Has the Enlightenment/modernity resolved anything?

WISDOMfromPO-MO

It is a simple question. Answers to that question may not be simple, but it is a simple question. Please do not turn a simple question into something complicated. We are talking about the epoch of the last 500 or so years that we are told has replaced superstition and mysticism with rationalism; replaced dogma with ever-self-correcting science; liberated the autonomous individual subject from the oppression of tradition and organized religion; replaced tyranny with democracy; replaced the communal with homo economicus, property rights, the "invisible hand", etc.; etc. Please, no tangents splitting hairs over chronology, the definition of science, etc. Please, no tangents like, "Well, the Enlightenment never promised to resolve anything". Just address the question, please.

The question is, basically, if anything has been resolved.

The ideal political system? I think that it is safe to say that that is still highly in doubt.

The meaning of life? There is no meaning of life, some say. With other people, ask 100 of them and you will likely get 100 different responses. Doesn't sound like anything close to a resolution to me.

Right and wrong? If I had a penny for every theory, viewpoint, opinion, etc. about what is right and what is wrong...

The ideal economic system? Ditto.

Etc.

Of course, a case could be made that the questions themselves are Enlightenment/modernist creations--that people 3,000 years ago did not ask, say, what is the ideal political system, let alone try to come up with the answer.

Maybe it is just my own subjective experience, but this is predictable: spend a lot of time acquainting one's self with intellectual history and the latest ideas, think that you have found an answer, and somebody else who has acquainted him/herself with intellectual history and the latest ideas will tell you that that answer is false.

I don't know if there are any precedents in pre-history and history. Maybe the inhabitants of pre-historic Easter Island thought that their intellectual heritage made them unique and exceptionally knowledgeable and wise. I just know that I live in a culture and time where I have been told as far back as I can remember that thanks to our exceptional institutions and intellectual tools we now have astronomical amounts of knowledge and wisdom that exponentially exceed the combined knowledge and wisdom that preceded us, yet if one delves into all of that knowledge and wisdom he/she will not find a definitive, conclusive, objective answer to any important question.

I think that if we are honest we will acknowledge that we really do not know much. However, that is just my subjective opinion. No assertion there.

However, if this epoch has in fact yielded definitive, conclusive answers and there are now questions next to which we can put a check mark under the "Resolved" column, please take this opportunity to clear things up and tell us what those questions and answers are.

Rich

I think that if we are honest we will acknowledge that we really do not know much. However, that is just my subjective opinion. No assertion there — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Each of us know as much as we have experienced. As a population, we probably know more than we did a few hundred years ago (knowledge is gained and lost). But nothing has been resolved and never will be because there is no such thing in a universe that is in a continuous flux of evolution.

TheMadFool

It's no so much about answering questions as it is about questioning the answers. Rationality doesn't guarantee answers but it can assess the quality of the inquiry and the answers.

Also, as @Rich said, it's a work in progress. We're in the middle of a movie that hasn't finished telling its story.

mcdoodle

I feel Monty Python should re-form specifically to answer this question: What did the Enlightenment ever do for us?

- OK, apart from inaugurating mass literacy.
- Yeh, but as well as showing us how the cosmos works even if there aren't any gods.
- No, but, aside from liberating millions of poor schmucks to enjoy art and culture and everything.

I just don't know how that scene ends. Maybe : 'Yes, but they never resolved a single important question, did they?'

WISDOMfromPO-MO

It's no so much about answering questions as it is about questioning the answers... — TheMadFool

That is not the story I get when I study intellectual history.

Western intellectual history, as it has been presented to me, is not just a bunch of critical thinking. People, movements, etc. seem to clearly have / have had agendas like trying to create the perfect society, trying to demolish certain things/structures (feminism seems like a demolition crew on a mission to destroy "the patriarchy", not a bunch of critical thinkers "questioning the answers"), etc.

