ENLIGHTENMENT, RATIONALISM, AND RELIGION

Abstract

Eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinking have been mainly categorized as an age in which rationalism was a widespread and dominant philosophy. Seeing the Enlightenment in terms of rationalism and reason reduced Enlightenment to an anti-religious position. Especially scholars of modernity and secularization aimed at finding antireligious perspectives in the Enlightenment thought and its social history. That built a discourse that there was an enmity between rationalism/reason and religion. However, rationalism has had roots within religion in the Western history since the Middle Ages. Also, in the Enlightenment age rationalism was defended at religious circles and there were attempts to find a balance or synthesis between reason and revelation. On the other hand, the notions of rationalism and the age of reason were not single one philosophy that could be seen in the Enlightenment age. In that period empiricism was also dominant in Britain and challenged rationalism. In the meantime, scholars relevant to various Enlightenment traditions made it possible to define the Enlightenment as an age of sentiment. Because of this approach, instead of analyzing the Enlightenment as a rationalistic and age of reason against religion we need to rethink the relationship between Enlightenment/modernity and religion with a more detailed analysis. In this study, it will be argued that by making a research on the literature on the Enlightenment thought, the relationship between rationalism and religion is not considered necessarily as an antagonistic one. The Age of Enlightenment was the most fertile times in the European history. For this reason it should be insistently refrained from excessive generalizations about the Enlightenment. If it is needed to trace every kind of philosophy back in the history, it is possible to find that kind of philosophy in the Age of Enlightenment. When viewed in the context of the relationship between the Enlightenment and religion, Eighteenth-century could not be easily portrayed as an anti-religious age. First of all there is not enough empirical evidence to support that people moved away from religion in this age. In the meantime it cannot be asserted that in the EighteenthCentury there was an important movement toward deism or atheism. Contrarily, there is enough evidence showing that religion and the church maintained their places in civil society and politics. One of the reasons why the Enlightenment was understood as anti-religion is that contemporary philosophers wanted to discover the “modern” element in the Enlightenment to explain modern secularization process. Therefore, they paid attention to the top-down change in society and especially to some philosophers such as La Mettrie, Voltaire, Helvetius, Spinoza, whom can be described as the Radical Enlightenment philosophers. Yet, the story of the Enlightenment did not start and end with these philosophers. Another issue is that the French-based view of “progressive” thought should be revised in a significant way. Progressive thought in France was not valid in every corner of West and especially in England, America, and Scotland. Of course, the British were optimistic about the social development and improvement. However, this cannot be seen as progressivism as the progressive imagination includes rationalist domination toward history and society. The British empiricism, which does not allow that domination, was only in search of possibilities of development and improvement needed. It could even be said that conceptual differences such as the use of progress in France and improvement in England have different connotations and meanings. Similarly the Enlightenment could not be understood just from Continental Europe rationalism. The presence of Enlightenment traditions in different parts of Europe and even in America should be explored. From this perspective, the notions of rationalism and the Age of Reason do not represent the Enlightenment totally. More generally, the Age of Enlightenment must be seen through the concepts of empiricism and the Age of Sentiment, as in the case of rationalism and the Age of Reason. In particular, religion and morality are in the background of the concept of the Age of Sentiment. More precisely, a lot of philosophical analysis continued to be made over religion here. For many philosophers religion continued to provide an explanation to express moral sense and morality in human beings. In the same way, it cannot be said that harsh arguments against religion have been developed in countries with a strong empirical tradition. In terms of the age of reason and rationalism it is not easy to build the enlightened anti-religious discourse. Rationalist philosophy had a foundation in religion before secular philosophies. Since the Middle Ages, there has been an intellectual tradition to prove the existence of God and religion by reasoning. Also in the age of the Enlightenment rationalism and reason are seen not as opposed to religion, instead as a complement to religion. In this respect, as Schmidt (2012: 489) points out, in terms of religion the Enlightenment covers a wide area and represents many things ranging from reasonableness of Christianity (like John Locke and Benjamin Rush) to a complete Free-thinking skepticism. In addition to all these, it must be stated that the Enlightenment developed a serious attitude towards religion and the church. Eighteenthcentury is a major period of change with regard to political, social and economic life. In this process of change, the ability to accommodate different interpretations of religion was not always developed. And the result was a serious social conflict because of different religious perspectives. For the Church as an institution it was not easy to understand this change and to adapt itself to it. As a result, in this chaotic situation, reaction against religion arising from institutional structure was inevitable. Therefore, it can be said

Özet

18. Yüzyıl Aydınlanma düşüncesi çoğunlukla rasyonalizmin yaygın ve hakim felsefe olduğu bir dönem olarak kategorize edilmiştir. Aydınlanmanın rasyonalizm ve akıl üzerinden okunması Aydınlanmayı din-karşıtı bir konuma indirgemiştir. Özellikle modernite ve sekülerleşme üzerinden yapılan analizlerle Aydınlanma düşüncesinde ve sosyal tarihinde bu din-karşıtı unsurun bulunması amaçlanmıştır. Böylelikle rasyonalizm-akıl ile din arasında bir karşıtlık olduğu anlatısı inşa edilmiştir. Oysa ki, Batı tarihinde rasyonalizm ortaçağlardan itibaren din içerisinde zemin bulmuş bir felsefedir. Aydınlanma çağında da, rasyonalizm dini çevrelerde savunulmaya devam etmiş, akıl ve vahiy arasında bir denge veya sentez kurulmaya çalışılmıştır. Diğer taraftan, rasyonalizm ve akıl çağı nosyonları Aydınlanma çağında görülebilecek tek felsefe değildir. Daha çok Britanya'da hakim olan ampirizm en az rasyonalizm kadar Aydınlanma yüzyılını temsil eden bir felsefedir. Aynı şekilde farklı Aydınlanma gelenekleri üzerine yapılan araştırmalarla Aydınlanmanın akıl çağı olduğu kadar duygu çağı olarak ta tanımlanması artık kabul edilir hale gelmiştir. Bu nedenle Aydınlanmanın rasyonalizm ve akıl üzerinden kolayca din karşıtı olarak analiz edilmesi yerine daha detaylı analizlerle Aydınlanma ve bunun üzerinden de modernite ve din ilişkisinin yeniden düşünülmesi gerekmektedir. Bu çalışmada Aydınlanma düşüncesinde rasyonalizm ve din arasındaki ilişkiye yönelik zorunlu olarak bir karşıtlık olmadığı literatür üzerinden bir araştırma yapılarak ileri sürülmeye çalışılacaktır