Modern versus postmodern Adventism: The ultimate divide?

2005 » June

Reinder Bruinsma, Ph.D., is the retired president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Netherlands, Huis ter Heide, Netherlands.


When did modernism give way to postmodernism? It is impossible to pinpoint the beginning and the end of any era in a precise manner. Just as it was not immediately clear when the "Middle Ages" ended and the "modern" period began, so it is with the far-reaching transitions and thought trends of our time. Only the perspective of history can provide a reasonably clear picture of such mega trends. So the fuller picture of what is now happening to our world will become clear only gradually, but that something is happening and that the world is in major transition is beyond any doubt.

Modernity
When we use the word "modern" or its derivatives to refer to the period that followed the Middle Ages, we do so in a particular way. It is a label for the Enlightenment Project that got underway when people began to think differently, as the Cartesian approach to philosophy began to sink in.

Descartes' famous dictum "I think therefore I am" became the foundation for a new way of looking at humans and God. The autonomous human, endowed with reason, and soon also fortified by the new scientific method that was developed by Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, became the measure of all things.

The human was going to solve the world's problems. God was at a distance, while the recently discovered laws of nature kept the uni verse going in an orderly manner. The future would be marked by continuous progress, as the enormous resources of this planet were increasingly exploited to human benefit.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, the Enlightenment Project was beginning to run out of steam, as Friedrich Nietschze and Sigmund Freud came on the scene. New philosophical approaches that focused on language and the interpretation of texts began to blossom. They began to deliver a message of relativism, uncertainty, and even pessimism. The Holocaust, if anything, made it impossible for life to continue as before.

Philosophers in Europe and in the United States began to emphasize that the time of such grand narratives as Marxism, Communism, and Christianity had been eclipsed. They declared that there were no longer any all-encompassing schemes that offer a comprehensive explanation of life. Instead, they said, there are only fragmented and contradictory smaller stories of individuals and groups in all their diversity. All is difference, they pro claimed. And all judgment needs to be deferred! There are no absolutes; Truth has been replaced by truths.

From the 1970s onward the term postmodernism came into use to describe the changes that became more and more apparent in the arts and in architecture, and then also in philosophy and even theology. Today the term has become a catch-all label that can be attached to almost anything.

But though, admittedly, the term is imprecise and postmodernity means different things to different people, it cannot be denied that something is going on, particularly in the Western world. The Enlightenment era has come, or is rapidly coming, to an end, and we participate, whether we want to or not, in a momentous process of change.

The postmodern person
What is a postmodern person? What does he or she think? What do they do? Where are they to be found?

There is no shortage of books that list the main characteristics of the postmodern man and woman. Most authors will indicate that there is a superficial kind of postmodernism, which is almost synonymous with consumerism and hedonism, and which allows its adherents to live most of their lives in a virtual world.

But there is more to it than that, and in most cases this description would be unfair.

Rather than describing the average postmodern person as a gadget-happy, amusement-seeking, shallow individual, metaphors like nomad or flaneur might be more apt. It should also be said that there is often an interesting mix of modernity and postmodernity in one person.

Below are some of the most notice able characteristics of the postmodern approach to life.

These are given in an abbreviated, summary form, and the list is by no means exhaustive, even though it is helpful in understanding or recognizing postmodern trends.

1. The postmodern person does not believe that everything will become better and better. The idea of progress is largely abandoned. Science is not seen to be the unconditional blessing it once was thought to be.

2. There are no absolutes. We all have our own private truths. Communities and cultures have their own language games. What they talk about and believe in does not necessarily relate to any one particular reality. Everything is subjective, relative, uncertain, contingent, and ambiguous.

3. The metanarratives (grand stories) and the grand ideals have disappeared.

4. Postmodern people like a juxta position of incompatible elements. In art we find a great interest in collation, mixing of artistic styles, a blurring of the lines between real life and fiction, the real and the virtual.

5. Scientists are becoming more modest in their claims and confess that they often see what they want to see, and that many of the so-called foundations of science may not be so certain after all.

6. People know they live in a global village. The computer a symbol of postmodernity gives them instant access to the world. Yet, at the same time, global strategies and alliances are under suspicion and there is a strong interest in regional and local issues.