Rationality doesn't guarantee answers... — TheMadFool

First, we are talking about rationalism, not mere rationality.

Second, the issue is not answers. I doubt that there has ever been a shortage of answers.The issue is definitive, conclusive answers.

but it can assess the quality of the inquiry and the answers... — TheMadFool

Anybody can employ any evaluative tool to assess the quality of his/her inquiry and the quality of its results. It depends on what one's wants and needs are.

To assume that the wants and needs of everybody--past, present and future--are the same as the wants and needs of Enlightenment founders and disciples is a mistake, not to mention an extreme form of narcissism and ethnocentrism.

Also, as Rich said, it's a work in progress. We're in the middle of a movie that hasn't finished telling its story. — TheMadFool

It is some people's work in progress.

If one is not one of those people invested in that work, why should he/she pay any attention to any of it if it does not yield definitive, conclusive answers to the questions that are important to him/her?

Speaking of rational, maybe the rational response is to say, "We have spent tons of time, money, stolen/plundered land, and other resources asking questions like what is the meaning of life, what is the origin of the universe, etc., yet we do not have any definitive, conclusive answers to those questions and we spend even more time and other resources quarreling/fighting over our disagreements about the answers. We need to get a life. I am not paying any attention or in any way giving any credence to any of it any longer".

WISDOMfromPO-MO

I feel Monty Python should re-form specifically to answer this question: What did the Enlightenment ever do for us?

- OK, apart from inaugurating mass literacy.
- Yeh, but as well as showing us how the cosmos works even if there aren't any gods.
- No, but, aside from liberating millions of poor schmucks to enjoy art and culture and everything.

I just don't know how that scene ends. Maybe : 'Yes, but they never resolved a single important question, did they?' — mcdoodle

It sounds like you are saying, "We have been liberated to spin our wheels endlessly asking questions".

WISDOMfromPO-MO

It seems that no two people agree much on the nature/character of the Enlightenment and its legacy, but it seems that a dominant element of it is tearing knowledge/truth/reality out of the jaws of any authority--culture, an institution, an individual who claims to have access to the divine that no other person has, etc.--and objectifying it.

Every individual can access knowledge/truth/reality, and reason is the way. No culture, church, clergy, etc. needed.

Okay, but when you look at the results no clear knowledge/truth/reality seems to have emerged.

Pre-modern individuals were blind and in the dark, if you like those kinds of metaphors.

Maybe a lot of us are no longer blind or in the dark. Maybe a lot of us are now empowered by reason. But we sure seem to be extremely confused.

Ciceronianus

Your selection of what you consider to be unresolved is interesting. I'm not certain those questions/issues will ever be resolved to the satisfaction of everyone, but I don't consider that to be particularly damning of the Enlightenment. The impact of the Enlightenment can best be assessed by considering achievements in, e.g., medicine and science which have taken place since the year 1600, and comparing them with achievements before then. Wikipedia has its faults, but something like this is interesting and suggestive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries

Wayfarer

The question is, basically, if anything has been resolved. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It's an interesting topic but perhaps too broad a question! Many things have been resolved, but many other questions have been raised.

I think the real question you're pursuing is this one:

tearing knowledge/truth/reality out of the jaws of any authority--culture, an institution, an individual who claims to have access to the divine that no other person has, etc.--and objectifying it. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

That is very much a consequence of the ascent of 'the scientific worldview' and what can generally be characterised as 'secular humanism' - which is the idea that science replaces religion and philosophy as a guide to conduct and outlook. It is the basic philosophy of the 'secular academy'.

I too have been studying this question although my approach has been grounded in the conviction of the reality of enlightenment in the Eastern rather than European sense, and through comparative religion and philosophy.

Pre-modern individuals were blind and in the dark, if you like those kinds of metaphors.

