Comparing/Contrasting the
Enlightenment with the Great
Awakening
Cristo Rey High School
2011-2012
The Enlightenment
• Began in Europe in the early 1700’s
• An intellectual movement that promoted
rational thought over religious beliefs
• A new way to explain the world
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment
The Enlightenment
• Before the Enlightenment, many scientists were
considered “heretics”
• To try to explain the world scientifically was
considered an insult to God.
• Why do you suppose the Church would have
been opposed to a scientific understanding of
the world?
Results of Enlightenment
• Important works of scientists like Galileo,
Copernicus, and Newton established that the
Earth revolved around the sun, not vice versa.
• The world is governed by fixed mathematical
laws.
Results of the Enlightenment
• Suddenly, you couldn’t explain a
difficult/confusing concept by saying “well that’s
just how God created it”
• People now wanted to know WHY things worked
the way they did.
• Is this, in fact, disrespectful to God?
Benjamin Franklin- Enlightened
Thinker
Effects of Enlightenment
• “This new philosophy calls all into question”
• Led to much invention and experimentation
• Had a profound effect on political thought in the
colonies
Effects of Enlightenment
• Thomas Jefferson: inspired by the works of
Enlightenment thinkers like Locke and Hobbs
• Both Lock and Hobbes had ideas about “natural
rights” that all humans were born with.
Enlightenment Philosophers Video
• Three Minute Philosophy - John Locke YouTube
Effects of Enlightenment
• Enlightenment ideas eventually led many
colonists to question the authority of the British
monarchy
The Great Awakening
The Great Awakening
• Took place in early 1700’s
• Puritans in the colonies had gotten too
“comfortable” in their wealth
• Leaders of the church wanted Puritans to return
to an intense dedication to the church
The Great Awakening
• Jonathan Edwards: “Sinners in the hands of an
angry God”
• It was not enough for people to just come to
church.
• To be saved, they must feel their sinfulness and
feel God’s love for them.
Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God
• IV. They are now the objects of that very same anger
and wrath of God that is expressed in the torments
of hell: and the reason why they don't go down to
hell at each moment, is not because God, in whose
power they are, is not then very angry with them; as
angry as he is with many of those miserable
creatures that he is now tormenting in hell, and do
there feel and bear the fierceness of his wrath. Yea,
God is a great deal more angry with great numbers
that are now on earth, yea, doubtless with many that
are now in this congregation, that it may be are at
ease and quiet, than he is with many of those that
are now in the flames of hell.
Effects of the Great Awakening
• Restored many colonists’ Christian religious
faith.
• Challenged authority of established churches
Great Awakening/Enlightenment
• Great Awakening emphasized emotional
religious conviction.
• Enlightenment emphasized reason.
• BOTH caused people to question authority.
• BOTH stressed importance of the individual.
• Enlightenment: by emphasizing human reason
• Great Awakening: by de-emphasizing role of
church
IMPORTANT!
• Both the Great Awakening and the
Enlightenment played an important role in
inspiring the colonists to question British
authority.
• Both movements created the social/intellectual
atmosphere that led to the American Revolution.