The Religious Enlightenment

Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-691-14937-0
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 360 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

Reihe: Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World

In intellectual and political culture today, the Enlightenment is routinely celebrated as the starting point of modernity and secular rationalism, or demonized as the source of a godless liberalism in conflict with religious faith. In The Religious Enlightenment, David Sorkin alters our understanding by showing that the Enlightenment, at its heart, was religious in nature. Sorkin examines the lives and ideas of influential Protestant, Jewish, and Catholic theologians of the Enlightenment, such as William Warburton in England, Moses Mendelssohn in Prussia, and Adrien Lamourette in France, among others. He demonstrates that, in the century before the French Revolution, the major religions of Europe gave rise to movements of renewal and reform that championed such hallmark Enlightenment ideas as reasonableness and natural religion, toleration and natural law. Calvinist enlightened orthodoxy, Jewish Haskalah, and reform Catholicism, to name but three such movements, were influential participants in the eighteenth century's burgeoning public sphere and promoted a new ideal of church-state relations. Sorkin shows how they pioneered a religious Enlightenment that embraced the new science of Copernicus and Newton and the philosophy of Descartes, Locke, and Christian Wolff, uniting reason and revelation to renew faith and piety. This book reveals how Enlightenment theologians refashioned belief as a solution to the dogmatism and intolerance of previous centuries. Read it and you will never view the Enlightenment the same way.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Sorkin, David

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religion & Politik, Religionsfreiheit
• Geisteswissenschaften Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien Jüdische Studien: Philosophie, Aufklärung, Wissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsphilosophie, Philosophische Theologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Politik & Religion, Religionsfreiheit
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Religionssoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie Christliche Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: Aufklärung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Illustrations xi

List of Maps xii

Preface xiii

Introduction 1

Enlightenment or Enlightenments? 3

The Religious Enlightenment 5

Reasonableness 11

Toleration 14

The Public Sphere 16

State Nexus 18

The Enlightenment Spectrum 19

Chapter One: BRANT BROUGHTON, LONDON, GLOUCESTER

William Warburton's "Heroic Moderation" 23

Natural Right and Toleration 31

History 39

Established Religion 53

Justifi cation, Philosophy, and Science 54

Secular Culture 61

Moderation in Decline 64

Conclusion 65

Chapter Two: GENEVA

Jacob Vernet's "Middle Way" 67

Theology 76

Politics 85

The Enlightenment and the Philosophes 97

Geneva Transformed 109

Chapter Three: HALLE

Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten's "Vital Knowledge" 113

"The Union with God" 128

Exegesis 136

History, Sacred and Secular 142

Natural Right and Toleration 152

Neology and the State 158

Chapter Four: BERLIN

Moses Mendelssohn's "Vital Script" 165

Intellectual Renewal: Philosophy 176

Intellectual Renewal: Exegesis 180

"Civic Ac cep tance" and "Divine Legislation" 193

"The Socrates of Berlin" 206

Haskalah and Beyond 208

Conclusion 212

Chapter Five: VIENNA- LINZ

Joseph Valentin Eybel's "Reasonable Doctrine" 215

Church Law 228

Linz and Joseph II 237

"True Devotion" 249

Revolution 254

Conclusion 258

Chapter Six: TOUL- PARIS- LYON

Adrien Lamourette's "Luminous Side of Faith" 261

Where France Differed 263

Catholicism 266

The 1780s 269

Theology 274

Revolution, 1789-91 282

Revolution, 1791-94 296

Conclusion 307

Epilogue 311

Glossary 315

Index 319

Über Autor(innen)

Sorkin, David
David Sorkin is the Frances and Laurence Weinstein Professor of Jewish Studies and professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include "The Berlin Haskalah and German Religious Thought" and "Moses Mendelssohn and the Religious Enlightenment".