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    The Western Story: The Development of Modernity: Michael Goheen Idis 102, Twu

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    Abraham Absalon
    The document summarizes the development of modern humanism in Western society from its roots in classical paganism through the Enlightenment era. Key events included the Renaissance period which began dissociating humanism from Christianity, the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-17th centuries which gave means to dominate nature through science, and the Enlightenment of the 18th century which established scientific humanism as the dominant worldview based on faith in progress through reason and science. This worldview came into conflict with Christianity and narrowed the gospel's scope in society.

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    The Western Story: The Development of Modernity: Michael Goheen Idis 102, Twu

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    Abraham Absalon
    174 views28 pages
    The document summarizes the development of modern humanism in Western society from its roots in classical paganism through the Enlightenment era. Key events included the Renaissance period which began dissociating humanism from Christianity, the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-17th centuries which gave means to dominate nature through science, and the Enlightenment of the 18th century which established scientific humanism as the dominant worldview based on faith in progress through reason and science. This worldview came into conflict with Christianity and narrowed the gospel's scope in society.

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    PHILOSOPHY

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    Western Story

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    The document summarizes the development of modern humanism in Western society from its roots in classical paganism through the Enlightenment era. Key events included the Renaissance period which began dissociating humanism from Christianity, the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-17th centuries which gave means to dominate nature through science, and the Enlightenment of the 18th century which established scientific humanism as the dominant worldview based on faith in progress through reason and science. This worldview came into conflict with Christianity and narrowed the gospel's scope in society.

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    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    174 views28 pages

    The Western Story: The Development of Modernity: Michael Goheen Idis 102, Twu

    Uploaded by

    Abraham Absalon
    The document summarizes the development of modern humanism in Western society from its roots in classical paganism through the Enlightenment era. Key events included the Renaissance period which began dissociating humanism from Christianity, the Scientific Revolution of the 16th-17th centuries which gave means to dominate nature through science, and the Enlightenment of the 18th century which established scientific humanism as the dominant worldview based on faith in progress through reason and science. This worldview came into conflict with Christianity and narrowed the gospel's scope in society.

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    The Western Story:

    The Development of Modernity


    Michael Goheen
    IDIS 102, TWU

    Overview of lectures
    Last time: Examine modern humanism
    Deweys confession
    Two diagrams
    Way we label historical eras
    Brief definition

    Today: Look at western story and


    development of modern humanism
    3rd lecture: Examine postmodern humanist
    challenge and global spread of modern
    humanism

    Origins of Modern Humanism


    Roots in pagan-classical period (up to
    5th c.)
    Preserved and Christianized in
    medieval-synthesis period (5th-14th c.)

    Renaissance (14th-15th c.)


    Humanism begins to dissociate itself
    from Christian connection
    Change from otherworldly to thisworldly orientation
    Human beings orient lives toward
    mastery of nature

    Life oriented toward nature


    This clearly entails a spiritual choice as to cultural
    direction, namely, that mans destiny is realized
    primarily in his relation to the natural things of this
    world and not in relation to his fellowmen. . . . The
    centrality of the relationship of man with nature,
    however, is one of the most characteristic features
    of western culture since the Renaissance. . . . We
    distinguish ourselves as human beings primarily by
    the shape we give to this world through human
    thought and creative ability rather than by the
    meaning of our lives to other persons (Bob
    Goudzwaard).

    Scientific Revolution (16th-17th c)


    Christian and humanist vision
    Humanist vision to dominate nature:
    Scientific method gave Western society
    means
    Humanist vision expressed by Ren
    Descartes (1596-1650) and Francis
    Bacon (1561-1626)

    Descartes and Bacon express modern vision


    Knowledge is power: Scientific knowledge of
    world enables humankind to build better world
    Scientific knowledge of natures laws enables
    humanity to predict how nature will respond
    This gives power to control
    Nature can be manipulated in a quest for a
    secular paradise
    Need for a new method to get scientific
    knowledge

    Methodological Reason
    Descartes
    Mathematical Method
    Bacon
    Empirical Method

    Newton (1642-1727)
    Scientific
    Method

    Nature and natures laws lay hid in night; God


    said Let Newton be! and all was light.
    -Alexander Pope

    Scientific Revolution (16th-17th c)


    Christian and humanist vision
    Humanist vision to dominate nature
    Triumph of humanist visionwhy?
    Conflict with church

    He sets the earth on its foundations; it can


    never be moved (Ps. 104:5).
    O sun, stand still... so the sun stood still (Josh.
    10:12f.).
    The earth remains forever. The sun rises and
    the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises
    (Eccl. 1:4f.).