Maybe a lot of us are no longer blind or in the dark. Maybe a lot of us are now empowered by reason. But we sure seem to be extremely confused. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

The crucial issue is that secular humanism/scientific materialism has torn the Western intellectual tradition from its moorings in the Judeo-Christian tradition. What has happened, at a very high level, is that science has filled the space left by the collapse of religious faith, and put the Cosmos into the role formerly assigned to Deity. The cardinal difficulty is, however, that science is fundamentally quantitative - 'the book of nature is written in mathematics', said Galileo. The individual as an atomistic self is supposed the provide the foundation of moral judgement, informed by scientific reason. But the problem is, that one of the basic suppositions of the 'scientific worldview' is that the Universe itself is devoid of reason, that things simply happen as a consequence of thermodynamics or some other basically dumb process. Reason itself is then 'instrumentalised' as a product of adaptive necessity rather than as sovereign in its own right (for which see The Eclipse of Reason, Max Horkheimer.)

Part of the historical narrative is that everyone before 'modernity' was basically marooned in an ocean of superstition, whereas we now are bathed in the brilliant light of the realisation that the Universe exists for no reason.

Here are some current books which specifically address this theme from several perspectives:

De-Fragmenting Modernity: Reintegrating Knowledge with Wisdom, Belief with Truth, and Reality with Being, Paul Tyson

This book is a part of a Christian intellectual movement called Radical Orthodoxy.

Wisdom in Exile, Lama Jampa Thaye - a Western Buddhist convert who surveys similar themes from a Buddhist perspective.

The Theological Origins of Modernity Michael Allen Gillespie

'Gillespie turns the conventional reading of the Enlightenment (as reason overcoming religion) on its head by explaining how the humanism of Petrarch, the free-will debate between Luther and Erasmus, the scientific forays of Francis Bacon, the epistemological debate between Descartes and Hobbes, were all motivated by an underlying wrestling with the questions posed by nominalism, which according to Gillespie dismantled the rational God / universe of medieval scholasticism and introduced (by way of the Franciscans) a fideistic God-of-pure-will.'

WISDOMfromPO-MO

Your selection of what you consider to be unresolved is interesting. I'm not certain those questions/issues will ever be resolved to the satisfaction of everyone, but I don't consider that to be particularly damning of the Enlightenment. — Ciceronianus the White

I thought that it is not about subjective satisfaction. Most people are subjectively satisfied being dumb, ignorant, passive fools who never question anything.

I thought that it is about objectivity and intervention.

We sure have intervened a lot--so much so that our activity is believed to be dramatically altering the Earth's atmosphere (climate change).

But the objectivity part seems to have resulted in individual and collective confusion and chaos, not any significant clarity or order.

The impact of the Enlightenment can best be assessed by considering achievements in, e.g., medicine and science which have taken place since the year 1600, and comparing them with achievements before then. Wikipedia has its faults, but something like this is interesting and suggestive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_scientific_discoveries — Ciceronianus the White

I think that it is best assessed by people's experiences, not by taking a few "achievements" out of historical, geographic and sociological context.

In Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner state that modernity has caused much untold suffering.

It has also caused a lot of known suffering. Just ask the Native Americans.

But that larger context seems to always get left out. It is always just a self-congratulatory story of independence from tyrants, conquering disease, unprecedented economic productivity, long periods without military conflict, etc.

VagabondSpectre

↪WISDOMfromPO-MO

In the 1600's there were about half a billion living humans. Today there are over seven billion living humans...

Life expectancy in 1600 was about 40 years of age. Today global life expectancy is over 70- years of age, and over 80 in first world countries.

The enlightenment lead to an understanding of how to live healthier and longer lives, in much greater numbers. That's an important advancement. But I would also say that the enlightenment is in and of itself a resolution to a particular problem: "how do we reliably gain useful knowledge and discard falsity?". If you weren't taught by someone to explicitly and inherently question things, and if you were never offered an understanding of the material world produced by science, would you have ascended to your current state of avant guarde critical prowess?

