FAITH AND REASON DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

FAITH AND REASON DURING THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

During the seventeenth and eighteenth century many ideas were placed forth that ended up changing peopleís faith and reason. These new ideas challenged humanís conception of the universe and of oneís place in it. They challenged the view of a person, and they also challenged the belief of the economy. There were many scientists and philosophers during this time period, Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Adam Smith to name a few. All of these people contributed to the change in peopleís faith and in their reason. They were given new ideas and a new way to look at life.

Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) helped change peoples reason. People believed that most truth had already been discovered. And those who have "applied themselves to the invention of arts have but cast a glance or two upon facts and examples and experienceÖ."1 Bacon believed that these people never really worried about the facts. He believed that these people were afraid that movements and changes in philosophy would end in assaults on religion. They were also afraid that their investigation of truth might be dangerous to them. But he believed "that all knowledge is derived from sense experience, observation, and experimentation"2 and that there was much left to be discovered. Bacon believed that we are servants and interpreters of nature. What we know and what we do is only what we have observed of natureís order in fact or in thought.3

René Descartes helped change the idea of how the person is looked. He also came up with a way of deductive reasoning. He believed that "human beings were endowed by God with the ability to reason and that God served as the guarantor of the correctness of clear ideas."4 Descartes believed in "I think, therefore I am."5 He believed that everybody had the ability to think for themselves. Descartes provided a way of deductive reasoning, a way to arrive at an answer. The first step of this process is not to accept anything to be true unless it was not clearly true. The second step is to divide each of the difficulties into as many parts as possible. The third step is to conduct thoughts in order. And the final step is to make detailed reports to make sure that nothing is omitted.6 This method was influential well into the