The Western Story: The Growth of Modernity

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The Western StoryThe Growth of Modernity

• Living at the Crossroads
• Chapter 6

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Historical DevelopmentWho named these anyway?

• Middle Ages
• Renaissance
• Enlightenment

What is the hero of the story?
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• All histories are telling a story according to
  some hero
• Invitation to participate in the story and place
  faith in the hero

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Development of Modern Worldview
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Renaissance Humanism Born Again (14th-15th c.)

• Re-emergence of humanism
• Renewed interest in this world

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First, in the modern period there is a transfer
of interest from the eternal and universal to
what is changing and specific, concrete--a
movement that showed itself practically in
carrying over of attention and thought from
another world to this, from the supernaturalism
characteristic of the Middle Ages to delight in
natural science, natural activity, and natural
intercourse. -
John Dewey
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Renaissance (14th-15th c.)

• Re-emergence of humanism
• Renewed interest in this world
• Human beings are autonomous

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Autonomy of humankind

• The nature of other creatures, which has been
  determined, is confined within the bounds
  prescribed by Us. You, who are confined by no
  limits, shall determine for yourself your own
  nature, in accordance with your own free will, in
  whose hand I have placed you. I have set you at
  the center of the world, so that from there you
  may more easily survey whatever is in the world.
  We have made you neither heavenly nor earthly,
  neither mortal nor immortal, so that, more freely
  and more honourably the molder and maker of
  yourself, you may fashion yourself in whatever
  form you prefer (Pico della Mirandolla, 1468).

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Renaissance (14th-15th c.)

• Re-emergence of humanism
• Renewed interest in this world
• Human beings are autonomous
• Non-human world is autonomous

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From creation to nature

• The world lost its character of creation and
  became nature.. . . In seeing the world as
  nature, the humanist takes it out of Gods hand
  and makes it independent (Romano Guardini).

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Creation not nature!

• The Bible rejects the notion of Greek thought
  and modern humanistic science that reality is
  nature, that is, something that has the cause of
  its own existence in itself, can exist by itself,
  and exists for itself (Bernard Zylstra).

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Renaissance (14th-15th c.)

• Re-emergence of humanism
• Renewed interest in this world
• Human beings are autonomous
• Non-human world is autonomous
• Human beings orient lives toward mastery of
  nature

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Life oriented toward nature

• This clearly entails a spiritual choice as to
  cultural direction, namely, that mans destiny is
  realized primarily in his relation to the natural
  things of this world and not in relation to his
  fellowmen. . . . The centrality of the
  relationship of man with nature, however, is one
  of the most characteristic features of western
  culture since the Renaissance. . . . We
  distinguish ourselves as human beings primarily
  by the shape we give to this world through human
  thought and creative ability rather than by the
  meaning of our lives to other persons (Bob
  Goudzwaard).

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Reformation Salting and Secularizing (16th c.)

• Salting Recovery of Biblical worldview
• New emphasis on goodness of creation
• New emphasis on goodness of all cultural callings
• New emphasis on scope and power of sin
• New emphasis on salvation as restoration of all
  creation

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Benefits to West from salting effect of gospel

• Christian ethical values, high estimation of
  reason, a sense of the intelligibility of the
  world, of the human calling to exercise dominion,
  of humanitys intrinsic dignity and inalienable
  rights, of the moral responsibility of the
  individual, and of the imperative to care for the
  helpless and less fortunate, an orientation
  toward the future and belief in historical
  progress (Tarnas).

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Reformation Salting and Secularizing (16th c.)

• Salting Recovery of Biblical worldview
• Secularizing Accelerated aspects of modern
  humanist worldview

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Scientific Revolution (16th-17th c)

• Christian and humanist vision
• Humanist vision to dominate nature

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Descartes and Bacon craft modern vision

• Knowledge is power Scientific knowledge of world
  enables humankind to build better world
• Scientific knowledge of natures laws enables
  humanity to predict how nature would respond
• This would give power to control
• Nature manipulated in a quest for a secular
  paradise
• Basis for knowledge autonomous rational person
  and law-governed nature
• Need for a new method to get scientific knowledge

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Second aspect of modernity, there is the
gradual decay of authority...and a growing belief
in the power of individual minds, guided by
methods of observation, experiment and
reflection, to attain the truths needed for the
guidance of life. The operations and results of
natural inquiry gained in prestige and power at
the expense of principles dictated from high
authority. - John Dewey
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Methodological Reason
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Scientific Revolution (16th-17th c)

• Christian and humanist vision
• Humanist vision to dominate nature
• Triumph of humanist visionwhy?
• Conflict with church