I reckon you would be stuck in a rural farm, worrying mainly about this year's crops and whether or not your wife will die as a result of her pregnancy (or you from yours), and any notions of objective truth and meaning would remain mostly out of sight and mind and culturally moored by the authority wielded over you by your lord, and his lord over him.

I believe I've offered this explanation to you before, but the since the enlightenment we've come to realize that just because it fell out of a king's ass doesn't make it sweet. We learned to question things and test them for their validity and utility, and also to innovate in spite of dogma and tradition. Everything that you wave off as unimportant is to someone else priceless. Curing even a single disease is important, and we have cured many. The double edge of modernity causes some suffering and poses continuing risks, but the payoffs have been worthwhile and we've done more good than harm according to the statistics. We could go back to merely scrounging in the dirt to sustain our existence; would you like that? If it's not a return to some kind of hunter-gatherer primitive lifestyle that you envision, what is it you believe is the way forward?

How do we become more knowledgeable by blindly and emotionally discarding anything that is not perfect in every way?

WISDOMfromPO-MO

In the 1600's there were about half a billion living humans. Today there are over seven billion living humans...

Life expectancy in 1600 was about 40 years of age. Today global life expectancy is over 70- years of age, and over 80 in first world countries.

The enlightenment lead to an understanding of how to live healthier and longer lives, in much greater numbers. That's an important advancement. But I would also say that the enlightenment is in and of itself a resolution to a particular problem: "how do we reliably gain useful knowledge and discard falsity?". If you weren't taught by someone to explicitly and inherently question things, and if you were never offered an understanding of the material world produced by science, would you have ascended to your current state of avant guarde critical prowess?

I reckon you would be stuck in a rural farm, worrying mainly about this year's crops and whether or not your wife will die as a result of her pregnancy (or you from yours), and any notions of objective truth and meaning would remain mostly out of sight and mind and culturally moored by the authority wielded over you by your lord, and his lord over him.

I believe I've offered this explanation to you before, but the since the enlightenment we've come to realize that just because it fell out of a king's ass doesn't make it sweet. We learned to question things and test them for their validity and utility, and also to innovate in spite of dogma and tradition. Everything that you wave off as unimportant is to someone else priceless. Curing even a single disease is important, and we have cured many. The double edge of modernity causes some suffering and poses continuing risks, but the payoffs have been worthwhile and we've done more good than harm according to the statistics. We could go back to merely scrounging in the dirt to sustain our existence; would you like that? If it's not a return to some kind of hunter-gatherer primitive lifestyle that you envision, what is it you believe is the way forward?

How do we become more knowledgeable by blindly and emotionally discarding anything that is not perfect in every way? — VagabondSpectre

In other words, the ends justify the means.

On the other hand, again, those "means"--slavery, child labor, genocide, colonialism, cruelty to non-human animals, etc.--are almost never acknowledged, and on the rare occasion that they are acknowledged they are viewed as nothing more than hiccups on the march of "progress" and "liberty", not as necessary contributors to the outcomes that we congratulate ourselves for ad nauseam.

VagabondSpectre

On the other hand, again, those "means"--slavery, child labor, genocide, colonialism, cruelty to non-human animals, etc.--are almost never acknowledged, and on the rare occasion that they are acknowledged they are viewed as nothing more than hiccups on the march of "progress" and "liberty", not as necessary contributors to the outcomes that we congratulate ourselves for ad nauseam. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Do you honestly believe that slavery, child labor, genocide, colonialism, and cruelty to non-human animals were or are "the means of the enlightenment/modernity?".

This may surprise you, but all these things did not come about as a result of the enlightenment or modern ways of thinking, they have been occurring as a standard of human civilization throughout all of recorded history. But they were in fact reduced and somewhat abolished by it...

