ENLIGHTENMENT [1]:
a movement characterized by the historian TROELTSCH (1865-1923) as
the beginning of the really modern period of European CULTURE. It had its roots in
PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY and was strongly influenced by PIETISM finding its clearest
expression in the work of KANT who defined "the Enlightenment" in his book Religion
Within the Limits of Reason (1793) as man's emergence from a self-inflicted state of
minority. Kant wrote: "Have the courage to make use of your own understanding, is
therefore the watchword of the Enlightenment." The Enlightenment originated in the
Netherlands and England in the mid-seventeenth century but reached its high-water mark in
French RATIONALISM and MATERIALISM finding political expression in the French REVOLUTION.
Its richest philosophical and political results were achieved in Germany under the
influence of Kant. Although many branches of the Enlightenment were self-consciously
ANTI-CHRISTIAN and a distinctive form of Enlightenment Christianity developed in
Protestant countries, other branches of PROTESTANTISM were influential in promoting
concerns similar to those of the Rationalists. Enlightenment Christianity as such was
characterized by a retreat from DOGMAS, SACRAMENTS and CEREMONIES, FAITH in PROVIDENCE,
obligation to "virtue" and a tendency to subordinate Christian dogmas to current
ideas from SCIENCE and CULTURE.
