Christianity During The Enlightenment

Every aspect of life was viewed through a lens of Christianity. Ancient writings held a position of power over people's everyday lives, and people looked to the church and government for direction in almost all things. Whether Christianity had a positive or negative effect on medieval times and people can be disputed, but its control, dominance, and how it was blindly accepted cannot go ignored. Christianity's influence and power started to decrease, however, during the Enlightenment, when many critical thinkers tried to be as rational as possible; they only believed what they perceived as reasonable or what they could explain using logic. Enlightenment thinkers looked at both their religious and economic beliefs through a lens of reason, causing …show more content…
In Medieval times, the people relied heavily on the church. They were taught that some writings, like the Bible, were truth and tradition and should not be doubted. In the Enlightenment, however, critical thinkers like Rene Descartes questioned everything. The things that they could explain they accepted as truth, but the things that they could not they rejected. In this, they lost faith, substituting reason instead. This made deism a more rational religion, but this way of thinking did not follow all of God's teachings. Hebrews 11 focuses on the importance of faith, saying that "faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for" (Hebrews 11:1-2). Because there are so many seemingly impossible things in Christianity, like Jesus' resurrection, Christianity requires complete trust in the things that can't simply be reasoned out. This idea of using reason over faith is still applicable today. Many people still struggle with trying to fit scientific discoveries of even theories with their religious beliefs. When scientists try to reason out the creation of the world and arrive at theories like the Big Bang Theory that clash with biblical stories, like the story of Genesis in this case, some people assume that Christianity and science can't possibly align. Science is not the only thing Christianity is separated from; there is a similar situation with …show more content…
"In the Middle Ages, people were more concerned with the personal moral implications of economic policy" (fdkas, 34041419). On the contrary, economic ideas of the Enlightenment were focused more on money than morals. This is most likely thanks to Adam Smith. Adam Smith realized that the government's "interference in the economy […] ended up decreasing the wealth of a country rather than increasing it" (jnadsla, 09213019324). Using his critical thinking, he imagined a new system. This system was a free market, where the government did not tamper with prices and the like. It is also the system we use today. While it does provide opportunities for entrepreneurs and encourage hard, efficient work, there are some things this system, capitalism, misses. In Acts 4:32, believers were united through Christ and shared their belongings. While this system failed quickly, as shown by the story of Ananias and Sapphira, the idea was good. Christians have a duty to help the poor. "There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land" (Deuteronomy 15:11). Because of the free market system, there are people who end up being poor, even homeless. By accepting this system, the people of the Enlightenment made it more difficult for the poor to get the