18th Century

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STHS 5108  History of Theology: 18th Century

Spring Semester 2006: Fridays 12:40 - 3:30 Hedco Room

George Griener, S.J.    and   Claude Welch

Syllabus Up-Dated April 28, 2006:  Some Readings Will be Changed

The "eighteenth century" is a period bound less by strict chronological markers -- 1700-1799 -- than by intellectual, political, cultural and social movements in European history which betray the emergence of the modern period.  

The emerging new relationship between church and state or society, and the recognition of religious toleration are significant.  This seminar course is an introduction, through primary and secondary readings, to the content and context of theological developments in the Eighteenth Century, including what contemporary scholars refer to as the "Catholic Enlightenment."  

The course requires active participation in the reading discussions, modest regular research-strategy assignments, and a twenty page research quality paper [Following the Chicago/Turabian Style Sheet format] on a topic germane to the course and approved by the instructors. Deadline is Last Day of the Spring Semester.

Required Texts:

1. Aston, Nigel.  Christianity and Revolutionary Europe c. 1750 - 1830.  New Approaches to European History.  Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 

2. Blanning, T.C.W., Editor.  The Eighteenth Century: Europe 1688 - 1815.  The Short Oxford History of Europe.  (Oxford University Press, 2000).  Paperback.

[3. Michael Buckley. At the Origins of Modern Atheism (Yale University Press: 1987). Paperback....let's wait on this one.]

4. The Rationalists (Anchor). Paperback

5. Jonathan Edwards. The Religious Affections (Banner of Truth). Paperback.

6. Amos Funkenstein. Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century (Princeton, 1986).  Paperback

7. Isaac Newton. Newton's Philosophy of Nature (Free Press).

8. Blaise Pascal. Pensees and Other Writings (OUP).

9. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract and the First and Second Discourses. Edited by Susan Dunn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002)

10. Baruch Spinoza. Theological-Political Treatise. 2nd Edition.  Trans. Samuel Shirley (Hackett Publishing, 2002).  Paperback.

11. Voltaire. Treatise on Tolerance. Trans. Brian Masters.  Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 2000) Paperback.

plus other readings available on the Internet, on GTU Library Reserve, or in Hand-Out format.

Recommended Texts:

Grell, Ole Peter and Roy Porter, Editors.  Toleration in Enlightenment Europe.  (Cambridge University Press, 2000.)  A series of essays which assume that religion remained central to the Enlightenment project throughout the eighteenth century, and which explore reflections on religious toleration by geographical regions. [GTU Reserve]

Hsia, R. Po-Chia.  The World of Catholic Renewal 1540 - 1770.  New Approaches to European History. (Cambridge University Press, 1998.)   Moves beyond a Euro-centric history Catholicism by including the Iberian colonial territories, as well as missions to Asia. [GTU Reserve]

McManners, John.  Church and Society in Eighteenth Century France.  2 volumes. (Oxford University Press, 1998.)  A detailed, sympathetic and readable account of the complex religious fabric of 18th century France. [GTU Reserve]

Van Kley, Dale K.  The Religious Origins of the French Revolution (Yale University Press, 1996).

Walter, Peter and Martin H. Jung, editors. Theologen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Konfessionelles Zeitalter--Pietismus--Aufklärung. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003.

Ward, William Reginald.  Christianity Under the Ancien Regime, 1648-1789.  New Approaches to European History.  (Cambridge University Press, 1999.)  Focuses primarily on Protestant developments in various regions of Europe. [GTU Reserve]

Tentative Syllabus for the Spring 2006 Semester

First Meeting:    Friday, February 3rd, 2006:

  1. Introduction: Significance of the 18th Century. 
  2. Discussion of  The Short Oxford History of Europe: The Eighteenth Century Europe 1688-1815.  Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.  [These chapters should be read before the first session]

Research assignment for the following class:  

Type a short bibliography, using Chicago/Turabian Style format, of ten (10) standard reference work articles on the topic "Enlightenment":  four in English, two in French, two in German, two in Spanish.  Prepare copies of your bibliography for distribution in class. 

Reading Assignment:  Selections from Funkenstein, Hunter, and Israel, listed for Feb 10th.

Second Meeting:  Friday, February 10th, 2006:

  1. Discussion of Amos Funkenstein's Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century. 1-116.
  2. "Introduction," Jonathan I. Israel. Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750. (Oxford University Press 2001) pp. 1-22.  [GTU Reserve]
  3. "Preface," "Introduction," Chapters One and Two, in Ian Hunter. Rival Enlightenments. Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2001) pp. ix - 92.
  4. Cf. J. Schmidt What is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). 
  5. Research Assignment TBA.

