Enlightenment Age History Review: Cultural, Religious, and Intellectual Changes

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Main body
Conclusion
Work Cited

Introduction

Enlightenment age started around 1650 and is commonly referred to as the age of reason. How did the enlightenment age come about? There are various factors that contributed to the occurrence of this period ranging from cultural, religious and intellectual changes that occurred in Europe during 1500s to 1600s. The primary causal of this period includes scientific revolutions, declining influence of the church, exploration and imperialism, and the thirty years of war (Kant, 5)

Main body

Scientific revolutions begun at the end of middle age and came about as a result of failure by the church to handle all the needs of humanity. Therefore, scientist sought to know the laws governing nature besides supernatural powers through various observations. These revolutions came from farmers who begun to record down the best conditions for yields that were considered best. This later gave birth to greater curiosity to explore the world further. It received backing from the Church that believed that this was a message from God who wanted humanity to appreciate His creation. Earliest scientists include Galileo and Kepler, Bacon and Descartes and Newton. As a result, scientific revolution brought about Inductive and deductive reasoning in the fields of physics, astrology, mathematics and philosophy. Things that were viewed to have spiritual attachment and meaning were disclosed through scientific reasoning. Therefore, problem solving methods using mathematics and philosophy were created and accepted to replace the origin dependence on divine intervention. The most notable scientist was Isaac Newton who paved way for other thinkers who later enhanced the enlightenment age through Newton’s theory of observation and realization. This strongly contributed to the enlightenment age; most people begun to embrace change and turning to scientific methods for problem solving (www.sparknotes.com).

Secondly, there was a tremendous decline in how the church influenced the community. This was as a result of the split in Catholic Church that gave birth to Protestant church that went contrary to Catholic requirements. As result, grounds for criticism of the church were created and reasoning era came up. For example, Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), developed a philosophy that argued that, ethics is the guider of conduct but not religion. Therefore, religious concepts were frequently put to test by many thinkers and its supremacy in society questioned. Philosophers at that time combined the scientific reasoning and Baruch’s philosophy to further down play the role of God and questioned His existence. A point worth noting is that Europeans at that had become discontented with the church due to its massive corruption, intimidation and false knowledge. Therefore, when philosophers emerged with a message of self empowerment and liberty, many embraced it as a form of change and this marked the beginning of the enlightenment period.

Thirdly, the discovery of America initiated a series of European explorers to further travel and explore areas that had not been explored well. They travel to places such as Africa, Asia and on returning, they came with stories of different cultures and practices found in various parts of the world. These cultures touched on religion, family relationship and scientific discoveries. This necessitated a change in European culture as they tried to emulate the newly discovered cultures and practices thereby leading to the enlightenment age (www.sparknotes.com).

Lastly, the thirty years of war contributed to the enlightenment age. This war sought to remove the influence of Catholic Church on governance. This led to a fight emerging between the Catholics and the Protestants that saw a third of German population die. In addition, there was a general discontent on how European community were being ruled through Monarch making people to have no or little effect on governance. This discontent combined with Catholic intimidations led to the thirty years’ of war that gave birth to Enlightenment age.

Conclusion

In conclusion, enlightenment period can be said to be a product of various changes that were taking place in Europe at that time. However, most notably, is the discontent felt by people on how the Catholic Church influenced the political affairs of Europe at that time. This discontent coupled with the emergence of philosophical thinkers such as Newton who discredited the role of religion gave birth to the enlightenment age.

Work Cited

SparksNotes. The Enlightenment (1650–1800).

Kant Immanuel, Hugh Barr Nisbet, Hans Reiss. 2 Ed. Political Writings. London: Cambridge University Press, 1991. pp. 5-20.

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Enlightenment Age History Review: Cultural, Religious, and Intellectual Changes

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