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He sets the earth on its foundations it can
never be moved (Ps. 1045). O sun, stand
still... so the sun stood still (Josh.
1012f.). The earth remains forever. The sun
rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where
it rises (Eccl. 14f.).
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So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must
agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do
something of his own. This is what that fellow
does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy
upside down. . . . I believe the Holy Scriptures,
for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and
not the earth. -Martin Luther
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The Copernican theory undoubtedly contained a
challenge for the Catholic theology. But instead
of accepting the challenge and reflecting on
faith in a new perspective, the Church opted for
an easy conservatism, keeping the enemy at bay by
means of its anathemas. This failure to accept
the challenge of a new world picture was a great
loss to the Church and to Christianity. -Max
Wildiers
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Scientific Revolution (16th-17th c)

• Christian and humanist vision
• Humanist vision to dominate nature
• Triumph of humanist visionwhy?
• Conflict with church
• Religious wars

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Triumph of humanist vision
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Paradigm shift in wake of scientific revolution
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Enlightenment The Conversion of the West to a
New Faith (18th c.)

• Modern worldview comes to maturity
• Confessional humanism becomes dominant religious
  vision or culturally formative worldview
• Enlightenment faith

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Enlightenment faith

• Faith in progress
• Enlightenment writers demolished the Heavenly
  City of Augustine, only to rebuild it with
  up-to-date materials (Carl Becker).

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Progress is . . .
. . . the dominant motif in Western society (Bob
Goudzwaard). . . . the working faith of our
civilization (Christopher Dawson).
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In the third place, great store is set upon the
idea of progress. The future rather than the past
dominates the imagination. The Golden Age lies
ahead of us not behind us. Everywhere new
possibilities beckon and arouse courage and
effort... Man is capable, if he will but exercise
the required courage, intelligence and effort, of
shaping his own fate. Physical conditions offer
no insurmountable barriers.
- John Dewey
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Enlightenment faith

• Faith in progress
• Paradise images Secularized vision of biblical
  story

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Augustines story recast in humanist terms...
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Augustines heavenly city becomes humanist
paradise of Enlightenment

• Enlightenment writers demolished the Heavenly
  City of Augustine, only to rebuild it with
  up-to-date materials (Carl Becker).

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Paradise Images

• . . . whatever was the beginning of this world,
  the end will be glorious and paradisiacal, beyond
  what our imaginations can now conceive (Joseph
  Priestly).
• There will be no more war, no crimes, no
  administration of justice, as it is called, and
  no government. Besides this, there will be
  neither disease, anguish, melancholy, nor
  resentment. Every man will seek, with ineffable
  ardour, the good of all (William Goodwin).

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Enlightenment faith

• Faith in progress
• Paradise images Secularized vision of biblical
  story
• Progress identified with economic growth
• . . . the greatest happiness possible for us
  consists in the greatest possible abundance of
  objects suitable for our enjoyment and in the
  greatest liberty to profit by them (Mercier de
  la Riviere, 1767).

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Enlightenment faith

• Faith in progress
• Propelled by reason and science
• . . . man is capable, guided solely by the
  light of reason and experience, of perfecting the
  good life of earth. (Becker)

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...the conviction that man was steadily and
inevitably approaching entrance into a better
world, that man himself was being progressively
improved and perfected through his own efforts,
constituted one of the most characteristic, deep-
seated, and consequential principles of the
modern sensibility. Christianity no longer
seemed to be the driving force of the human
enterprise. For the robust civilization of the
West at the high noon of modernity, it was
science and reason, not religion and belief,
which propelled that progress. Mans will, not
Gods, was the acknowledged source of the worlds
betterment and humanitys advancing liberation.

-Richard Tarnas
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Enlightenment view of reason

• Autonomous Independent of divine revelation
• Instrumental Employed to predict, control, shape
  world
• Universal Transcends culture, same for all people

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Enlightenment faith

• Faith in progress
• Propelled by reason and science
• Scientific reason translated into technology
• Scientific reason translated into societal
  organization
• Progress comes by the application of reason to
  both technical and social issues (Plumb).

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Rational society

• Locke Politics
• Smith Economics
• Grotius Law
• Education . . . more treatises were written on
  education during the 18th century than in all the
  previous centuries combined. (Perry)

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Concept of natural law

• Natural laws in economics, politics, society that
  can be grasped by reason alone
• Rooted in Christian idea of creation order
• Law divorced from God as law-giver

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Enlightenment faith

• Faith in progress
• Propelled by reason and science
• Scientific reason translated into technology
• Where can the perfectibility of man stop, armed
  with geometry and the mechanical arts and
  chemistry? (Sébastien Mercier, 1770)
• Technology had indeed become a saving guide . .
  . It was the dawn of a new world (Goudzwaard).