Third Meeting:  Friday, February 17th, 2006:

  1. René Descartes (1596-1650) Discourse on Method [1637] and Meditations [1641]
  2. Benedict Spinoza (1632-77) The Ethics Parts I & II [1677] Cf. The Rationalists (Anchor Edition 1-261). 
  3. Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment, 159-74. 
  4. Cf. Richard Mason, The God of Spinoza. A Philosophical Study. (Cambridge: 1997)
  5. Cf. Steven Nadler, Spinoza: A Life. (Cambridge: 1999)

Fourth Meeting:  Friday, February 24th, 2006:

  1. Blaise Pascal (1623-62) Pensées [1670] 
  2. John Locke (1632-1704) On Toleration and the Unity of God. [1685]  
  3. John Locke. The Reasonableness of Christianity as delivered in the Scripture. Part I; Part II [1695] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999). [GTU Reserve]
  4. Joshua Mitchell "John Locke: A Theology of Religious Liberty" in Noel Reynolds, Ed., Religious Liberty in Western Thought (Atlanta 1996)143-160.   Cf. John Dunn The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge 1969).
  5. Cf. John Marshall. John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility. (Oxford: Cambridge, 1994)
  6. Cf. Blaise Pascal, Provincial Letters. (1660)
  7. Cf. Jon Miel, Pascal and Theology.  (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1969), especially Chapter V: The Pensées
  8. Cf. Select Bibliograpy on Blaise Pascal in PDF format.
  9. Cf. John McManners, "V: Crown and Parlement: Jesuits and Jansenists," in Church and Society in Eighteenth Century France. Volume II: The Religion of the People and the Politics of Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998): 344-561.
  10. Hartmut Lehman, Heinz Schilling, Hans-Jürgen Schrader, Editors. Jansenismus, Quietismus, Pietismus. Göttingen: Vendenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002.

Fifth Meeting: Friday, March 3rd, 2006:

  1. Isaac Newton (1642-1727) Newton's Philosophy of Nature: Selections from His Writings. [1687] [GTU Reserve]
  2. Funkenstein 117-201.
  3. Cf. Richard Bentley (1662-1742) The folly and unreasonableness of atheism: demonstrated from the advantage and pleasure of a religious life, the faculties of humane souls, the structure of animate bodies, & the origin and frame of the world: in eight sermons.  4th Edition.  London : Printed by J. H. for H. Mortlock, 1699.  [GTU Rare Books]
  4. Cf. Thomas Burnet (1635-1715) The sacred theory of the earth: containing an account of the original of the earth, and of all the general changes which it hath already undergone, or is to undergo, till the consummation of all things.  6th Edition.  London : Printed for J. Hooke, 1726.  [GTU Rare Books].
  5. Cf. Helmut Pulte, "Order of Nature and Orders of Science. On the Mathematical Philosophy of Nature and its Changing Concepts of Science from Newton and Euler to Lagrange and Kant," W. Lefevre, Editor, Between Leibniz, Newton and Kant (Kluwer Academic Publishers: 2001): 61-92.

Sixth Meeting:  Friday, March 10th, 2006:

  1. Nicolas Malebranche.  Treatise on Nature and Grace.  (1681). Tr. Patrick Riley.  Oxford Clarendon Press, 1992.  
  2. Nicolas Malebranche.  Dialogue Between a Christian Philosopher and a Chinese Philosopher on the Existence and Nature of God.  Tr. Dominick A. Iorio. University Press of America, 1980.
  3. Patrick Riley, "Malebranche's Moral Philosophy: Divine and Human Justice," in The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche. pp. 220-61.  Edited Steven Nadler.  Cambridge University Press 2000.
  4. Selections from Michael Buckley's At the Origin of Modern Atheism.
  5. Cf. Samuel Clarke. A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God and other writings. Edited by Ezio Vailati. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  6. Cf. Leonard Lessius.  Rawleigh his Ghost. (1631) English Recusant Literature 1558-1640. Selected and Edited by D. M. Rogers. The Scholars Press, 1977.
  7. Cf. Wolfgang Lefèvre, Editor. Between Leibniz, Newton and Kant. Philosophy and Science in the Eighteenth Century. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001.

