The Aspen Grove

Making Sense of Our Moment in History

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The Big Idea

Collection of thoughts about where we are in the course of history and philosophy

How We Got Here

The Enlightenment as the Birthplace of Modernity

The revolutionary period from the late seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century in Europe and America—represented a philosophical, intellectual, and religious shift from the historical Christian understanding of faith and reason.

Key Philosophers

  • René Descartes (1596-1650) is an early influence putting forward the famous phrase: “I think, therefore I am.” Which can be found in his 1637 Discourse on the Method. He focuses truth and existence all on the fact that humans think and have reason.
  • German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), encouraged people to think in a manner entirely independent of prior traditions.
  • Enlightenment ideals were developed in the essays of John Locke (1632–1704).
  • Thomas Paine’s (1737–1809) “Common Sense,” “Rights of Man,” and “The Age of Reason” and Thomas Jefferson’s (1743–1826) Declaration of Independence are notable representations of Enlightenment ideals.
  • Benjamin Franklin(1706–90) championed the ideas of the Enlightenment, especially those of individual liberty, religious toleration, and the free agency of man.
  • The French philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) was an avowed advocate of Enlightenment and modernist thought. In his Philosophical Dictionary (1764), he criticized historical-traditional institutions and religion, aiming to demystify the universe and purge supernatural beliefs that clouded true knowledge and understanding. These articulations would later find a developed naturalistic system of thought in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859).
  • The landmark, thirty-five volume Encyclopédie, compiled by Denis Diderot (1713–84), uniquely helped propel Enlightenment thought across Europe and America.

Modernity

Arising out of the Enlightenment is a worldview broadly called “Modernity”. This is the era in which God and religion were set aside as the ultimate sources of knowledge, and they were replaced by science and reason.

Preeminence of Human Reason, Science, and Freedom

  • We can figure the whole world out and fix it ourselves using logic put to use through the scientific method.
  • We should have total freedom from any old things so that we are totally free to use reason and science without any restrictions.

Deism

  • God is the watchmaker that just wound stuff up and stepped back.

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

  • God is there to help me be a good person.
  • God is there to take care of my problems and make me feel good.
  • God is not directly involved in much of my life.

Human Rights as moral Code Separated from God

  • I can assert my right against anyone even God
  • Right to life makes life my thing to control not God’s
  • Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness - Sounds real close to Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

Inevitability of Progress

  • Humans as a species and as societies will always be getting better and better no matter what. 

Rate of Change - Faster is better

  • Society is pictured as always moving away from the bad old to the good new.

Thing Pitted against Each Other

  • Science vs Religion
  • Church vs State
  • Reason vs Superstition or Religion

In the end, the Enlightenment and modernism suffered from their own over-emphasis upon self-actualized reason. Modernity starts to show cracks during the horrors of both World Wars leading to a short revival in Christendom for those seeking to make sense of the world in a more full way. This revival does not last long however in the face of a new “alternative” worldview called Postmodernism.

Postmodernism

People grew weary of the narrow understanding of the world offered by modernism, some turned to faith, but many turned to the emotional life. This would result in the Romanticism of the nineteenth century. Seen in things like the sexual revolution, LGBTQ, etc.

Questioning the Validity and Dependability of Human Reason

  • Everyone has assumptions and a place they come from so they point out that no one is totally objective in the way that modernity’s science claimed to be. In other words, it is impossible for humans to have an emotionless and unbiased take on things.
  • Therefore reason and logic are not valid across people. Each individual has their own internal reason and logic that is valid for them and them alone.

Individual Truths no real Truth

  • Since everyone is not objective that means that everyone’s own perspective is different but all valid at the same time.
  • Consequently, emotion ends up becoming a large way to “find your truth”.

Antirealism

  • Reality is subjectively constructed by human thought and feeling.
  • If I feel or think something, then it is real for me and no one can say otherwise.

Break down of Common Truth

  • As postmodernism rises and spreads across culture more and more things that are assumed to be objectively true start to break down.
  • Basic Morality is questioned and redefined all over the place.
  • Science is no longer a stable authority. People end up asking the question “Who’s” science do you believe? We see that breakdown of authority especially after covid.

Dual definition of Tolerance

  • Definition One:
    • I recognize someone else’s beliefs without sharing them (Worked well in Modernity)
  • Definition Two:
    • Everyone’s truth claim is equal. What you believe is just a true as what I believe (Works well in Postmodernism and Ancient Rome as long as you sacrificed to the emperor)
  • Christian Response:
    • We do not just tolerate people, we love even our enemies.

Emerging (Reemerging) World Pictures

Books for Further Reading

How the Light Shines Through: Resilient Witness in Dark Times By Chad Lakies

  • Very good grounding for making sense of the current forces behind culture and how our witness in Christ is just as important now as ever. This is a book from Concordia Publishing.

Life’s Big Questions God’s Big Answers by Brad Alles

  • A solid apologetics book aimed at youth explaining a lot of the various worldview issues that arise out of Post-Modernism.

All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly

  • Academic Survey of how cultural foundations shifted from the Greco Roman world to the Present. Written by non-Christians but a very good overview.

Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh by Kidd.

  • Have not personally read it but outline of Jefferson’s enlightenment philosophy.

A Biblically Lutheran Perspective

Example of Luther on absorbing philosophy that is not from Scripture:

  • “44. Indeed, no one can become a theologian unless he becomes one without Aristotle”
  • “50. Briefly, the whole Aristotle is to theology as darkness is to light. This is in opposition to the scholastics. ” Luther’s Works Vol 31: Career of the Reformer. “Disputation Against Scholastic Theology”, PP. 12 Para. 50

Two Kingdoms

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The Big Idea

God’s Kingdom/Kingdom of Light vs. Satan’s Kingdom/Kingdom of Darkness

There are two overall kingdoms in the world. God’s and Satan’s. Everyone belongs to one of them. 