It was enlightened thinking that lead to the abolition of slavery in Europe and in the Americas. It was modernity that brought the idea of public school systems as a way to reduce poverty and the need for child labor. Full blown genocide has rarely occurred in the modern world and it certainly has not been the means of it's creation. Yes the modern world is still putting some of the pieces together from the old world which the enlightenment eventually broke (i.e: far flung colonies slowly developing their own governments and infrastructure), and so your sentiments make it seem like you're trying to blame the broad and tragic history of mankind on the very thing which altered it for the better, just because it did not do so perfectly and universally....

So I ask again. Are you suggesting we would be better off if the enlightenment never happened? If modernity never arrived? If not, what are you trying to say?

BC

Has the Enlightenment/modernity resolved anything?

it is a simple question — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I don't think it is a simple question.

Doesn't sound like anything close to a resolution to me. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

You were expecting the epiphany, perhaps?

Maybe it is just my own subjective experience, but this is predictable: spend a lot of time acquainting one's self with intellectual history and the latest ideas, think that you have found an answer, and somebody else who has acquainted him/herself with intellectual history and the latest ideas will tell you that that answer is false. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, of course. Were you to speak at a symposium and announce that the sky is blue, some scholarly person would rise to angrily dispute your totally erroneous idea. Is this not a consequence, even a definitive one, of the enlightenment? There is no authority who can now finally and for all time decree that the sky is blue.

There is a joke, wrongly assigned to the late Chou Enlai, who was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976. A scholar asked the very patient Chou whether the French Revolution was a good thing. Chou said, "It is too early to tell." People take a long time to digest epochs. Clearly the Enlightenment is still "in progress" and is still producing it's conclusions.

Lots of people have, at least temporarily, sworn off taking the Pope's, or the Chief Rabbi's, a Mullah's, or the Dalai Lama's word for anything. People feel free in some parts of the world to believe pretty much whatever they damn well please. Isn't that an Enlightenment Thing?

But, as it happens, there are also people reacting to the "whatever they damn well please" practice by reasserting the primacy of earlier "values". Family values, Bible Values, Koran values, ancient values... We don't usually burn people at the stake (at this time), but the disputes are definitely heating up.

TheMadFool

↪WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, we don't have definitive, conclusive answers but it's not a total failure. At least we know our errors and learn not to repeat them. We continue the search until such a time an answer is found.

Streetlight

This thread.

Wayfarer

...and as we all well know, the Roman Empire continues to thrive to this day.

Ciceronianus

...and as we all well know, the Roman Empire continues to thrive to this day. — Wayfarer

In a sense it does, as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, a kind of ghost of the Empire. And otherwise, in the civil law of most European countries (and it seems the state of Louisiana), the Romance languages, the Republic of the United States the government of which mimics in certain ways that of Republican Rome. An empire which lasted around 1500 years counting from the principate of Augustus to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 (though in diminished form as the years passed), and before that was a major player and then dominate power in the Mediterranean for about 300 years before that. For good or ill, the Western World is what it is due to the Roman Empire.

Ciceronianus

thought that it is not about subjective satisfaction. Most people are subjectively satisfied being dumb, ignorant, passive fools who never question anything.

I thought that it is about objectivity and intervention. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

No, I think it's mostly about your satisfaction. The things you think important have not been resolved, alas. I wouldn't expect postmodernism to resolve them either, if I were you (not, of course, that I can truly understand you, or anyone or anything else, not really). Nor do I think Heideggerish fear of technology will make us better people.

But I don't think the proponents of the Enlightenment have ever claimed it has or would resolve all questions and make us perfectly good and just, and to complain because it has not done so is therefore rather pointless. It merely provided a method to more successfully explore the world and provide answers to its workings in comparison with, e.g., praying or thinking really hard about abstracts.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

I don't care what the source is--a prophet, a coin toss, dumb luck, an accident, carefully designed rigorous empirical science--I want the truth.

If truth is not like postmodern theorists say--completely situated/contextual--and if, as Enlightenment champions seem to insist, it is something that all rational minds can arrive at, we have a problem.