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From creation order to natural law

• There is no longer a divine law-giver whose
  commands are to be obeyed because they are Gods.
  Laws are necessary relationships which spring
  from the nature of things Montesquieu. As such
  they are available for discovery by human reason
  (Lesslie Newbigin).

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Diagram of Enlightenment Faith
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Enlightenment (18th c.)

• Modern worldview comes to maturity
• Rationalistic humanism dominant religious
  vision or culturally formative worldview
• Enlightenment faith
• Clash with the Christian faith

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Narrowing of gospel

• The early Christian belief that the Fall and
  Redemption pertained not just to man but to the
  entire cosmos, a doctrine already fading after
  the Reformation, now disappeared altogether the
  process of salvation, if it had any meaning at
  all, pertained solely to the personal relation
  between God and man (Tarnas).

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Fact-Value Dichotomy
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Age of Revolution Bringing Society into
Conformity with Enlightenment Faith (19th 20th
c.)

• A new faith The West had lost its faith in God
  and found a new one, in science and in man.
  (Tarnas).
• A new society If the Enlightenment faith is true
  then the establishment of new social
  institutions is not a tedious, incidental task,
  but a dire necessity and a high ethical
  imperative. In that case, the narrow way to the
  lost paradise can only be the way of social
  revolution. (Goudzwaard)

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Revolutions in wake of Enlightenment

• French revolution
• Industrial revolution
• American revolution
• Democratic revolutions
• Marxist revolution

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Industrial Revolution (19th c.)

• Age of revolution Bringing society into
  conformity with Enlightenment faith
• Union of science and Technology Demonstrates
  sciences practical value

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In the fourth place, the patient and experimental
study of nature, bearing fruit in inventions
which control nature and subdue her forces to
social uses, is the method by which progress is
made. Knowledge is power...
- John Dewey
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The marriage between science and technology
...may mark the greatest event in human history
since the invention of agriculture, and perhaps
in nonhuman terrestrial history as well..Somewhat
over a century ago science and technology--hithert
o quite separate activities--joined to give
mankind powers which, to judge by many of the
ecologic effects, are out of control.

- Lynn White
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Industrial Revolution (19th c.)

• Demonstrates sciences practical value
• Technology spawns economic growth

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Dramatic Rise in Productivity
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Dramatic Economic Growth
In the period from 1840 to 1900 Britain
industrialized and Gross National Product per
capita increased from 300 to over
900. Portugal did not industrialize and the GNP
per capita moved from 250 to 260.
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Industrial Revolution (19th c.)

• Demonstrates sciences practical value
• Technology spawns economic growth
• Reshapes all aspects of social life
• Suffering and ideology Confidence in progress

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French Revolution

• Liberty, equality, fraternity
• Abolish remnants of antiquated Christendom
  divine right of kings, privilege of nobility,
  and authority of church
• Replace with inalienable rights of the individual
  citizen, the subordination of church to state, a
  constitutional government, administrative and
  judicial reforms, business legislation, and
  universal public education.

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Modern State

• Transformed into modern state
• Founded on confessional humanism
• Living off the capital of the gospel
• In the modern world, the state is the single
  most powerful institutional force in the
  international community, and probably the most
  successful institutional carrier of the
  modernization process. (Andrew Walker)

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Suffering and Ideology

• Suffering as result of revolutions
• Progress doctrine threatened
• Ideology shores up confidence in progress

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19th Century Ideologies
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Legacy of Enlightenment
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Western Confession of Faith
I believe in Science Almighty. I believe in the
power of human reason disciplined by the
scientific method to understand, control, and
change our world. I believe in Technology and a
Rational Society, its only begotten Sons which
have the power to renew our world.
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I believe in the spirit of Progress. I believe
that a science based technology and a rationally
organized society will enable me to realize my
ultimate human goal-- freedom, happiness, and the
comforts of material abundance. I believe in
economic growth. I believe that the abundance of
consumer goods and the leisure time to consume
them will make me happy. To this I commit myself
with all my money, time, energy, and resources.
Amen.
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Romantic Reaction

• Emergence of new subsidiary cultural stream
• Reaction to Enlightenment modernity
• Share common roots and beliefs
• Complex interplay shapes western culture from
  19th c.