Seventh Meeting:  Friday, March 17th, 2006:

  1. Benedict de Spinoza Theological-Political Treatise . [1670]
  2. Selections from Richard Simon (1638-1712):  Histoire Critique de Vieux Testament (1685) and Histoire Critique des Versions du Nouveau Testament (1690)
  3. Funkenstein Theology and the Scientific Imagination. 202-79.
  4. William Baird, "Richard Simon," in History of New Testament Research. Volume One: From Deism to Tübingen. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press):   Pages 17-29.
  5. Cf. Catherine M Northeast, "Chapter 3--Christianity: the critical problems," in her The Parisian Jesuits and the Enlightenment 1700-1762 (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1991) 106-155.
  6. Cf. Stephen D. Benin, The footprints of God: divine accommodation in Jewish and Christian thought.  (Albany: SUNY, 1993).
  7. Cf. Howard Kreisel, Cf. "Chapter 7: Baruch Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus,"  Prophecy: The History of an Idea in Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001) 544-86. 
  8. Cf. "Chapter 10: Homo Politicus," in Steven Dadler, Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge University Press, 1999): 245-287.
  9. Cf. Jonathan Israel, "Chapter 15: Philosophy, Politics and the Liberation of Man" and "Chapter 16: Publishing a Banned Philosophy," in his Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 pp. 258-294.
  10. Cf. Steven B. Smith, Spinoza, Liberalism and the Question of Jewish Identity (Yale University Press, 1997). [GTU Reserve]

Eighth Meeting: Friday March 24th, 2006:  

  1. Jean Mabillon (1632-1707) Introduction of his works. [GTU Library Study Room]
  2. Jean Mabillon "General Preface," Life and Work of Saint Bernard Abbot of Clairvaux Translated by Samuel Eales (London 1889) pp 1-75.
  3. Jean Mabillon "Aux Jeunes Religieux Benedictins de la Congregation de S. Maur," and selections from Traite des Etudes Monastiques (1691).
  4. Cf. Discovering the Middle Ages for visual examples of Mabillon's works
  5. Ludovico Muratori (1670-1750).  Selection from Della Regolata Divozione de'Cristiani [1752]
  6. Vincenzo Ferrone, Chapters I, III, IV and V of The Intellectual Roots of the Italian Enlightenment. Newtonian Science, Religion and Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century. (Humanities Press 1995)
  7. John Heilbron "Churches as Scientific Instruments" Reprinted from Universitas Newsletter of the International Centre for The History of Universities and Science April 1996.
  8. John Heilbron "Meridiane and Meridians in Early Modern Science," in R.J. Boscovich. His Life and Scientific Work (Roma: 1993) 385-406.

March 31st, 2006:   Spring Break NO CLASS

Ninth Meeting: Friday, April 7, 2006:

  1. Selections from Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704) Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture [1704] Tr. Patrick Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
  2. Voltaire (1694-1778) Treatise on Tolerance  [1763]

Tenth Meeting:  Friday, April 14th, 2006:  [Good Friday: class cancelled, and material re-scheduled for April 21, 2006]

Eleventh Meeting:  Friday, April 21st, 2006:

  1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1788) The Social Contract and the First and Second Discourses. 2nd edition. [1762, 1750, 1753]
  2. Judith N. Shklar. "General Will,"  Dictionary of the History of Ideas.   Vol II:  275.
  3. Patrick Riley. "Rousseau's General Will: Freedom of a Particular Kind," in Robert Wolker, Editor: Rousseau and Liberty (Manchester University Press, 1995): 1-28.
  4. Cf. Judith N. Shklar.  Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau's Social Theory (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969)
  5. Cf. Patrick Riley. The General Will Before Rousseau. The Transformation of the Divine into the Civic. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
  6. Cf. Christopher W. Morris, Editor. The Social Contract Theorists. Critical Essays on Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau.  (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999)

Twelfth Meeting:  Friday, April 28th, 2006:

  1. Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) The Religious Affections [1746] Preface, Part I, Random in Part II, Part III # 3, 4, 12.
  2. Paul Copan, "Jonathan Edwards' Philosophical Influences:  Lockean or Malbranchean?," in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 44 (2001) 107-24.
  3. Cf. William J. Danaher, Jr., The Trinitarian Ethics of Jonathan Edwards. Westminster: John Knox Press, 2004.
  4. Cf. Sang Hyun Lee and Allen C. Guelzo, Editors:   Edwards in Our Time. Jonathan Edwards and the Shaping of American Religion. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). 
  5. Cf. Stephen R. Holmes. God of Grace and God of Glory.  An Account of the Theology of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000.
  6. John Wesley (1707-88) Readings to be distributed in class.  

Thirteenth Meeting:  Friday, May 5th, 2006:

  1. David Hume (1711-1776) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Sections 4-7, 10.
  2. Cf. "Introduction: A History of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding," in David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. A Critical Edition.  Edited Tom L. Beauchamp. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000): i-cvii.
  3.  Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Prologomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able To Come Forward As Science (Translated by James W. Ellington. In Philosophy of Material Nature [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co, 1985: 1-122). 
  4. Transition to the 19th century. Funkenstein 346-63.

History of Eighteenth-Century Theology Select Bibliography (in pdf format)

Helpful Journals:

  1. Eighteenth-Century Life
  2. British Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies
  3. Das Achtzehnte Jahrhundert. Zeitschrift der deutschen Gesellschaft für die Erforschung des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts

 

 

Last Updated Feb 09 2006