7. The postmodern person has a strong dislike for religious institutions but is open to spirituality. In fact, some advocate a re-enchantment of the world. Mystery is OK. The nonrational, new age-type approach to the questions of life is popular.

The impact of postmodernism
Once we become aware of the main characteristics of the postmodern mindset, we see the impact of post modern thinking everywhere. Look at some recent buildings in western cities: no longer the modem boxlike monotonous structures of concrete, steel, and glass. Ornamentation is coming back and styles from different periods are combined, so that post modern buildings can tell their own story.

It is easy to detect the postmodern trends in many recent novels that blend stories from different periods; in films that leave a person wondering where the historical ends and the fiction begins. This is seen, for example in the "infotainment" and "docusoaps" of the latest television productions.

We also find postmodern ambiguity in the political arena, as, for instance, in parts of Europe where a majority of the people support the idea of a European unity but at the same time will do anything to protect a local dialect.

Further, one quickly detects the postmodern approach of many Western people to religion and to the church. Religion is in, but the institutional church is out. Experience and emotion are OK, but doctrines are considered largely irrelevant. Absolute, propositional truth is replaced by what works for me, and there are as many legitimate ways to interpret the Bible as there are readers.

Christianity is one religious option among a series of world religions all are equally valid, historically and culturally conditioned responses of the human self to the "Beyond." Sin has been reduced to a sense of regret that things have not gone as expected, with little or no place for something like atonement, where Someone steps in on my behalf.

More often than not, those who do turn toward Christianity want to pick and choose as to which teachings they are willing to accept, and will often be reluctant when it comes to manifesting full and permanent commitment.

Postmodernity and the Adventist Church
The postmodernism wave has not bypassed the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Many of the issues and concerns, particularly in the Western sectors of the church, are directly related to postmodern influences.

Clearly, for a growing number of Adventist believers in the West the metanarrative of Adventism as a worldwide, divinely ordained movement, united by one theology and one organizational model, with uni form programs and resources, has outlived its sell-by date. More and more church members tend to think and act locally. They have little or no interest in the church's hierarchy and are suspicious of centralized institutional structures.

Many are increasingly weary of doctrinal fine print and establish their own truth, largely, but not exclusively, within the framework of Adventist tradition. They tend to regard Adventism as one option among other options and are not so sure that their traditions are the one and only true church.

Worship styles have significantly changed, with an increasing emphasis on experience, and on contemporary music, drama, and informal small group meetings. Traditional church discipline has lost much of its corrective power, and an increasing amount of spiritual cross-border shopping takes place.

It has often justifiably, I think been noted that Adventism has an underdeveloped ecclesiology. This fact will increasingly haunt us, as this happens to be the arena where many of the postmodern questions of our church members are asked. What is the church? Is it the church universal! Is it the visible, historic, institutional church, or the invisible church of all ages? Or is it a small remnant, with a message that changes in emphasis and focus as one Christian era gives way to the next?

All these questions are directly related to our Adventist identity. Is the Seventh-day Adventist Church the only true church and are all other Christian organizations to be labeled as Babylon? Or is Adventism simply one option beside a whole gamut of other Christian options, which may be just as valid? Or perhaps Adventism, it may be thought, represents something special, an option that offers a series of insights not readily available else where?

The question for some influenced by postmodernism may be, Does Adventism possess the absolute truth in all areas of theology, or should we be a little more modest and claim at most that our church makes a significant contribution to the rich diversity of Christianity?

There is much confusion and dis agreement about the answers to be given, and the response one gives is largely determined by whether one is a modern or postmodern Adventist!

The modern versus the postmodern Adventist
Categorizing people is dangerous. Most people simply do not fit neatly into any one category. This is also true when we try to separate modern from postmodern Adventists. So, we must remember that the profiles given below are inexact and are, at least to some extent, caricatures. But, nonetheless, they are basically true in outline.

The modern Adventists are in the majority, and will be for some time to come. They are found wherever there are Seventh-day Adventists. They are the traditional Adventists, mostly conservative in their beliefs and in the way they view their church and the surrounding world.

They believe in the grand story (the "metanarrative") of Adventism as God's "remnant church," with its worldwide mission mandate, called forth by God at the appointed time and assured of its ultimate success.