    People give ear to an upstart astrologer who


    strove to show that the earth revolves, not the
    heavens or the firmament, the sun and the
    moon. Whosoever wishes to appear clever
    must devise some new system which of all
    systems, of course, is the best. This fool
    wishes to reverse the entire science of
    astronomy; but Sacred Scripture tells us that
    Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and
    not the earth.
    -Martin Luther

    Scientific Revolution (16th-17th c)


    Christian and humanist vision
    Humanist vision to dominate nature
    Triumph of humanist visionwhy?
    Conflict with church
    Religious wars

    Triumph of humanist vision


    Success in Newtonian Paradigm of
    Physics
    Science unites
    Gospel divides

    Religious Wars

    Conversion of
    Europe

    Conversion of West in wake of scientific


    revolution
    E u ro p ean

    E u ro p ea n

    C h u rc h

    R eason

    S o c ie ty

    S o c ie ty

    Enlightenment (18th c.)


    Scientific humanism becomes
    dominant religious vision (faith)
    Enlightenment faith

    Enlightenment faith
    Faith in progress
    Paradise images: Secularized vision of biblical
    story
    Progress identified primarily with economic
    growth
    . . . the greatest happiness possible for us consists in the
    greatest possible abundance of objects suitable for our
    enjoyment and in the greatest liberty to profit by them
    (Mercier de la Riviere, 1767).

    Enlightenment faith
    Faith in progress
    Propelled by reason and science

    ...the conviction that man was steadily and inevitably


    approaching entrance into a better world, that man himself
    was being progressively improved and perfected through
    his own efforts, constituted one of the most characteristic,
    deep-seated, and consequential principles of the modern
    sensibility. Christianity no longer seemed to be the driving
    force of the human enterprise. For the robust civilization
    of the West at the high noon of modernity, it was science
    and reason, not religion and belief, which propelled that
    progress. Mans will, not Gods, was the acknowledged
    source of the worlds betterment and humanitys advancing
    liberation.
    -Richard Tarnas

    Enlightenment faith
    Faith in progress
    Propelled by reason and science
    Scientific reason translated into technology
    Scientific reason translated into societal
    organisation
    Progress comes by the application of reason to
    both technical and social issues (Plumb).

    Enlightenment (18th c.)


    Scientific humanism: dominant
    religious vision (faith)
    Enlightenment faith
    Conflict with the Christian faith

    Narrowing of gospel
    The early Christian belief that the Fall and
    Redemption pertained not just to man but to
    the entire cosmos, a doctrine already fading
    after the Reformation, now disappeared
    altogether; the process of salvation, if it had
    any meaning at all, pertained solely to the
    personal relation between God and man
    (Tarnas).

    Age of Revolution (19th-20th c.)


    Bringing society into conformity with
    Enlightenment faith
    French, Industrial, Democratic, Marxist,
    American revolutions
    If the Enlightenment vision is true then the establishment
    of new social institutions is not a tedious incidental task,
    but a dire necessity and a highly ethical imperative. In that
    case, the narrow way to the lost paradise can only be the
    way of social revolution (Goudzwaard).

    Danger of humanist social structures


    The problem of leading a Christian life in a nonChristian society is now very present to us. It is not
    merely the problem of a minority in a society of
    individuals holding an alien belief. It is the problem
    constituted by our implication in a network of
    institutions from which we cannot dissociate ourselves;
    institutions the operation of which appears no longer
    neutral, but non-Christian; and as for the Christian who
    is not conscious of his dilemmaand he is in the
    majorityhe is becoming more and more deChristianized by all sorts of unconscious pressures;
    paganism now holding all the most valuable advertising
    space (T.S. Eliot, The Idea of a Christian Society, 1946)

    Two dominant forms of scientific


    humanism in 20th century
    Communist: Throughout Soviet Union
    and Eastern Europe
    Liberal: Throughout North America
    and Western Europe

    Development in 19th and 20th Centuries


    Technological
    Optimism
    Progress
    Literary
    Despair
    Breakdown

    Counterculture of the 1960s:


    Growing Despair
    Rock music, drug culture, hippie movement, student
    uprisings, etc.
    Challenge to light of science and technology
    The youthful counter-culture have, in a variety of ways,
    called into question the validity of the conventional
    scientific worldview, and in so doing have set about the
    undermining the foundations of the technocracy
    (Theodore Roszak in Making of a Counterculture).

    Western Confession of Faith


    I believe in Science Almighty. I believe in
    the power of human reason disciplined by
    the scientific method to understand, control,
    and change our world.
    I believe in Technology and a Rational
    Society, its only begotten Sons which have
    the power to renew our world.

    Western Confession of Faith (cont)


    I believe in the spirit of Progress. I believe that
    a science based technology and a rationally
    organized society will enable me to realize my
    ultimate human goal-- freedom, happiness, and
    the comforts of material abundance.
    I believe in economism. I believe that the
    abundance of consumer goods and the leisure
    time to consume them will make me happy. To
    this I commit myself with all my money, time,
    energy, and resources. Amen.

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