Religion In The Age Of Enlightenment Or Age Of Reason

Who and what is God (or god, if you prefer)? It’s a question common man, philosophers and theologists have been asking for ages, kingdoms have been unified and wars have been fought over it. Yet each belief system, each religion and person answers the question differently. What one believes today may change tomorrow, what is acceptable right now was not accepted yesterday. For this reason, it’s no surprise or shock that while this great nation was in its infancy, it too experienced an evolution of beliefs from the strictest of puritan thinking to one that embraced deism. Religious beliefs in this country evolved from God the controller of fate, to god the creator of the universe. From hands on to hands off, from His will to free will. The

This was an intellectual movement that emphasized reason, individuality and skepticism. As new advances in math and science were discovered, people began to question the traditional values surrounding war, nationalism and religion. It was a period of rational thinking over religion, and realism over romanticism. (8, 15) It was not so much a set of ideas as much as it was a set of values that intertwined and overlapped each other. It was a change in social conditioning and ushered in the modern era, including modern religious beliefs and practices. This era brought the theology of deism, which, in stark contrast to the Puritan beliefs held in the late 1500’s and early 1600’s, taught of god the creator, but not orchestrator of life. The basic ideology of deism can be summed up in this Thomas Jefferson quote from 1787, where he tells his nephew to “Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear”

The first lecture, given in 1755, of the series now known as the Dudleian Lecture was on the topic of natural religion. This is a tradition that continues to this day (this year’s lecture was given by Susan Harjo on April 17.) (12) Deism had crossed the Atlantic and taken roots in the new world. Though deism was a subject being discussed in the university, it didn’t have much of an impact on the colonies until after the Revolutionary War as most colonists who believed in Deism rather than traditional religion kept it to themselves for fear of ostracisation from their friends, family and neighbors.