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Elements shared by Enlightenment and Romanticism

• Humanistic
• Secular
• Individualistic

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Differences Enlightenment and Romanticism
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Development in 19th and 20th Centuries
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Technological Optimism
We are the first . . . to have enough of that
power actually at hand to create new
possibilities almost at will. By massive physical
changes deliberately induced, we can literally
pry new alternatives from nature. The ancient
tyranny of matter has been broken, and we know
it. . . We can change it (the physical world) and
shape it to suit our purposes. . . By creating
new possibilities, we give ourselves more
choices. With more choices, we have more
opportunities. With more opportunities, we can
have more freedom, and with more freedom we can
be more human. That, I think, is what is new
about our age. . . We are recognizing that our
technical prowess literally bursts with promise
of new freedom, enhanced human dignity, and
unfettered aspiration. -Emmanuel Mesthene
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Counterculture of the 1960s Growing Despair

• Rock music, drug culture, hippie movement,
  student uprisings, etc.
• Challenge to light of science and technology
  
• The youthful counter-culture have, in a
  variety of ways, called into question the
  validity of the conventional scientific
  worldview, and in so doing have set about the
  undermining the foundations of the technocracy
  (Theodore Roszak in Making of a Counterculture).

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Growing Despair

• I believe I am not exaggerating when I say that
  modern man has suffered an almost fatal shock,
  psychologically speaking, and as a result has
  fallen into profound uncertainty. . . . The
  revolution in our conscious outlook, brought
  about by catastrophic results of the World War,
  shows itself in our inner life by the shattering
  of our faith in ourselves and our own worth. . .
  . I realize only too well that I am losing my
  faith in the possibility of a rational
  organization of the world, the old dream of the
  millennium, in which peace and harmony should
  rule, has grown pale (Carl Jüng).

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Confidence in modernity Differences

• In the United States, and similarly in Canada,
  there was a discernibly different spirit, born of
  different experiences. In America after 1945
  there was a sense of confidence and optimism that
  was a reaffirmation of historic Western ideas
  about progress. In the postwar era, America
  became the new proving ground for the
  Enlightenment and its faith. (Ronald Wells)

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Breakdown of ModernityCritical Factors in
Dillusionment

• Environmental destruction

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• If the whole world lived at the level of North
  Americans
• the worlds resources would last
  about ten years

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Breakdown of ModernityCritical Factors in
Dillusionment

• Environmental destruction
• Growing poverty

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At the beginning of the development decades
(1960) the worlds richest 1 billion were 30 x
richer than the worlds poorest 1 billion. At
the end of the development decades (1990) the
worlds richest 1 billion were 150 x richer than
the poorest 1 billion
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Breakdown of ModernityCritical Factors in
Dillusionment

• Environmental degradation
• Growing poverty
• Nuclear threat
• Economic problems
• Psychological, social disorder

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What is true of each item in the following list?
Low self-esteem Depressed Stress Obsessive
compulsion Sado masochistic Identity
crisis Seasonal affective disorder Post-traumatic
stress disorder
Burned out Paranoid Bulimic Midlife
crisis Anorexic Psychopathic deviate Repressed

• Psychological problems
• All have come into usage in the latter part of
  20th c.

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Breakdown of ModernityContrasting Attitudes
Early Modernity
Postmodernity
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Urgent questions at the beginning of the 21st
century

• Does humanity have the power to renew the world?
• Can scientific reason give us certain knowledge?

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Certain, objective, neutral knowledge?
Subjective factors affecting knowledge
Social -Tradition -Community -Language -Culture -H
istory -Faith
Personal -Feelings -Imagination -Subconscious -Gen
der -Class -Race
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Urgent questions at the beginning of the 21st
century

• Does humanity have the power to renew the world?
• Can scientific reason give us certain knowledge?
• Are we capable of mastering nature to give a
  better world?
• Will the non-human creation be able to sustain
  human life?
• Is there a future?
• Will economic growth and material prosperity
  bring happiness?

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The urgent question!

• The real question is What is God doing in these
  tremendous events of our time? How are we to
  understand them and interpret them to others, so
  that we and they may play our part in them as
  co-workers with God? Nostalgia for the past and
  fear for the future are equally out of place for
  the Christian. He is required, in the situation
  in which God places him, to understand the signs
  of the times in the light of the reality of Gods
  present and coming kingdom, and to give witness
  faithfully about the purpose of God for all men.
  (Lesslie Newbigin)

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What is God doing?

• Levelling the idols of modernity
• I am the Lord that is my name! I will not give
  my glory to another or my praise to idols (Isa.
  428)

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Who turned out the lights in Enlightenment
culture?

• In a sense they turned themselves out. . . . But
  on an even more ultimate level, who turned out
  the lights? God did! God is historically turning
  out the lights of this culture as God always
  turns out the lights of idolatrous cultures.
  (Brian Walsh)

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• We are beginning to notice the modern world, as
  we have known it, disappear in our rear-view
  mirror as we move on into the unknown (Andrew
  Walker).