If you follow intellectual life in the modern world you wouldn't know that there is any truth that a significant number of people, let alone all rational minds, have arrived at. Instead you find--from my vantage point, at least--nothing but confusion.

And I asked at the beginning of this thread for one--just one--definitive, conclusive question and answer that this whole Enlightenment/modernist epoch has produced. No response.

Wayfarer

I asked at the beginning of this thread for one--just one--definitive, conclusive question and answer that this whole Enlightenment/modernist epoch has produced. No response. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Gee thanks. I thought I provided one - but, no response.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

Gee thanks. I thought I provided one - but, no response. — Wayfarer

Maybe I overlooked it.

Not a good time for me with respect to mental health.

Speaking of time, not much of it. Two jobs, a lot of hours, very little time off.

Wayfarer

Maybe I overlooked it. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Well, look again. I suspect I'm the only poster in this thread who responded to the specific question you're asking.

Ciceronianus

↪WISDOMfromPO-MO

If you would but consider that your belief that we were promised that the Enlightenment/modernity would establish heaven on Earth is mistaken, you might recognize that certain things have been resolved. For example, with regard to what have previously been fatal diseases, like malaria, polio, smallpox, typhoid fever, tetanus, diphtheria. Of course, the resolution of diseases merely saves and prolongs life, and you may consider that insignificant.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

The crucial issue is that secular humanism/scientific materialism has torn the Western intellectual tradition from its moorings in the Judeo-Christian tradition... — Wayfarer

Yes, it does strongly feel like personal and collective spiritual and intellectual life are now in the clutches of narrow secular worldviews that may be backed by more oppressive government control and funded by more resources than the pre-Enlightenment oppressors could have ever began to imagine or dream of.

But when you can incarcerate massive numbers of people who are not useful in the oppressors' system and subdue everybody else with anti-depressants and an entertainment industrial complex (opening Saturday of college football tomorrow!), who needs heretics to burn at the stake? And you can congratulate yourself for how progressive and humane your methods are compared to the "barbarism" of those less civilized pre-Enlightenment people!

Kind of like how you get to congratulate yourself for how your weapons of mass destruction and your mutually assured complete destruction of each other has created unprecedented global peace!

Wayfarer

But when you can incarcerate massive numbers of people who are not useful in the oppressors' system and subdue everybody else with an entertainment industrial complex (opening Saturday of college football tomorrow!) and anti-depressants, who needs heretics to burn at the stake? And you can congratulate yourself for how progressive and humane your methods are compared to the "barbarism" of those less civilized pre-Enlightenment people! — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I have had the subversive thought, that the whole aim of liberal democracy is to make the world a safe place for the ignorant. (I mean 'ignorant' in the spiritual sense.) It provides everyone with the freedom to do what they want, but at the same time has lost the philosophical or spiritual sense of what 'freedom' actually implies or requires. I mean, in classical cultures, it was understood that to be a 'slave to the passions' was philosophically and ethically harmful; say that to the proverbial man in the street nowadays, and they wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. I think this is the meaning of that well-known 60's counter-cultural manifesto, Marcuse's One Dimensional Man, although at the time that was popular, I wasn't into leftist stuff, so had no idea what it was about.

But the 'forces of oppression' are not 'the system', and they're nowhere outside yourself. Sure, modern culture has no concept of spiritual liberation, but they don't have the means to deprive us of freedom; spiritual freedom is something we have to discover ourselves.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

I have had the subversive thought, that the whole aim of liberal democracy is to make the world a safe place for the ignorant. (I mean 'ignorant' in the spiritual sense.) It provides everyone with the freedom to do what they want, but at the same time has lost the philosophical or spiritual sense of what 'freedom' actually implies or requires. I mean, in classical cultures, it was understood that to be a 'slave to the passions' was philosophically and ethically harmful; say that to the proverbial man in the street nowadays, and they wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about. I think this is the meaning of that well-known 60's counter-cultural manifesto, Marcuse's One Dimensional Man, although at the time that was popular, I wasn't into leftist stuff, so had no idea what it was about.