Modern Adventists believe in absolutes. They dislike questions that may undermine the certainties of the believers. They defend the historical positions of the church with regard to doctrine, organizational structure, worship, and ethics. They welcome a strong emphasis on eschatology and are staunchly anti-ecumenical. They hold a very "high" view of inspiration, both with regard to the Bible and Ellen G. White. They are strong on policy and on the church manual. They want their church to remain united and believe that this unity is fostered by uniform programs and a solid central system of governance.

But postmodern Adventists are a growing minority, in particular in Western countries: the United States and large parts of Europe and Australia, with smaller groups in other parts of the world. They tend to be well educated and tend to be in more affluent areas. They do not have the same interest in the metanarrative of Adventism as their "modern" brothers and sisters.

Their focus is much more regional or local. They are often suspicious of the church's hierarchy and, as previously mentioned, are simply not interested in the upper layers of the church's organizational structure. They are weary of ecclesial authority and do not unduly worry about church discipline, policy, or the church manual.

They tend to allow for diversity in doctrine, and want to pick and choose which of the 27 fundamental beliefs of the Church they will embrace. Their religion is much less rational than traditional Adventism. Experience, celebration, praise, and Holy Spirit are the catchwords for the way many of them want to "do" church.

They are open to outside influences, even tend to engage in some cross-border shopping, for they usually view other, in particular evangelical, Christians in a much more positive light than modern Adventists do. The postmodern Adventist will often tend to postpone or have reservations about making a total commitment to the church and its message.

Challenges
Postmodernism in and outside the church confronts the church with a set of tremendous challenges. How does the church stay together when people operate on sharply differing premises and no longer see eye to eye regarding the identity and mission of the church? How do Church leaders relate to those who have different ideas about the importance of doctrine as such, and with regard to particular fundamental beliefs? How will the institutional church worldwide be affected by the growing disinterest in the church's organizational structure and global programs among a relatively affluent segment of the church?

Must these trends be judiciously welcomed, or must they be strongly rejected and fought tooth and nail? Or is there some middle road?

I would suggest that we should not come to hasty conclusions. Both modernism and postmodernism have facets that are in tension with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The old question of the relationship between culture and gospel has reappeared in a new garb. It is, of course, important that the gospel address the issues raised by postmodern people and that those who proclaim the gospel are sensitive to the ways in which people think, feel, and react.

At the same time, every culture including postmodernism must be judged by the biblical gospel. We need not and we must not uncritically accept the pluralism and relativism of postmodernity. The claim that all "grand stories" have been eclipsed cannot deter us from proclaiming the metanarrative of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Postmodernity has facets that dangerously undermine the core of the biblical message and the certainty of salvation, but it also offers great opportunities. Because of the basic attitudes that are part and parcel of postmodernity, once again it is all right to talk about religion. There is a new thirst for spirituality and are markable openness to the supernatural. There is more willingness than in recent decades to listen to the small stories of those who have encountered Jesus Christ.

A crucial question is, How can modern and postmodern Adventists stay together, dialogue together and grow together, and worry together about the essential content of the biblical message rather than about the cultural forms in which the gospel message is preached and in which the institutional church operates? Will church leadership allow for such dialogue, or even encourage it? Or will it try to protect its "modern" achievements at any cost?

The Truth is only in Christ Jesus. But could it be that there are modern as well as postmodern truths that may help us to discover ever more of the Truth? Only as we learn to listen to one another, as we understand that we live in a time of transition (or is it the time of the end?), and as we continue to seek answers that are relevant to our contemporaries through an open-minded and Spirit-directed reading of the revealed Word only then, I believe, will we be able to nurture our modern or postmodern soul, build the church we love, and dis cover ways of reaching out to both the modern and the postmodern men and women around us.

Many of us differentiate between conservative and liberal Adventists. That may, however, turn out not to be the most significant classification. Modern versus postmodern may well be the most challenging division among us.

May God make us wise and deter mined to stay together, as He shows us the way to create reliable bridges across this new and challenging divide.

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Source: http://www.ministrymagazine.org/assets/images/covers/MIN2005-06.jpg

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P.S. Bolds and Highlights added..

