Would the Enlightenment have occurred without the Protestant Reformation?

[TwisterAce]

Today in one of my history classes (a class about the history of religion in modern Europe) we were discussing the Age of Enlightenment, and one student asked our professor if the Enlightenment would have occurred without the Protestant Reformation. Our professor believed it would be unlikely. His reasoning was that the reformers' use of the printing press to spread their literature (especially the Bible translated into the vernacular) contributed to the proliferation of literacy in Europe and made it easier to spread new ideas, which in turn helped lead to the Enlightenment.

The parallels between the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment are obvious. Both saw the emergence of new ideas that challenged traditional authorities and revolutionized societies throughout Europe.

What do you folks think? Could the Enlightenment have occurred without the Reformation? If so, would it have been delayed or brought about by different events?

 

[Jürgen]

Today in one of my history classes (a class about the history of religion in modern Europe) we were discussing the Age of Enlightenment, and one student asked our professor if the Enlightenment would have occurred without the Protestant Reformation. Our professor believed it would be unlikely. His reasoning was that the reformers' use of the printing press to spread their literature (especially the Bible translated into the vernacular) contributed to the proliferation of literacy in Europe and made it easier to spread new ideas, which in turn helped lead to the Enlightenment.

The parallels between the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment are obvious. Both saw the emergence of new ideas that challenged traditional authorities and revolutionized societies throughout Europe.

What do you folks think? Could the Enlightenment have occurred without the Reformation? If so, would it have been delayed or brought about by different events?

It's a hard WI, I personal think that the Catholic Church couldn't have survived in its existing form, it had to change. There's also the fact that Catholic France was centre of the Enlightenment. In many way it was more a result of the rise of the states monopoly of force than religion. But Protestantism helped strengthen North Europe versus South, forcing South Europe to push a increased monopoly of force and weaken the secular power of the Church. But on the other hand I can't see the princes of Europe keep accepting the arrogance and corruption of the late medieval Church, so it had to be weaken.

 

[TwisterAce]

I wonder how the Scientific Revolution would be affected by all this, considering it began shortly after the Protestant Reformation and greatly influenced the Enlightenment.

 

[LSCatilina]

His reasoning was that the reformers' use of the printing press to spread their literature (especially the Bible translated into the vernacular) contributed to the proliferation of literacy in Europe and made it easier to spread new ideas, which in turn helped lead to the Enlightenment.

I keep seeing these arguments popping around, even when they're at best incomplete.

First, on the printing press, not that Northern Germany didn't knew it of course, but it was fairly less present, at least in the XVIth than in southern Germany, Italy or France in the same period.
As for vernacular Bibles, you had such in the most of Medieval era : before the printing press, you had the Bible Historiale (altough it was an incomplete translation). What was frowned upon was much less translations than unauthorized and supervised editions.

Protestant is build on the same features that allowed Humanism (which was much distinct from Reformation structurally) and then Enlightement, but didn't created these : probably than in a TL without Protestantism, it would have taken a different form, but its contents would be similar.

The parallels between the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment are obvious.

I must miss something, then : so far it's more looking like the good ol' "Protestant are of more progressive and modern" rationalisation.

Both saw the emergence of new ideas that challenged traditional authorities and revolutionized societies throughout Europe.

It's fairly ignoring the whole of scientific (what was used to be called the Renaissance of the XIIth century) and secular progression (such as royal bureaucracies expanding endlessly since the XIIIth century). Or any development in the XVth century, for what matter.

At the very least, what in Protestantism challenged aristocratic and land-owning elites in, say, eastern Germany? If something, it strengthened them on several aspects. (When, by comparison, Catholic entities as France saw a continuous decline of their traditional aristocracies at the benefit of bureaucratic authorities).

 

[Faeelin]

Protestant is build on the same features that allowed Humanism (which was much distinct from Reformation structurally) and then Enlightement, but didn't created these : probably than in a TL without Protestantism, it would have taken a different form, but its contents would be similar.

I dunno man. It's hard to see a Catholic Voltaire, for instance.

 

[LSCatilina]

I dunno man. It's hard to see a Catholic Voltaire, for instance.

In the same way it's hard to see a Protestant Voltaire. Or an Orthodox Voltaire. Or an atheist Voltaire.

 

[Faeelin]

In the same way it's hard to see a Protestant Voltaire. Or an Orthodox Voltaire. Or an atheist Voltaire.

I think an atheist Voltaire is a little much to expect for 18th century Europe.

 

[LSCatilina]

I think an atheist Voltaire is a little much to expect for 18th century Europe.

It's less due to the cultural background (you have a good counter-exemple with Diderot) that Voltaire historically, was the spearhead of theistic philosophy (would have he, for some reason, argued of a materialist and/or anti-theistic philosophy, he would have ended the same as Diderot or Meslier, as in either fairly ignored or re-written) : arguing it's hard to see a Catholic Voltaire on this respect is as empty as arguing on a Protestant Voltaire

 

[St. Just]

To be honest, I don't see the Enlightenment and the Reformation as all that related; the two draw on very different intellectual currents, class tensions, and cultural trends within Europe, and the former was found in Catholic (France and Austria), Protestant (Germany, Netherlands, Britain) and Orthodox (Petro-Catherine Russia) states.