But the 'forces of oppression' are not 'the system', and they're nowhere outside yourself. Sure, modern culture has no concept of spiritual liberation, but they don't have the means to deprive us of freedom; spiritual freedom is something we have to discover ourselves. — Wayfarer

I don't know of anything that can be attributed to the European Enlightenment that aids in that discovery.

People like to point to the Gutenberg Bible, the printing press, mass literacy, etc., but that implies that pre-literate societies and illiterate individuals had/have no spiritual life. It also ignores that literacy is often used to consume entertainment and "information" rather than to pursue anything spiritual or intellectual.

Speaking of the Bible, it seems to be full of stories of personal spiritual encounters, not puppets being manipulated by authorities and needing liberation through becoming autonomous agents of reason.

I can't think of any work that has helped me grow spiritually and intellectually that owes its inspiration to the European Enlightenment.

Wayfarer

I can't think of any work that has helped me grow spiritually and intellectually that owes its inspiration to the European Enlightenment. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Well, one thing it provided me was the ability to explore the question on my own terms. That should never be taken lightly. However, it took me a lot of study and reading to understand the sense in which Biblical Christianity is concerned with 'spiritual freedom' at all, because that kind of terminology is foreign to their lexicon. I was more interested in the Eastern idea of liberation which I learned about through the 60's counter-culture - think Sgt Peppers - although in the end, I have come to understand that there is perhaps more in common between the two approaches than meets the eye.

Speaking of the Bible, it seems to be full of stories of personal spiritual encounters, not puppets being manipulated by authorities and needing liberation through becoming autonomous agents of reason. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

You're compressing an awful lot into a single paragraph. I will see if I can unpack it a bit. First - 'personal spiritual encounters' - I do believe that these are the basic substance of the Bible (not that I am well versed in the Bible.) But I think they have an existential depth and immediacy which most of the 'cultured despisers of religion' are blind to, as they reflexively reject the entire narrative as myth (and 'merely' myth).

But on the other hand, it has to be acknowledged that the Church exploited its position as the self-appointed sole custodian of the faith for immense political power. That was one of the major motivations behind Protestantism. And their aim was to restore the purported rightful relationship of man to God through faith rather than through priestly intermediaries and the vast machinery of the Church. But then, the Protestant God tended to vanish into the heaven of abstractions, leaving us in an 'all or nothing' position - either blind submission, 'salvation by faith alone', or wholesale rejection. I see a lot of what grew out of the Enlightenment, therefore, as an historical reaction against Christian dogma, conceived of as a regressive political apparatus, peddling superstition to maintain its power.

I think that was what Kant had in mind when he wrote his famous essay which is one of the foundational documents of the enlightenment, aptly named 'What is Enlightenment'?

Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! [Dare to know!] "Have courage to use your own reason!" – that is the motto of enlightenment. — Immanuel Kant

I have to say, I can't see a lot wrong with that, except that when it became allied with positivism and the rejection of all religious metaphysics, it naturally tended towards scientific materialism. But it really didn't have to; Kant was an absolutely implacable foe of materialism, he never would have endorsed such an idea. It was he who said 'I had to declare a limit to knowledge to make room for faith' (although his faith would never be any kind of fideism, or clinging to dogma).

But there's a lot in this. I really think you ought to try and find some courses on it. You will find there are many rich resources around on this very subject, and that it is a fascinating and rewarding topic.

WISDOMfromPO-MO

you might recognize that certain things have been resolved. For example, with regard to what have previously been fatal diseases, like malaria, polio, smallpox, typhoid fever, tetanus, diphtheria. Of course, the resolution of diseases merely saves and prolongs life, and you may consider that insignificant. — Ciceronianus the White

I hope that it is correct that certain diseases are "resolved", but I don't think that anything is that simple.

