In this paper I will, first, summarize the key values of the Enlightenment, as found in the Portable Enlightenment Reader. Second, I will explain why and on what basis the German romantic Johann Georg Hamann loathed modern science and the bold claims of the Enlightenment. In closing, I will attempt explain how Richard Wright's Christian perspective, found in Biology Through the Eyes of Faith, relates to the above readings, and what a Christian Philosophy of Science is.
The message of Enlightenment intellectuals was not one of relying on faith or traditions of the past, but rather, solely in human reason. " "Have courage to use your own reason - that is the motto of Enlightenment," Kant wrote in 1784" (XI). These intellectuals taught that science and technology were the means to Understanding, and that the world was run by scientific laws, not by God, an unexplainable, unattainable force. The emphasis was on the individual and his right to attain happiness. They felt that humans innately sought after pleasure, and things that would bring comfort to society as a whole.
There was an attack on religion, and it's reliance on faith in a supernatural God, by the scientific community. God was seen more as the "clockmaker" who set everything in motion, but allowed it to work on it's own. Enlightenment intellectuals sought to provide, in a sense, eternal life through progress of science and technology. Benjamin Franklin wrote, "All diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting even that of old age, and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard" (XIII). This progress in science, which Franklin spoke of, required people to discount past superstitions and accept reason as the way of the future. .
Individualism was also highly emphasized during the Enlightenment. Descartes" eternal words "I think, therefore I am" clearly illustrates a key ingredient in Enlightenment ways.
