Perspectives on Christianity

December 03, 2010

Modern Age (1700 – 1960s)

Reformation Age (1500 -1700)

1. Enlightenment – reason alone

• Rene Descartes (1596 -1650)

Cogito ergo sum – I think therefore I Am

Turn to the subject: turn to the self, you are the subject. You do
not turn to other sources.

• Immanuel Kant –(1724 -1804)

Religion Within the Limits of Reasons Alone by Immanuel Kant

Religion is limited into reason, only things we can reason can be

trusted

This is a time of revolutions

• American

• Latin

• French

2. Deism

• The only thing you believe is that there is a God that created the
world

• You believe that God does not intervene in our lives at all he just
created us

• Important Deist: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George

Washington

3. Liberalism

• The critique of faith and the bible is correct and the only view to follow
is that God is a good moral teacher and so is Jesus

4. Conservatism
 • Rejects reason alone,

• Faith alone and scripture alone

• Evangelic and Baptist movement

• Experience is the only thing you can trust (Friedrich Schleiermacher)

Romantics – experience alone

Experience leads to knowledge

5. 19th Century

The theory of evolution: Charles Darwin