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THE MODERN HUMANISTIC ERA

CHAPTER 44 : THE MODERN HUMANISTIC ERA

The general progress in Reformation that marked the era of Protestant Reformation went
in reverse during the modern era of world history. As we shall see, the new era became
characterized by increasing humanism and decreasing faith in the word of God. This in
turn gave way to decreasing will to uphold the Ten Commandments. Heresies again
began to multiply and increase. Many of the Protestant churches became lukewarm and
doctrinally corrupted. And the Protestant nations became de-Protestantized and even de-
Christianized. As false religion and false worship increased during the era, God gave up
societies to judgment, just as He revealed in Romans 1. Sins like sodomy, adultery, and
abortion abounded. Deadly revolutions, civil wars, and even world wars multiplied.

The causes of this deformation are largely owing to the intrigues and persecutions by the
Romanist powers, the educational influence of the Jesuits, and the spiritual dullness and
even apostasy of the Protestants. Too many protestants lacked the heart to uphold
Biblical truth and enforce the Ten Commandments. They forgot that the very prosperity
they enjoyed came by way of God's blessing for their earlier faithfulness to God's word.
They began to conceive it was the result of their own native reason and skill, instead of
God's grace. The Protestants therefore became easy prey for the Jesuits and other
heretics, who offered philosophies contrary to scripture. The Protestant Reformation
quickly gave way to the Enlightenment movement as the dominant intellectual force
ordering societal conduct and civil policy.

The Enlightenment was a philosophical movement arising out of the 17th century which
advocated a rational and scientific approach to religious, social, political, and economic
issues, as opposed to an approach based upon divine revelation. As such, it promoted a
secular view of the world and a general sense of progress and perfectibility. And it
attacked religious authority, dogmatism, intolerance, censorship, and economic and social
restraints. It sought to usher in an Age of Reason that it was believed would rid mankind
of the ills it faced. It was thoroughly humanistic in its foundations, skeptical of the
revealed religion of scripture. As the schoolmasters of Europe, the Jesuits were able to
promote a form of humanism which eventually gave way to the secular humanism of the
Enlightenment.

We have already seen how the Jesuit Order arose in the era of Protestant Reformation,
from its founding by Ignatius Loyola. We also treated its methods and its ends. We
noted how one of its aims, if not its preeminent aim, was the thwarting of established
Protestantism. The Holy Roman Empire was declining and proving inadequate to stop
the Protestant Reformation. So a new institution – one more equipped for the task – was
needed by Rome. In stepped the Jesuit Order, led by its Superior General (sometimes
referred to as “the Black Pope”), to fill these shoes. In the era of Protestant Reformation
she began to enjoy remarkable success, and she continued her success into the modern
era. Indeed, one important factor for the very rise of the age of secular humanism was
the promotion of humanism by the Jesuits. Their influence was profound because of their
leading role in education through their network of schools.

The establishment of schools as a means of outreach evolved and was not conceived at
the inception of the Order. In 1547, scarcely a half-dozen years after the founding of the
Society, Ignatius received an unexpected and unsolicited invitation from leading citizens
of the city of Messina in Sicily to found and staff a secondary school for their sons. He
accepted, and the school opened the next year.

That same year, thirty members of the senate in Palermo, impressed by what was
happening in Messina, petitioned Ignatius for a similar school. Again he acquiesced.
Other schools soon followed -- in 1551 schools opened in both Vienna and Rome. By the
time Ignatius died in 1556, the Jesuits were operating some thirty schools, practically all
of them secondary, and just a few years later Polanco would write in the name of the new
general to inform Jesuits that education had become the primary ministry of the Society.

Meanwhile the school in Rome, the “Roman College,” had developed into a university,
and, while secondary schools would always be far more numerous, other institutions of
higher learning would henceforth be an important part of the Jesuit enterprise. Within a
century 300 Jesuit colleges dotted Catholic Europe in "one of the great extensions and
consolidations of Renaissance humanism". By 1773, the Jesuits were operating more than
eight hundred universities, seminaries, primary, and secondary schools around the globe.
The world had never seen before, nor has it seen since, such an immense network of
educational institutions operating on an international basis under a single aegis. Jesuits
were called the schoolmasters of Europe during these centuries, not only because of their
schools but also for their pre-eminence as scholars and for the thousands of textbooks
they composed. Christopher Clavius, S.J., for example, whom Enlightenment
philosophers Descartes and Leibniz acknowledged as a source of their inspiration, wrote
a standard geometry text used throughout Europe.

