Great thinkers like Descartes and Locke, who launched philosophical modernity, did not reject "the Christian synthesis." They *were* Christians.
Christianity persuaded them. Scholasticism didn't. So they wrought a physical revolution *within* Christianity, against a philosophy whose reach was not coextensive with Christianity, but much more recent and regional.
"Modernity" didn't reject a "Christian" synthesis. Christianity retained its hegemony for generations after philosophy took its Enlightened turn. Christianity kept experiencing revivals, and was as strong in the 19th century as at any time in history, without bringing back scholasticism.
To the extent that there was a slow turn away from Christianity in modern times, I think the blame is sufficiently allocated by saying it's a reaction against persecution. Christianity has persuaded so many intelligent people that it has to be taken seriously unless you have some blanket reason to dismiss their faith as insincere or shallow. But there is: the Inquisition and its partners in crime across a thousand years of European history.
Because the Inquisition betrayed Christ by burning heretics, all subsequent generations could say, "Those people had to pretend to believe because to tell the truth was illegal." And the developments in thought that could have defended Christianity better were long prevented.
There’s a lot of debate about whether Descartes, Hobbes, various early modern thinkers were Christians *at all* or purely posing for the sake of cover. (Not wanting to be punished as heretics or marginalized as crazies.) It’s hard to say; the idea that Hobbes actually believed in Jesus in any meaningful way seems pretty incredible to me (though I remember MacIntyre in class once granting him to be “a peculiar sort of Christian” that seemed pretty dubious to me). I’m on the fence about Descartes. He may have been “a peculiar sort of Christian,” or a fig-leaf heretic. But the idea that these were men of true Christian devotion just following their conscience in some new directions… nah. That’s not what was mainly happening here. I don’t think “reaction against persecution” is a major moving factor here either. You do modern thinkers themselves far more credit to grant that *the questions* moved them more than some adolescent spirit of rebellion, even if they did have some of the latter. And I’ve already granted that materialism did answer some of the questions well. Some of them. Others not at all.
The labeling is a bit off here.
Great thinkers like Descartes and Locke, who launched philosophical modernity, did not reject "the Christian synthesis." They *were* Christians.
Christianity persuaded them. Scholasticism didn't. So they wrought a physical revolution *within* Christianity, against a philosophy whose reach was not coextensive with Christianity, but much more recent and regional.
"Modernity" didn't reject a "Christian" synthesis. Christianity retained its hegemony for generations after philosophy took its Enlightened turn. Christianity kept experiencing revivals, and was as strong in the 19th century as at any time in history, without bringing back scholasticism.
To the extent that there was a slow turn away from Christianity in modern times, I think the blame is sufficiently allocated by saying it's a reaction against persecution. Christianity has persuaded so many intelligent people that it has to be taken seriously unless you have some blanket reason to dismiss their faith as insincere or shallow. But there is: the Inquisition and its partners in crime across a thousand years of European history.
Because the Inquisition betrayed Christ by burning heretics, all subsequent generations could say, "Those people had to pretend to believe because to tell the truth was illegal." And the developments in thought that could have defended Christianity better were long prevented.
There’s a lot of debate about whether Descartes, Hobbes, various early modern thinkers were Christians *at all* or purely posing for the sake of cover. (Not wanting to be punished as heretics or marginalized as crazies.) It’s hard to say; the idea that Hobbes actually believed in Jesus in any meaningful way seems pretty incredible to me (though I remember MacIntyre in class once granting him to be “a peculiar sort of Christian” that seemed pretty dubious to me). I’m on the fence about Descartes. He may have been “a peculiar sort of Christian,” or a fig-leaf heretic. But the idea that these were men of true Christian devotion just following their conscience in some new directions… nah. That’s not what was mainly happening here. I don’t think “reaction against persecution” is a major moving factor here either. You do modern thinkers themselves far more credit to grant that *the questions* moved them more than some adolescent spirit of rebellion, even if they did have some of the latter. And I’ve already granted that materialism did answer some of the questions well. Some of them. Others not at all.