Sermon for 4 June 2006, 1^st Unitarian Church of Alton, Illinois

 

THE ENLIGHTENMENT SPIRIT

 

Ronald J. Glossop

 

I.  Introduction

    A.  The values of our Unitarian-Universalist community as well as of our country are firmly rooted in the Enlightenment movement of the 18th century.  To be sure some of the ideas and activities of Unitarianism and Universalism predate that Enlightenment period, but it was the Enlightenment spirit that stimulated a growth-spirt for us at a critical time in our history when our religious movement was making its jump across the Atlantic to the New World and when this country was declaring its readiness to be an independent nation rather than a British colony.

    B.  We need to pay attention to this Enlightenment spirit so central to what we are as a church and what we are as a country just because it is under vigorous attack both within our country and our world. Such attacks on the values of the Enlightenment are by no means a new phenomenon, but the extent of their current influence is frightening.

    C.  A very dangerous development both in this country and in the world is the increasing influence of dogmatic fundamentalists in various religious traditions and intolerant leaders in ethnically-based political movements.

        1.  For example, just after Bush's reelection in 2004, an insightful op-ed commentary appeared in the New York TIMES with the heading "The Day the Enlightenment Went Out."  In the first paragraph of that piece Northwestern University professor Garry Wills wrote: "This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political strategist.  He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they turned out, would be the deciding factor.  The success of the plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage.  Mr. Rove understands what the surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution."

        2.  Later in that commentary Wills noted:  "[The United States of America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values--critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences.  Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values. . . . [But] respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11."  For many people the actual facts just don't seem to matter.

        3.  Wills went on to observe:  "The secular states of modern Europe do not understand the fundamentalism of the American electorate.  It is not what they had experienced from this country in the past.  In fact, we now resemble those European nations less than we do our putative enemies.  Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity?  Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain.  We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals.  They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed."

        4.  Wills ended his commentary with these words: "The moral zealots [in the Republican Party] will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans.  Jihads are scary things.  It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment."

        5.  But it is not just in this country that the values of the Enlightenment are under attack.  It is a world-wide phenomenon with fundamentalists and intolerant ethnic nationalists using violence against each other in Iraq, in Sri Lanka, in Kashmir, in Palestine, in Sudan, etc.

    D.  My discussion of the Enlightenment Spirit will draw heavily on one chapter in a most unusual book titled SOPHIE'S WORLD.  The author is Norwegian Jostein Gaarder, and the sub-title of that book first published in 1995 is A NOVEL ABOUT THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.  It is a book which he wrote for his own daughter's fifteenth birthday to introduce her to the world of philosophy, but it can serve that purpose for any young person.  In fact, I have on a couple of occasions used it as a text for an Introduction to Philosophy course, and other professors have done likewise.  In 1999 the book was adapted into a Norwegian film, which was also shown as a TV series in Australia.  There even was some discussion of making a musical based on it, but as far as I know that hasn't happened.

    E. The title of the relevant chapter 24 is simply "The Enlightenment."  Gaarder notes that the Enlightenment begins in Britain in the last part of the 17th century and first half of the 18th century featuring the philosophers John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume.  In the middle of the 18th century the center of the movement shifts to France and the philosophers Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rouseau.  At the end of the 18th century the Enlightenment movement shifts eastward into Germany in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

    F.  One of the limitations of Gaarder's book is that it is so Europe-centered that no mention is made of American thinkers or historical events even when they are very relevant to the topics being discussed.  For example, in the discussion of the Enlightenement no mention is made of Thomas Paine.  Yet the title of Paine's book, THE AGE OF REASON, is often used as a synonymn for the Enlightenment period, especially in France.  That book is an excellent introduction to Enlightenment thinking.  In fact, I believe that there is no thinker or activist who better exemplifies the Enlightenment than Tom Paine, whose book COMMON SENSE was critical in stimulating Americans to seek their independence and who then went to France to participate in the French Revolution.  Gaarder notes how the Enlightenment was an important factor in the French Revolution (1788-1799), but he says not a word about Paine or how the values of the Enlightenment played a major role in the development of the U.S. Declaration of Independence (1776) and the U.S. Constitution (1789).

