How Should We Then Live? Chapter 6: The Enlightenment
Human Reason's Dead End Enlightenment Vs. Reformation This chapter focuses on the era known as the Enlightenment and the political revolutions which were influenced by the thinking it produced. These revolutions are contrasted with others that were influenced by the thinking of the Reformation. To be sure there is overlap. Nothing in history is as simple as A caused B. However, Schaeffer is correct to categorize them based on what the strongest influence was for each and how that explains the grossly different outcomes. The Enlightenment occurred in roughly the 17th and 18th Centuries. It couldn't have happened without the Reformation but its approach to truth was diametrically opposed. The Reformation led to the Scientific Revolution. At a high level, the Enlightenment came out of the Renaissance and Scientific Revolution. The ideals of the Enlightenment were science, reason, humanism, and secularism. It was named by those who participate...