For one thing, a case could be made that modern science and technology have only corrected problems that they created. And that while some people have lived longer and healthier lives other people have been made worse off.

And it could ultimately be a losing battle. All of the antibiotic use, vaccinations, etc. could result in a superbug that costs more than the sum of the benefits we have accumulated to date.

There's a wild card out there. It's called "It may be a zero-sum game".

WISDOMfromPO-MO

Well, one thing it provided me was the ability to explore the question on my own terms. That should never be taken lightly. However, it took me a lot of study and reading to understand the sense in which Biblical Christianity is concerned with 'spiritual freedom' at all, because that kind of terminology is foreign to their lexicon. I was more interested in the Eastern idea of liberation which I learned about through the 60's counter-culture - think Sgt Peppers - although in the end, I have come to understand that there is perhaps more in common between the two approaches than meets the eye... — Wayfarer

Freedom through Christ.

You're compressing an awful lot into a single paragraph. I will see if I can unpack it a bit. First - 'personal spiritual encounters' - I do believe that these are the basic substance of the Bible (not that I am well versed in the Bible.) But I think they have an existential depth and immediacy which most of the 'cultured despisers of religion' are blind to, as they reflexively reject the entire narrative as myth (and 'merely' myth)... — Wayfarer

Just looking at the Gospels--although I am sure the same theme could probably be found in the Old Testament and the rest of the New Testament--we don't seem to get a picture of illiterate masses at the bottom and top-down teachings, doctrine, etc. from a few people at the top. We seem to get a picture of Jesus constantly on the move ministering directly to whoever he encounters, crowds following him, etc.

But on the other hand, it has to be acknowledged that the Church exploited its position as the self-appointed sole custodian of the faith for immense political power. That was one of the major motivations behind Protestantism. And their aim was to restore the purported rightful relationship of man to God through faith rather than through priestly intermediaries and the vast machinery of the Church. But then, the Protestant God tended to vanish into the heaven of abstractions, leaving us in an 'all or nothing' position - either blind submission, 'salvation by faith alone', or wholesale rejection. I see a lot of what grew out of the Enlightenment, therefore, as an historical reaction against Christian dogma, conceived of as a regressive political apparatus, peddling superstition to maintain its power... — Wayfarer

That states it more clearly--and unbiased--than anything I have seen before. Very helpful.

I think that Protestant fundamentalism can be understood the same way: a reaction to the excesses of science and capitalism.

I think that was what Kant had in mind when he wrote his famous essay which is one of the foundational documents of the enlightenment, aptly named 'What is Enlightenment'?

Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! [Dare to know!] "Have courage to use your own reason!" – that is the motto of enlightenment. — Immanuel Kant

I have to say, I can't see a lot wrong with that, except that when it became allied with positivism and the rejection of all religious metaphysics, it naturally tended towards scientific materialism. But it really didn't have to; Kant was an absolutely implacable foe of materialism, he never would have endorsed such an idea. It was he who said 'I had to declare a limit to knowledge to make room for faith' (although his faith would never be any kind of fideism, or clinging to dogma)... — Wayfarer

I think that the "not in lack of reason" part needs to be emphasized more.

In other words, it's not like Europeans suddenly discovered reason and the ability to use it in the 18th century. Reason was simply elevated, brought to the forefront, for the first time. At least that is the way that I, nowhere near having a PhD in History, would characterize it.

Wayfarer

We seem to get a picture of Jesus constantly on the move ministering directly to whoever he encounters, crowds following him, etc. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

True, but he also said 'he with ears to hear....'

Reason was simply elevated, brought to the forefront, for the first time. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Not for the first time. As far as its proponents were concerned, this was a return to what made the Western philosophical heritage great in the first place.

But, they're great questions and worthy of a lot of thought.

Has the Enlightenment/modernity resolved anything?

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