Political emancipation from the oppression of the past (a key theme of the French Revolution) meant a total abandoning of the political, social, and religious ideas of the past. One of the reasons why Enlightenment thinkers placed such a high value upon human reason was that it relieved them of the need to appeal to tradition for ideas; any ideas worth knowing about were accessible to reason alone.
The Enlightenment thus represented a radical rejection of tradition. Reason required no supplementation by voices from the past. The waning of the influence of the Enlightenment in recent decades has been an important factor in encouraging the emergence of a new interest in and respect for tradition in Christian theology.
- Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, p126
No comments:
Post a Comment