Enlightenment and Post-Enlightenment
Most of the church is influenced to some extent by a mixture of enlightenment and post-enlightenment mindset that seeps throughout culture.
Enlightenment: The movement that emphasized human reason, the philosophy of Rationalism (actually, what is called reason here is actually rationalization–reason based on assumptions, presuppositions, axioms, and other forms of made-up stuff), science, and individual thought as the primary ways to discover truth, often rejecting traditional religious authority. The trouble with so-called “enlightenment” is that the human mind can’t reason to truth, and rational thought is impossible without truth.
Post-Enlightenment: The thought that developed after the Enlightenment, increasingly questioning both traditional religious authority and whether human reason alone can establish truth.
You may answer, “I’m not asking you to believe my assumptions. I’m asking you to seek Christ yourself. If He is who I say He is, He can reveal Himself to you. And whether you believe me or not, He loves you just as much as He loves me.” That is a much different message from “my worldview is better than yours.” It’s an invitation to encounter the source of truth rather than merely argue about competing assumptions.
An example of the Post Enlightenment mindset is that it may say, “Your experience in divine revelation is just an illusion or hallucination in your mind. In reality, it consists of assumptions, and your assumptions aren’t any better than mine.” The problem with that claim is that it’s an unsupported assertion. It’s a bare claim with no evidence.
Romans 8:7 says, “The mind set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”
Rationalism is dependence on the mind that’s blinded by the veil of the flesh. The flesh can be very religious.
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