Colossians 1:13

“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,”

Apology of the Augsburg Confession Articles VII and VIII para 17.

“If the church, which is truly the kingdom of Christ, is distinguished from the kingdom of the devil, it necessarily follows that the ungodly, since they are in the kingdom of the devil, are not the church—although in this life, because the kingdom of Christ has not yet been revealed, they intermingle with the church and hold offices in the church.”

Two Realms

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The Big Idea

Also know as the “Two Kingdoms” but distinct from the Idea of God’s vs Satan’s Kingdoms.

Instead focused on: How does God work in the world?

Basic Answer: He works through two different realms within the world.

Apology of the Augsburg Confession Articles XV para 43.

“In our churches all the sermons deal with topics like these: repentance, fear of God, faith in Christ, the righteousness of faith, consolation of consciences through faith, the exercise of faith, prayer (what it should be like and that everyone may be completely certain that it is efficacious and is heard), the cross, respect for the magistrates and all civil orders, the distinction between the kingdom of Christ (the spiritual kingdom) and political affairs, marriage, the education and instruction of children, chastity, and all the works of love.”

Temporal (Left Hand).  

The goal of this realm is to uphold God’s justice for the oppressed and make the world livable for humans. The use of the law that is employed is as a Curb to keep evil at bay enough for life to function. The Law is primary in this realm understood as God’s eternal will for creation. Ethics and the way people live is what we are interested in when talking about the temporal realm. It is all about trying to hold the world together and keep sin in check. No government can save or create a perfect utopia! It is only about keeping a lid on it.  Therefore, mostly interested in Coram Mundo (before men) stuff.

Romans 13:1-3a

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” 

Formula of Concord Section VI para 5-7. 

  1. Concerning the difference between the works of the law and the fruits of the Spirit, we believe, teach, and confess that the works performed according to the law remain works of the law and should be so called, as long as they are coerced out of people only through the pressure of punishment and the threat of God’s wrath.
  2. The fruits of the Spirit, however, are the works that the Spirit of God, who dwells in believers, effects through the reborn; they are done by believers (insofar as they are reborn) as if they knew of no command, threat, or reward. In this manner the children of God live in the law and walk according to the law of God—what St. Paul in his epistles calls the law of Christ and the law of the mind. And yet they are “not under the law but under grace” (Rom. 7:23 and 8:1, 14).
  3. Therefore, for both the repentant and unrepentant, for the reborn and those not reborn, the law is and remains one single law, the unchangeable will of God. In terms of obedience to it there is a difference only in that those people who are not yet reborn do what the law demands unwillingly, because they are coerced (as is also the case with the reborn with respect to the flesh). Believers, however, do without coercion, with a willing spirit, insofar as they are born anew, what no threat of the law could ever force from them.”

Spiritual Realm (Right Hand).

The goal of this realm is to point everyone toward Jesus and His final rule and reign which will arrive in its fullness at His second coming. The Gospel is primary in this realm understood as the proclamation of God’s word faithfully and true. The Means of Grace are also central over here. Everything is aimed at the true salvation of the humanity and creation that can only be achieved by the work of Jesus on the Cross. This is the full restoration of Creation through Christ and Christ alone.  Therefore, mostly interested in Coram Deo (before God) stuff.

Philippians 3:17-21

“Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

Important Notes

  • The two realms are not at odds with each other. They have specific God given functions. 
  • However, they also should not run together and become one big mess. 
  • We live in both realms at once and inform our life in the world by our identity in Christ. 
  • Both realms will be merged and put fully under Jesus when He returns. 
  • Both the Spiritual and the Temporal realms are tangible reality. They are not a kind of platonic or gnostic distinction making matter or spiritual planes distinct.

Axioms at work in this framework:

  1. Both are carefully distinct without divorcing them from one another.
  2. There should be cooperation between the two realms without them being confused with each other.

Further Resources and Reading

Biermann Systems Lecture: Systematics IV Class 15

Break down of how the Two Kingdoms shows up in Luther’s writing

The Three Estates

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The Big Idea

How does God set up authority in the world?

  1. Government
    • Governor and Governed
  2. Family
    • Parents and Children
  3. Church
    • Pastor and Laity

In each estate there exists a set of hierarchically structured relationships that organize human life under God’s care. At the top of each hierarchy stands God himself who endows those ruling and governing in the given hierarchy with their given authority. The basic premise of all hierarchies is that the authority that subsists in each is finally divine.

Thus the state consists of rulers and the ruled. The household consists of parents and children. And the church consists of clergy and laity.

Brief Article Explaining the estates

Citations from Luther’s Writing

  • Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 37: Word and Sacrament III, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 37 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 364–365.
  • Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 41: Church and Ministry III, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 41 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 176–178.
  • Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 46: The Christian in Society III, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 46 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1999), 176-178, 178-179, 181–182.
  • Martin Luther’s House Postils, Volume 3 (J. A. Schulze, Columbus, OH, 1884) 170-171, Google Book Link
  • Martin Luther, Commentary on Psalm 111:6 (1530)
  • Martin Luther on Genesis 1:16-17 (1535)
  • Martin Luther, Table Talk (1542-1543)
  • Martin Luther, Commentary on Genesis 43:1-5
  • Martin Luther, Commentary on John 3:20
  • Martin Luther on Genesis 4:1
  • Martin Luther On Baptism (from the Large Catechism, IV.19-20)
  • Martin Luther on Genesis 27:28 (LW 5.139)
  • Martin Luther introducing Genesis 29 (LW 5:268-269)

Source Article https://learn.ligonier.org/guides/the-enlightenment-and-modernism

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