Franklin: Puritan or Enlightenment? Essay

If we travel back to the year 1500, the Church (what we now call the Roman Catholic Church) was very powerful both politically and spiritually in Western Europe. For some time the Church was seen as an institution weighed down by internal power struggles. Popes and Cardinals often lived more like kings than spiritual leaders. Popes claimed political as well as spiritual power. They commanded armies, made political alliances and enemies, and, sometimes, even waged war.

A famous American business man named Donald Trump once said, “You have to think anyway, so why not think big?”, and that’s exactly what Protestant Reformation leader John Calvin did. The Protestant Reformation era was a remarkable time in Christianity from big thinkers. These people were greatly involved in the Protestant Reformation, and Calvin was one of them. John Calvin was a leader because he was willing to make difficult decisions, motivated others, and impacted history.

Enlightenment thinkers rejected assumptions such as accepting of ideas of the Church because the Church says they are correct and instead needed empirical and factual evidence to support their theories. Many theories and laws speculated during the Enlightenment proved to be true and became the basis for rational thinking. The Enlightenment was mainly composed of farmers, artisans, and well-educated colonists, who delved into subjects such as science and human intelligence in costly books and newspapers. Benjamin Franklin, a middle-class colonist, is widely considered as the essence of the Enlightenment, as he had a ravenous intellectual curiosity and believed in the use and application of science. This American movement strengthened colonists’ contempt towards English royalty, pushing for independence rather than being property of another country. Enlightenment thinkers presented many philosophies encompassing the rights of man and the duties of a government, such as John Locke, who contributed ideas of entitlement to life, liberty, and property and separation of powers were eventually incorporated into the current

The first great practitioner of the new evangelical Calvinism was Lyman Beecher. Beecher led thousands to accept their sinfulness and surrender to God.

He affirmed that people could be ethical without having a religion or believing in God. Franklin’s philosophies general followed the principles of what became known as “The Age of Enlightenment. He based his philosophy on the belief that man had the ability to think for themselves and the power to do good for mankind and use their talents for the betterment of all.He concluded that people could build their societies without being told how and what to do by one government that ruled all. While Franklin was certain that there was a higher power, he also accredited man, with the capabilities of securing his own happiness through self discipline and hard work. Franklin defended freedom of religion and that the basics of most religions were to do good to others. Therefore, at some point on earth or in the hereafter, those who sought the route of crime would be punished. Thus, he respected all religions as he concludes,” These I esteemed the essentials of every religion; and, being to be found in all the religions we had in our country, I respected them

During the Pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment periods, man began to question that model of the Universe. Copernicus' revolutionary model of the Universe placed the Sun at the centre of the Universe. Though Copernicus' ideas were only allowed to b e published as he was on his deathbed, the Church grudgingly agreed to Copernicus' model of the Universe as it still placed man's solar system in the centre of the Universe. Later, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler adjusted Copernicus' model so that it fit both observation and mathematics. The final Enlightened blow to the Catholic Church came when Isaac Newton proposed-and subsequently proved-that not only is out planet and the solar system not at the centre of the Universe, but that the Universe itself is a machine: it can be governed only be natural and physical laws. This presented a great change in society and proved to be a most fatal blow to the Catholic Church. For, if the Universe is governed by natural and physical laws, how could God possible interfere with events in the Universe? This only proves that the spirit of the Enlightenment was one of changed-and, indeed, such change meant breaking away from the

The Enlightenment is when popular Christian preachers in the 1700’s preached to their congregation that freedom does not bestow from the English crown but is bestowed from God. They explained to their people that they had free will to choose what they wanted to do in order to be the best they could be for themselves. This included freedom of commerce, freedom of religion, and freedom of press. The Enlightenment gave people courage because of their faith in God to pursue freedom. Benjamin Franklin guided people in politics and people in the religious fashion and got them together. He helped facilitate the continental congress and other countries that would help support us during the revolutionary war. Franklin helped introduce Enlightenment to America through his readings, his writings, and his actions.