 

II.  Nevertheless Gaarder's analysis of the values of the Enlightenment movement is superb.  He lists seven key principles of the Enlightenment.

    A.  The first principle is opposition to authority, that is, opposition to the notion that certain individuals or institutions have the right to dictate to others what they should think and how they should behave.

        1.  One authority to which the Enlightenment was opposed was the religious authority of the Church.  Why should people have to submit their thinking and action to this institution, an institution which regularly resisted the findings of modern science?  Why should people still be expected to believe that the Earth was the center of the universe when scientists had proved conclusively that this was not the case?  Why should people continue to believe that miracles could occur when scientists like Newton were showing how everything takes place in accord with natural laws?

        2.  This same kind of thinking also applied to accepting the authority of the Bible.  In view of the findings of modern science, could one really believe that accounts of miracles and other happenings reported in the Bible were true?  David Hume in particular raised the critical question of whether it was rational to believe the Biblical account of the resurrection of Jesus.  But that was just the kind of conclusion that made most Christian leaders, whether Catholic or Protestant, committed enemies of the Enlightment from that time to the present.

        3.  The opposition to authority was also directed at the political authorities.  Why should a king and a few aristocrats be able to tell everyone else what to believe and what to do?  Weren't they just fallible humans like everyone else?  John Locke and others had pointed out that political authority should be based on a social contract and that rulers should govern only with the consent of the governed.  A democratic system would also be much better and less violent than a system where those who wanted to rule would fight wars against each other to see which would win and become the ruler.

        4.  This opposition to authority was also extended to the use of titles for nobility such as "Count" or "Countess."  People are people, and having a title doesn't show that that person is more important than others.  Titles should just be eliminated.

    B.The second principle of the Enlightenment was to use reason and empirical science to discover what is true and to figure out what is morally good.  Rely on philosophy and science rather than religion and self-appointed political leaders.

        1.  If one is not going to rely on religious authority for one's beliefs, there has to be some other basis.  In the 18th century Newtonian science was ready to provide this basis.  The whole universe moved in accord with "natural laws" such as the law of gravity.  Scientists could discover these laws, and there were no exceptions to them.  The world was like a giant machine where each change gave rise to other predictable changes.  As previously noted, there was no room for miracles in such a mechanically determined world.

        2.  This universalistic view of the world also led the Enlightenment philosophers to a universalistic morality.  All humans, regardless of nationality or race or religious persuasion or gender, are equal.  As Tom Paine said, "I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures happy."  He also said, "My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

    C.  The third principle of the Enlightenment is education for everyone, including children of the poor and uneducated.  Everyone has the capacity to learn, and everyone should be taught to read and to think for themselves.  Here we have the idea of liberal education for all, not just vocational training.  This viewpoint led to changes in the education of children and to the production of encyclopedias providing the latest scientific knowledge for everyone.

        1.  For me, one of the saddest things of our current society is the pathetic state of the public schools and the aggressive propagandistic efforts of religious fundamentalists to keep children from learning about science and philosophy.  Programs to introduce philosophical thinking for children in elementary and middle school are available, but they get aggressively attacked by a few parents who do not want their children to be taught to think for themselves. Education in this country is one area where Enlightenment values are definitely giving way to the enemies of the Enlightenment.

        2.  This attack against Enlightenment values with regard to education extends also to control of radio and television by anti-intellectuals.  Do you know that in certain parts of this country the radio frequencies usually given to public radio stations are being bought up by religious fundamentalists just so that there will be no access to public radio in those areas?

    D.  The fourth principle of the Enlightment is cultural optimism, the view that humanity will make great progress as scientific knowledge increases, as ignorance and prejudices are overcome, and as social institutions are improved on the basis of tested knowledge and dedication to a better life for all.

