The individual was the creator of his own reality. This resulted in radical changes politically. No longer did people buy into the idea of ruling by divine right, but rather, that government was a voluntary act, in which individuals gave up some freedoms in order protect society and keep order. Government did not dictate moral or spiritual truths as it had in the past. .
Life, then, became, as Adam Smith described it, "a race for wealth and honors and preferments" (XVII). If the government established a society were every individual had an "equal opportunity to win", then the race would be fair. Emphasis was placed on becoming a self-made person; one who used their talents and virtues in order to better their economic status. Equality became defined as "all having an equal opportunity to have more" (XVIII). .
As a true Romantic and a Christian extremist, Johann Georg Hamann's values were in opposition with those of the Enlightenment. Romantics held fast that emotions, feelings, and experiencing nature were much more important that rationalization. Hamann was himself quite suspicious of the Enlightenment thinkers because of their insensitivity to human suffering. He felt that Enlightenment ideals reduced people and all of nature to nothing more then mere numbers and data. Their abstractions, according to Hamann, tended to de-humanize people. .
In his Christian philosophy of science, Hamann made clear that Christians needed to avoid positivism, which taught that scientific knowledge was the only "true" knowledge. Naturalism and materialism were two Enlightenment ideals that Hamann would not buy into. Hamann, unlike the relativists of the Enlightenment, believed in a single Truth, which came from God. .
In Richard Wright's Biology Through the Eyes of Faith, we see another perspective on how science and technology relates to our Christian faith. As an enthusiastic evangelical Christian he believes that God created nature, and that God interacts with His creation on a second by second basis.
