The Influence Of The Enlightenment

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The Enlightenment was a time in which men thought they were no longer in need of a religious perspective to explain the world. Through the power of their own reason, men believed that they could understand and explain the world better than religious ideas. This kind of thinking happens because of a lot of different things and questions being posed about the world and men had science to use to figure out the answers. Man’s abilities in scientific discovery grew, even though science as a discipline was at first meant to be a study of God’s Creation. Men could search for answers that satisfied their understanding of the world, god and eventually this religion of Christianity. In general, Christianity was the religion that dominated the region …show more content…

There was also an event that followed the Enlightenment which was called the Great Awakening. “The Great Awakening, changed the way people thought about their relationship with the divine, with themselves and with other people. The Enlightenment engaged the mind, but the Great Awakening engaged the heart” (Lutz). Everyone had their own understanding of the catholic church and the way that it worked. There were people who believed in the idea of Christianity and people who have never doubted the church even though it was corrupt in so many ways. In stark contrast to Puritanism, which emphasized outward actions as proof of salvation, the Great Awakening focused on inward changes in the Christian 's heart. Everyone was reaching for that goal of going to heaven. Because heaven was something to look forward to people did everything the Catholic Church wanted them to do, whether it was buying indulgences or going to …show more content…

They focus on individual relationship with Christ and the fact that faith doesn’t need proof which I agree with. There is no need to think a lot when it comes to faith especially Catholicism. People have been following it for years so there is not point of trying to go back and find proof of something that is going to be hard to find because it has been going on and believed in for so long. The center of faith according to pietism the center of faith is not in the head but the heart. So, if you believe in your heart that what you are believing in is right than you will continue to do. That is the same idea that goes along with Methodist. This lead us one of our theologians who have raised some controversial issues when it came to Christianity David Strauss. Strauss raised and tried to solve in his work of The Life of Jesus Critically Examined were the historical questions concerning the origins of Christianity--questions which had been easily ignored by most theologians at his time. Strauss claimed that the study of the New Testament had been dominated either by supernaturalism or by naturalism in terms of biblical interpretation. Myth, for Strauss, is the natural mode of perception of human mind in primitive ages. On the other hand, the supernaturalists tended to regard all the events in the Bible as literally and historically true without any consideration of the natural laws, while, strongly occupied by

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