 

[TwisterAce]

I must miss something, then.

I was mainly looking at how the Reformation challenged the dominion of the Catholic Church and how the Enlightenment's propagation of ideas such as republican government and social contract theory challenged the absolute monarchism and divine right to rule that was prevalent in Europe. That's what I meant by challenging traditional authorities.

At the very least, what in Protestantism challenged aristocratic and land-owning elites in, say, eastern Germany? If something, it strengthened them on several aspects.

I was referring to Protestantism bucking the authority of the Pope instead of temporal rulers, some of whom converted from Catholicism to Protestantism following the Reformation.

Anyway, I do agree that my professor's reasoning was incomplete to some extent. Pinning the emergence of the Enlightenment solely on the printing press leaves out a number of crucial factors unrelated that technological advancement.

 

[LSCatilina]

I was mainly looking at how the Reformation challenged the dominion of the Catholic Church and how the Enlightenment's propagation of ideas such as republican government and social contract theory challenged the absolute monarchism and divine right to rule that was prevalent in Europe. That's what I meant by challenging traditional authorities.

Republicanism is almost entierly absent from Enlightement's philosophy. You'd struggle hard to find any other mention of republicanism in the XVIIIth's philosophes text that wouldn't systematically point it's not fit for their era, or at best for only small territories.
One could argue that republicanism is the by-product of Enlightement (which I wouldn't really agree, giving that most of the late Enlightement or post-englightement philosophers quickly cut ties with it), but the direct legacy of political situation (in XVIIth England and XVIIIth France alike), without much ideological support on this institutions (safe, for France, more or less abusive call on rousseauist concepts as sovereignity, applied institutionally).

There's a huge difference with Reformation, which, almost from the start, attacked Rome's domination : Enlightement philosophers were closer to pythagoricians or even platonicians in that they searched to strengthen a just political power in face of "fanaticism", trough enlightened interventionism (which could go "englightened despotism" road), when Protestants tried to win over the support of traditional elites (on which they were dependent for political survival) not to propose breaking out clerical dominion, but to replace it.
Can you imagine Luther being in the service of Rome, as Voltaire was for Catherine of Russia?
Or Voltaire getting the support of parlementarians, going against oppressive royal power?

While not linking both phenomenas would be wrong, making them alike is baseless : we're adressing two different dynamics, with very different philosophical or political basis.

I was referring to Protestantism bucking the authority of the Pope instead of temporal rulers, some of whom converted from Catholicism to Protestantism following the Reformation.

Which is hardly challenging traditional authorities : it's rather a matter of challenging a traditional authority with the support of another, closer, one.
Not that Protestantism was the only late medieval/early modern group challenging pontifical authority : even the most Christian king of France never really leaved that out (while kicking Protestants in the theeth in the same time)

Pinning the emergence of the Enlightenment solely on the printing press leaves out a number of crucial factors unrelated that technological advancement.

Leaving out Humanism as a philosophical school is a really crippling mistake IMO. Its developpment was closer to Enlightement, enough to allow comparisons.
I'd point out societal (decline of universities in the XVth, for instance, altough it's more of a dialectic relation there), and political (rise of bureaucratized courts) as one of the explanation of Humanism in Renaissance.

And that's where printing press played a major role, as it allowed a quick, but more importantly less institutionally scrutined intellectual devellopment; at the expense of scholar institutions as universities or church; at the benefit of a more individual-based network (La République des Lettres) on which political power could intervene much more easily.

By making Reformation the crib of Enlightement, one can't understand why Humanists as Erasmus went more and more away from it, while humanist movement was one of the cause of Reformation development (especially on new biblical studies, and secularized critic of the Church).

 

[Achaemenid Rome]

Republicanism is almost entierly absent from Enlightement's philosophy. You'd struggle hard to find any other mention of republicanism in the XVIIIth's philosophes text that wouldn't systematically point it's not fit for their era, or at best for only small territories.

Montesquieu and Rousseau?

 

[LSCatilina]

Montesquieu and Rousseau?

You mean the same Montesquieu that argued that monarchy favoured individual freedom and that aristocracy was a moderating power?
The same Rousseau that argued that republican states could only really function on a small scale, and could quickly degenerate?

Not, again, to say they didn't influed on the modern concept of republic : but affirming that they were republicans and anti-monarchists (I think we could safely say Rousseau didn't cared about the institutional form) is baseless and anachronic, confusing social tought and its political transformation (or, simply said, they weren't proto-Marx that proposed and social theory, and political action).

And let's be clear, I'm talking about modern republic, not the old meaning of république, which can be translated as commonwealth or state.