        1.  This cultural optimism supported great advancements in human welfare made in the subsequent 19th century, including the ending of public support for slavery; technological developments like the telegraph, the telephone, and the internal combustion engine; and the creation of international institutions to deal with problems too extensive to be handled by  individual nations working separately.

        2.  During the period from 1815-1914 the world experienced the Pax Britannica, the century of relatively stable world peace provided by the British Empire in the century following the Enlightenment.

        3.  The cultural optimism of the 18th century Enlightenment in Europe which continued through the 19th century  was dramatically brought to end by the horrors of World War I.  Unfortunately, humanity has never been able to regain that cultural optimism of the 18th and 19th centuries.

    E.  The fifth principle of the Enlightenment is get back to nature as opposed to relying on artificial traditions and conventions.  Human nature was regarded as naturally good, not corrupted by original sin as traditional Christianity taught.  Rousseau in particular argued that primitive "uncivilized" peoples are healthier and happier than Europeans with their artificial and sophisticated ways of doing things.  Children should be allowed to develop naturally and enjoy being children rather than being forced into adult behavior patterns and structured ways of behaving.

    F. The sixth principle of the Enlightenment is to base religion on natural reason and universalistic philosophy rather than the ideas of specific "tribalistic" religions, each with its own scriptures or ancient sacred writings.

        1. This reliance on philosophy and science did not mean going to atheism for most of the Enlightment thinkers, but it did mean not relying on revelation and religious institutions.  The prevailing view was Deism, that there is a God who creates the universe and then lets it run on its own.  God is like a watch-maker who makes a perfect universe and thus does not play favorites among humans and does not need to intervene with miracles to fix things up.

        2.  Furthermore, the traditional religions are just not helpful.  As Tom Paine put it, "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my church.  All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

    "I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man, that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe."

    G.  The seventh and last principle of the Enlightenment is the protection of everyone's natural rights.

        1.  One side of this principle is the notion of natural rights.  These are rights which you have whether a particular government says you have them or not.  Therefore they are rights that no government can take away from you.  British philosopher John Locke listed these natural rights as life (that is, everyone has an obligation not to kill you), liberty (that is, everyone has an obligation not to enslave you), and property (that is, everyone has an obligation not to steal from you).  In the U.S. Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson modified Locke's statement to say that we all have unalienable rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," rights which Britain in particular could not take away from Americans. In 1789 the French National Assembly adopted its own "Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen."

        2.  The other side of this principle is the notion that these rights belong to everyone, and the French were particularly interested in this aspect. They focused on eliminating censorship in the press and any effort to silence anyone from expressing their views, on the elimination of slavery, and on establishing humane treatment of criminals.  The French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet published a treatise on extending natural rights to women in 1787, but a woman named Olympe de Gouges got beheaded in 1793 when she demanded that women be provided all the same rights as were being provided to men.  Women's rights came much later.

        3.  The notion of human rights can become a point of great controversy when rights not previously mentioned are claimed.  Do women have the natural right to control their own bodies, including having an abortion if they wish?  Do fetuses have a natural right to life?  Do nation-states have a natural right to all the raw materials within their borders?

        4.  Regardless of your views on these particular issues, this notion that everyone has certain natural rights is one that comes to us from the Enlightenment.

 

III.  But my concern is not so much with particular issues such as which natural rights does everyone have as with the general spirit of the Enlightenment and the fact that our county and our world often seem to be turning their back on this great tradition which has meant so much to our country and our Unitarian-Universalist religious community, and which is so needed in our contemporary world community.

  A.  The world moves on.  New experience and knowledge are acquired.  We certainly can't go back to the 18th century and the Newtonian mechanical view of nature.  We now know that nature is much more complex and somewhat more unpredictable than that.  On the other hand, I find it very annoying to read articles about how science is now more open to religious possibilities as if modern science could be compatible with anything like the prescientific views found in the Bible with its miracles and resurrected bodies.  There are still unknowns, but there is no more scientific support for traditional supernaturalistic religious views now than there was in the 18th century.

    B.  Consequently, I say, "Let's bring back a big dose of the Enlightenment Spirit," and I hope that you agree that that would be a good thing.