Melvyn Bragg and guests Justin Champion, Susan Hardman Moore and Diarmaid MacCulloch discuss the ideas of the religious reformer John Calvin - the theology known as Calvinism, or Reformed Protestantism - and its impact. John Calvin, a Frenchman exiled to Geneva, became a towering figure of the 16th century Reformation of the Christian Church. He achieved this not through charismatic oratory, but through the relentless rigour of his analysis of the Bible. In Geneva, he oversaw an austere, theocratic and sometimes brutal regime. Nonetheless, the explosion of printing made his theology highly mobile. The zeal he instilled in his followers, and the persecution which dogged them, rapidly spread the faith across Europe, and on to the New World in

John Calvin made an extremely large and powerful impact on Christianity as a whole, and that impact can still be seen today. Calvin was born in a small town in the country in France, but eventually became, and is still regarded as the theologian Martin Luther’s successor during one of Christianity’s most shaping events of the time, the Protestant Reformation. At first, he had studied Protestantism due to his father being a priest, but he became the possible most important people of the second part of the Reformation. Calvin originally never wanted to become a part of the Reformation, but he had a lasting effect on the years to follow, even despite being persecuted, and threatened with death in the Great Inquisition. He had the goal, like most

During the time of Enlightenment, individuals tried to find a way to still be religious while using scientific evidence in determining faith in the church and religion. Many scientific ideas of this era came from some of the pioneers of the country and science. Benjamin Franklin was one of the most influential thinkers of this era (Schultz, 2013). The choice of faith, religion, and denomination lied in the hands of the people rather than the government, with a much more democratic upbringing, this was much different than was practiced by European nations (Schultz,

John Calvin was a very intense reformer who made sure his ideas were heard. In Geneva, the city in which Calvin had the most influence, Calvin’s ideas were forced on to the citizens and enforced by the law of Geneva. Servetus and Calvin had very different views on Christianity and were each expert writers who could convey their ideas on paper in a way for any literate person to easily understand. That’s why when Servetus came to Geneva and was arrested, the debates between him and Calvin were so great. In John Calvin’s The Institutes, he describes Jesus Christ to be the Eternal Son of God and expresses that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all equal and should all be worshiped.

It is easy to see Benjamin Franklin was no doubt an archetypal American. No one since him has ever had the same amount of success as him. He was a private businessman who made enough money to retire early and to spend the rest of his life in politics. Around this time period only the rich were able to retire early. He was industrious. Franklin continually put forth the idea of the industrious American. He had support from the middle-class who did not care if he was rich but he was a man who was self-made and worked hard. This American attitude was formed early and most of it by him. Franklin was also not judgmental came to decisions and conclusions as a businessman and politician. However, his attitude was non-judgmental with respect to a

The culture, religion, politics and people that one is exposed to shape the ideas that they develop; as John Locke said, an individual is a “Tabula Rasa”, in the beginning of their lives. The Enlightenment was founded upon the scientific revolution, the spread of ideas through the printing press, humanism, and the undermining of the Catholic Church’s authority. The Enlightenment focused on finding explanations for the natural world through science inquiry, reexamining traditional ideas and reforming them, and individuals liberties. The Enlightenment thinkers Benjamin Franklin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau philosophical differences and similarities are explained by the regions and experiences they were exposed to. Benjamin Franklin was primarily influenced by English and American values which promoted individual rights, religious freedom, representation and a capitalist society. He supported

John Calvin was a lawyer, but he became dedicated to reforming the church. In the 1520s the people of Geneva revolted against their rulers and Calvin was invited to build a Reformed Church of Geneva. He rearranged the organization of the church governing system and the social organization of the church and the city. He organized based entirely on biblical principles. He imposed a strict moral code derived from the scriptures.

During the Middle Ages period people believed in the idea of a Geocentric universe, the Earth was the absolute center of the universe, church had more power and authority than anybody else. People were influenced and thought that everything they do had to be approved by God. Nicolaus Copernicus challenged the theory that insisted that we lived in a Geocentric universe, and that is where our universe literally changed. Church believes started to doubt the theories that church had adopted in early years. The Scientific Revolution opened