Gerónimo Nadal, one of Ignatius’s closest collaborators, was also the founder and first
rector of the school in Messina. He drew up the curriculum along lines in accord with
those promoted by Renaissance humanists, and this became, along with some of Nadal’s
other writings, the first, somewhat indistinct, blueprint for the schools that were springing
up everywhere. A number of attempts were made in succeeding decades to come up with
a comprehensive Jesuit plan of studies that could be used as a guide in all the Jesuit
schools. It was Claudio Acquaviva who was able to bring this long-standing project to
completion and officially publish in 1599 the Ratio studiorum that became the Magna
Charta of Jesuit education. It included the humanities - literature, history, drama, etc. - as
well as philosophy and theology. This meant that the Jesuit Ratio assumed that literary or
humanistic subjects could be integrated into the study of professional or scientific
subjects; that is, it assumed that the humanistic program of the Renaissance was
compatible with the Scholastic program of the Middle Ages. Its basic premises were
humanistic, and quite contrary to scriptural Protestant principles. Man's reason – and not
God's word – was treated by the Jesuit Ratio as the ultimate fountain of knowledge.
The Ratio had impact far beyond Jesuit institutions, truly setting the educational
standards for schools in Protestant and Catholic nations alike. It was seen as a proper
statement of ideals, methods, and objectives shared broadly by educators in early modern
Europe. For the Society of Jesus, the Ratio studiorum symbolized a certain maturing in its
commitment to education, which had great repercussions for the future of Roman
Catholicism. The schools were often at the center of the culture of the towns and cities
where they were located: typically, they would produce several plays or even ballets per
year, and some maintained important astronomical observatories.

Perhaps most profoundly, it meant a special relationship to culture in that the Society as
an institution had a systematic relationship to “secular” learning, for its members had to
be prepared to teach both the classics of Latin and Greek literature of the humanistic
tradition (Homer, Virgil, Cicero, and Terence, for example) and the scientific texts of
Aristotle in the Scholastic tradition (we must remember that “philosophy” meant to a
large extent “natural philosophy,” subjects we call biology, physics, and astronomy). If
Jesuits were to teach these subjects, they would also almost perforce begin to write about
them, at least to the point of producing textbooks for their students.

Ignatius Loyola had mentioned in the Jesuit Constitutions the possibility of “writing
books useful for the common good.” Few such books were produced, however, until the
number of schools began to grow and the need for appropriate and inexpensive textbooks
felt. With textbooks in view, Ignatius in the last year of his life went to immense trouble
to secure a good press for the Roman College, which was installed and in good working
order within a few months of his death. Among the first books published by this first
press operated by the Jesuits was André des Freux’s edition of Martial’s Epigrams (1558)
- a book tellingly by a pagan. Within two generations, Jesuits were producing books on a
great scale, a phenomenon that would come to characterize the order. Many of these were
textbooks or at least related directly to instruction in the Jesuit classrooms, but others
ranged far more broadly and began to touch on almost every imaginable subject. The
experience of the Jesuit missionaries in exotic places like Japan, China, and Viet Nam
gave, when viewed largely, an extraordinarily cosmopolitan cast to this production.
It is highly probable that even without the schools, the Jesuits would have produced a
significant number of books, for their counterparts in other religious orders did so.
However that may be, the incontrovertible fact is that the schools provided the impetus
for an extraordinarily copious production. They also required that the scope of that
production be consistently and predictably wide-ranging, for the schools took the Jesuits
into just about every conceivable aspect of human culture and made them reflect upon it
and come up with something to say. That they did, and their humanistic influence
penetrated the world over.

Jesuits in the Protestant nations tended to promote religious toleration and secularism,
while those in the Roman Catholic nations tended to urge the maintenance of Roman
Catholic Church privileges and suppression of religious dissent. The reasons for this
variance are not hard to discern. In both cases the Jesuit Order pursued a policy which
was in the best political interest of the Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuit Order, even
though the Order’s philosophical position was not consistent across national lines. In the
Roman Catholic nations the Jesuits promoted Renaissance humanism, whereas the Jesuits
in the Protestant nations tended to promote secular humanism as a means to wean the
nation away from established Protestantism.

