Enlightenment In Modern Society Essay

Today, we see how modern society operates. The society we live in, and many of the systems we use right now were originally created and organized in Europe. During the 17th and 18th century, enlightenment had a huge impact on European society. What is enlightenment? The ideas of enlightenment introduced people new ways of thinking based on the use of reason and scientific method. Enlightenment questioned the role of divine right. In simple words, divine right means only king answers to god. As a result, many philosophies began to argue about politics and ideas. There were many reasons to all aspects of government that could be applied. Jean Domat, who was a French judge protected and supported the idea of absolute monarchy. He wrote On Social

In definition of Oxford English Dictionary, divine right is the “belief that the right of a king to rule comes directly from god rather than from the agreement of the people” (OED). He said that the rule of absolute monarchy was based on divine right, so people should follow the god’s way thus, king was equal to power. God brought people there, if people did not follow the king, it would mean that they were going against the god. He knows that all people would have less freedom, but all people should be able to understand the circumstances. He said that there were benefit in many ways by following the king. He showed that the king Louis XIV was above the people, but not above god by talking about divine right. However, Locke questioned the role of divine right because he believed that divine right was one of the old ideas. He challenged the old way of thinking by saying that power is in people, not in king. For example, in section 27 of his writing, he talked about natural rights, and said that people have properties that cannot be taken away by others, which included rulers. “Though the earth, ad all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself”