘Quest for the Historical Jesus’ — the attempt to recover the ‘real’ Jesus behind the theological Christ of the Gospels
David Friedrich Strauss (1808–1874) — his Life of Jesus (1835) argued that the Gospel narratives are not history but myth — symbolic stories expressing theological ideas rather than reporting literal events. The miracles, the virgin birth, and the resurrection are mythical expressions of early Christian faith, not historical facts

The Enlightenment and Christianity