In the Protestant nations an informal coalition evolved of Roman Catholics, Anabaptists,
Enlightenment intellectuals, Jews, and other heretical factions in favor of religious
toleration and secularism. They did not want to be disadvantaged by the established
Protestant religion. Even within the established Protestant churches in the Protestant
nations, Enlightenment ideas eventually became popular. As a consequence,
“Protestantism” – at least in political terms – became synonymous with religious
toleration, in contrast to the suppression of religious dissent which persisted in Roman
Catholic nations.

“Protestantism” thereby gradually lost its original meaning among the self-professed
Protestants. In the Reformation era, Protestantism had meant structuring and ordering
everything in accordance with God’s word. The Bible was treated as the foundation of
all knowledge, which it is. This had meant the Ten Commandments were to be upheld by
the state, and religious falsehood was to be suppressed. The confessions of the
Reformation era uniformly upheld the Establishment Principle. They also upheld such
Protestant distinctives as the doctrines of grace. But as “Protestants” abandoned true
Protestantism, the very term “Protestant” began to take on new meanings in the minds of
men. Even Arminians – whose doctrine of salvation was actually closer to that of the
Roman Catholic Church than that of historic Protestantism – became identified with
Protestantism. “Protestantism” so called (albeit not the true Protestantism of the
Reformation era) swelled with all manner of heretics- from Arminian Methodists to
Unitarian Congregationalists to Baptist separatists. As the number of heresies and
heretics abounded in the Protestant nations, the movement towards pluralism,
tolerationism, and secularism became all the greater.

Freemasonry developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a means to
forward the aspirations of the Enlightenment. People of all religious faiths were invited
into Masonic lodges as lodge “brothers”. Their vision was of a secular state where
people of all religious creeds could be treated equally. They idealized a brotherhood of
man, unbroken by religious distinctions.

The Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuit Order only objected to the Enlightenment
movement when its effects reverberated to the Roman Catholic nations and Roman
Catholic Church privileges became threatened. Roman (or Renaissance) humanism was
quite acceptable in the Roman Catholic Church, but secular humanism’s inroads into
Roman Catholic nations threatened Roman Catholic interests and privileges. Indeed,
within the Roman Catholic Church, the Jesuit Order had perhaps the most to lose by an
adoption of secular humanism in the Roman Catholic nations. The war against secular
humanism by the Roman Catholic Church included a ban in the eighteenth century on
Roman Catholic participation in freemasonry.

It is no exaggeration to assert that the Jesuit Order hatched the Enlightenment movement
which effectively overturned established Protestantism.

Paving the way for the Enlightenment was a French-born philosopher named Descartes
(1596-1650). Descartes sought to prove how, starting from a position of universal doubt,
he could through reason arrive at a system of truth. This methodology has earned him the
title of the ‘father of modern philosophy.’ This methodology directly contradicted the
historic reformed, Biblical view of theologians like Augustine and Calvin whose
methodology was instead: ‘I believe in order that I may know’ (or as worded in scripture,
‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom’). Reformed Christianity stresses man’s
inability to attain true knowledge about the fundamental nature of God and man apart
from divine revelation, due to man’s sinful corruption. Not surprisingly, Descartes
rejected this reformed principle, for he was a devout Roman Catholic, educated in the
Jesuit College at La Flèche and the University of Poitiers. He was a product of the Jesuit
Ratio studiorum. Descartes had significant influence even in Protestant countries,
residing much of his life in Holland and the end of his life in Sweden. Descartes’
credibility was certainly enhanced by his significant achievements in mathematics and
science.

The German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz profoundly stimulated the
Enlightenment movement in Germany. Leibniz was born in Leipzig in 1646. Of
Lutheran background, he ended his life as a thorough-going humanistic rationalist.

Leibniz was the greatest polymath of modern philosophers, making contributions to
mathematics, jurisprudence, and history, as well as philosophy. He discovered
differential calculus and pioneered symbolic logic. He worked on among other things
hydraulic presses, windmills, lamps, submarines, clocks, carriages and waterpumps. He
traveled extensively, and corresponded with the leading humanists of his day. He was the
founder of the academy of Berlin. He wrote books on his rationalistic philosophy. These
works influenced Christian von Wolff, whose popularization of the Leibnizian system
became the standard academic philosophy in 18th century Germany.

The philosopher who arguably most popularized the Enlightenment among the Englishspeaking
peoples was John Locke (1632-1704). Locke was greatly influenced by the
humanistic philosophy of Descartes. Locke argued that people had the gift of reason, or
the ability to think. In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding Locke proposed that
the mind is born blank, a tabula rasa upon which the world describes itself through the
experience of the five senses. Knowledge arising from sensation is perfected by
reflection, thus enabling humans to arrive at such ideas as space, time, and infinity.

Based upon man’s presumed native ability to reason, Locke thought men had the natural
ability to govern themselves and to look after the well being of society. He wrote, “The
state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which [treats] everyone [equally]. Reason,
which is that law, teaches all mankind... that being all equal and independent, no one
ought to harm another in his life, health or possessions.” Locke did not believe that God
had chosen a group or family of people to rule countries. He rejected the Divine Right of
Kings, which many kings and queens used to justify their right to rule. Instead, he argued
that governments should only operate with the consent of the people they are governing.
In this way, Locke supported democracy as a form of government. Locke wrote, “[We
have learned from] history we have reason to conclude that all peaceful beginnings of
government have been laid in the consent of the people.” Governments were formed,
according to Locke, to protect the right to life, the right to freedom, and the right to
property. Their rights were absolute, belonging to all the people. Locke also believed
that government power should be divided equally into three branches of government so
that politicians will not face the “temptation... to grasp at [absolute] power.” If any
government abused these rights instead of protecting them, then the people had the right
to rebel and form a new government.

John Locke spoke out against the control of any man against his will. This control was
acceptable neither in the form of an unfair government, nor in slavery. Locke wrote, “The
natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under
the will or legislative authority of man, but only have the law of nature for his rule.”

Consonant with this opinion, Locke asserted in “A Letter Concerning Toleration” that
“the toleration of those that differ from others in matters of religion is so agreeable to the
Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to the genuine reason of mankind, that it seems monstrous for
men to be so blind as not to perceive the necessity and advantage of it in so clear a light.”

Enlightenment thought struck at the heart of historic reformed doctrine. Historic
reformed doctrine urged the suppression of false religion and false worship by the
magistrate, and it rejected popular political revolution. As John Calvin wrote:

"This feeling of reverence, and even of piety, we owe to the utmost to all our rulers, be
their characters what they may. This I repeat the oftener, that we may learn not to
consider the individuals themselves, but hold it to be enough that by the will of the Lord
they sustain a character on which he has impressed and engraven inviolable majesty. But
rulers, you will say, owe mutual duties to those under them. This I have already
confessed. But if from this you conclude that obedience is to be returned to none but just
governors, you reason absurdly. Husbands are bound by mutual duties to their wives, and
parents to their children. Should husbands and parents neglect their duty; should the latter
be harsh and severe to the children whom they are enjoined not to provoke to anger, and
by their severity harass them beyond measure; should the former treat with the greatest
contumely the wives whom they are enjoined to love and to spare as the weaker vessels;
would children be less bound in duty to their parents, and wives to their husbands? They
are made subject to the froward and undutiful. Nay, since the duty of all is not to look
behind them, that is, not to inquire into the duties of one another, but to submit each to
his own duty, this ought especially to be exemplified in the case of those who are placed
under the power of others. Wherefore, if we are cruelly tormented by a savage, if we are
rapaciously pillaged by an avaricious or luxurious, if we are neglected by a sluggish, if, in
short, we are persecuted for righteousness’ sake by an impious and sacrilegious prince,
let us first call up the remembrance of our faults, which doubtless the Lord is chastising
by such scourges. In this way humility will curb our impatience. And let us reflect that it
belongs not to us to cure these evils, that all that remains for us is to implore the help of
the Lord, in whose hands are the hearts of kings, and inclinations of kingdoms.65 “God
standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.” Before his face
shall fall and be crushed all kings and judges of the earth, who have not kissed his
anointed, who have enacted unjust laws to oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence
to the cause of the humble, to make widows a prey, and plunder the fatherless…But in
that obedience which we hold to be due to the commands of rulers, we must always make
the exception, nay, must be particularly careful that it is not incompatible with obedience
to Him to whose will the wishes of all kings should be subject, to whose decrees their
commands must yield, to whose majesty their sceptres must bow."

John Locke was actually well read in the works of the Jesuit Bellarmine, but since
Catholicism was such a social taboo at the time in England, he never openly admitted to
it. A careful reading of Locke’s Second Treaties on Government reveals the striking
similarities between Bellarmine and Locke. Bellarmine, like Locke after him, argued for
popular sovereignty as follows: “Political power resides immediately in the whole
multitude as in an organic unit. The Divine law has not given it to any particular man;
therefore, it has given it to the multitude.” Both could then urge the natural right of
popular revolution against a ruler, since both held legitimate government depends upon
the consent of the governed. In contrast, Calvin advocated the responsibility of
subordinate magistrates to protect the rights of God and men, but rejected popular
revolution.

The Enlightenment philosophies of Descartes, Leibniz, Locke and others, which really
had their foundational origins in Jesuit philosophy, undermined and eventually
overwhelmed the Biblical faith in the West. It would take time for the Enlightenment
ideals to take root in the constitutions of nations, but once it did, the formerly Protestant
states became dominated by secular humanism.

Yet, not all the blessings of the Protestant Reformation were lost in this new era, any
more than all the curses of Romanism were lost during the era of Protestant Reformation.
The Protestant Reformation helped usher in great industrial and technological
revolutions, beginning in the Protestant nations. The products of these technological
innovations have consisted not only of weapons of destruction, but also tools for
disseminating knowledge, including knowledge of the Bible. The wider distribution of
the Bible has thus marked the modern era. The Bible and reformed literature about the
Bible has become available in almost every corner of the earth, as communication and
transportation have improved. This access to the truth has paved the way for a future
Reformation even grander in scope than the Protestant Reformation. But it has also
meant mankind is more culpable for refusing to implement scriptural truth in our modern
era, with ignorance less an excuse than it was in previous ages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER 44 : THE MODERN HUMANISTIC ERA

This second volume in a two-part series on church history is primarily an edited version
of the following works on church history and Biblical interpretation:

James A. Wylie, The History of Protestantism (Cassell & Company, Limited:
London, Paris & New York. 1878). (see electronic version at
http://www.whatsaiththescripture.com/Fellowship/James.A.Wylie.html )

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Logos Research Systems, Inc.: Oak
Harbor, WA, 1997). (see electronic version at
http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/About.htm)

J. Parnell McCarter, Sabbath Bible Survey Tests and Assignments (PHSC: Grand Rapids,
MI, 2003). (see electronic version at http://www.puritans.net/curriculum/)

J. Parnell McCarter, Let My People Go (PHSC: Grand Rapids, MI, 2003). (see electronic
version at http://www.puritans.net/curriculum/ )

The on-line resources of Historicism Research Foundation at http://www.historicism.net/
also proved invaluable for my understanding of Biblical prophecy. Biblical prophecy
concerning Christian church history, especially as revealed in the book of Revelation,
serves as the foundation upon which all church histories should be based.
Other references especially consulted for this chapter include:

The Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/d/descarte.htm

http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/jmac/se/sjedtrad.htm

Source: http://www.puritans.net/curriculum/Thy%20Kingdom%20Come%20II/chapter44.pdf

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From the book:

THY KINGDOM COME
A SKETCH OF CHRIST’S CHURCH
IN HISTORY

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Book II : Christ’s Church in the New Testament Era
Compiled and edited by J. Parnell McCarter
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“…I will build my church…” – Matthew 16:18
“…Unto him [be] glory in the church…” – Ephesians 3:21
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Dedicated to the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland.
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Compiled and edited by J. Parnell McCarter
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©2004 J. Parnell McCarter. All Rights Reserved.
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Jenison, MI 49428
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The Puritans’ Home School Curriculum
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