Eighth Grade Social Studies: Intellectual Currents: The Enlightenment & Great Awakening
During the eighteenth century, the thirteen British colonies were swept by two transformative intellectual and cultural movements that profoundly altered how Americans thought about authority, human nature, and society. The first was the Enlightenment, an intellectual movement rooted in the scientific revolution that celebrated human reason, empirical science, and natural rights philosophy. The second was the First Great Awakening, a fiery, intercolonial Protestant religious revival that rejected cold theological dogma in favor of emotional personal conversion and spiritual equality. Although these two movements approached human existence from contrasting perspectives—one emphasizing rational intellect and the other passionate spiritual rebirth—both movements shattered blind deference to traditional hierarchies, unified the disparate colonies, and nurtured the revolutionary mindset that challenged British imperial rule.
The Enlightenment: Reason and Natural Law
The European Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason, began in Western Europe during the late seventeenth century, growing out of the breakthroughs of the Scientific Revolution. Scientists like Sir Isaac Newton had demonstrated that the physical universe was not governed by arbitrary spiritual whims, but by unvarying mathematical and mechanical natural laws, such as the law of universal gravitation.
The Scientific Method Applied to Society
Natural Laws Govern the Universe ---> Can Natural Laws Govern Human Society?
(Newton: Gravity & Motion) |
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The Enlightenment Thinkers:
* Natural Rights (John Locke)
* Separation of Powers (Montesquieu)
* Freedom of Speech (Voltaire)
Enlightenment philosophers (known as philosophes) argued that if human reason could unlock the physical laws of the cosmos, reason could also be applied to discover the natural laws governing human society, politics, economics, and ethics. They challenged traditional medieval assumptions, such as the divine right of kings, hereditary aristocratic privilege, and unquestioned religious superstition, arguing that human progress was achieved through rational inquiry, empirical observation, and education.
John Locke and the Social Contract
The most influential Enlightenment philosopher in American history was the English political theorist John Locke. In his foundational work, Two Treatises of Government (1689), Locke rejected the notion that monarchs received authority from God, proposing instead a revolutionary theory of government based on natural rights.
John Locke's Social Contract Theory
The State of Nature (Total Freedom)
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Human Beings Possess Inherent Natural Rights:
[ Life, Liberty, and Property ]
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Create Government via Voluntary Social Contract
Purpose: To Protect Citizens' Natural Rights
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[ Government Protects Rights ] [ Government Violates Rights ]
Citizens Obey Laws & Pay Taxes Citizens Have the Right to Alter
or Abolish It (Right to Revolution)
Locke argued that in a hypothetical "state of nature" before governments existed, all human beings were born equal and possessed inherent natural rights—rights that belong to all humans by virtue of their existence, which Locke identified as life, liberty, and property.
To protect their natural rights from theft and violence, rational people enter into a voluntary social contract, establishing a civil government. The sole, legitimate purpose of government is to safeguard the natural rights of its citizens. In exchange, citizens agree to obey the law. However, Locke asserted that if a government acts tyrannically, abuses its power, and fails to protect the natural rights of its people, it has broken the social contract. Under these circumstances, the citizens possess an unalienable moral right to resist, alter, or overthrow that government and establish a new one. This philosophy directly provided the moral and intellectual blueprint for Thomas Jefferson when drafting the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Montesquieu and the Separation of Powers
Another crucial Enlightenment thinker was the French philosopher Baron de Montesquieu. In his 1748 treatise, The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu analyzed political power and human nature. He observed that any human being granted unchecked power is naturally inclined to abuse it.
To prevent tyranny and protect individual liberty, Montesquieu proposed the doctrine of the separation of powers. He argued that the functions of government must be divided among three distinct, independent branches: the legislative branch to make laws, the executive branch to enforce laws, and the judicial branch to interpret laws. By constructing a structural system where each branch checks and balances the others, ambition is made to counteract ambition, preventing any single individual or faction from seizing despotic control. This architectural concept became the structural bedrock of the United States Constitution.
Benjamin Franklin: The American Embodiment of the Enlightenment
In the American colonies, the living embodiment of the Enlightenment was Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia. Rising from an impoverished apprentice printer in Boston, Franklin used his relentless curiosity and empirical reason to achieve worldwide renown as a printer, author, scientist, inventor, and diplomat.
Franklin conducted pioneering scientific experiments on electricity, proving that lightning was a form of electrical discharge and inventing the lightning rod, which protected homes and ships from fires. Franklin was a practical philosopher; he invented bifocal glasses, the Franklin stove (which generated more heat while using less firewood), and the glass armonica, refusing to patent his inventions so they would freely benefit humanity. Franklin's faith in human reason, civic improvement, and the pursuit of knowledge exemplified the American Enlightenment.
The First Great Awakening: Spiritual Rebirth
While the Enlightenment was transforming elite philosophical circles in colonial cities, an equally powerful spiritual earthquake was sweeping through the rural towns and countryside: the First Great Awakening. During the 1730s and 1740s, this transatlantic Protestant religious revival shattered spiritual complacency and transformed the religious landscape of North America.
Old Lights vs. New Lights (The Great Awakening)
Protestant Christianity in America
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[ The "Old Lights" ] [ The "New Lights" ]
Emphasized rational theological learning, Emphasized emotional personal conversion,
formal sermon reading, established hierarchies, passionate open-air revival preaching,
and traditional church discipline (Traditionalists). and direct spiritual equality (Revivalists).
The Spiritual Slumber and the Need for Awakening
By the early eighteenth century, many colonial churches had grown cold, dry, and formalistic. In New England, Puritan congregations were dominated by wealthy families whose ministers read dense, academic theological treatises that bored listeners. In the South, the established Church of England was aligned with the wealthy planter aristocracy, while thousands of backcountry settlers had no access to churches or ordained clergy.
Many colonists felt that religion had become an intellectual exercise devoid of heart-felt spiritual passion. The Great Awakening was a vibrant reaction against this rationalistic religious decay, re-emphasizing the deeply emotional, personal experience of divine grace and spiritual rebirth.
Jonathan Edwards and "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"
The intellectual architect of the Great Awakening in Massachusetts was Jonathan Edwards, a brilliant Calvinist minister in Northampton. Edwards combined rigorous philosophical intellect with intense, vivid evangelical imagery.
In 1741, Edwards delivered his most famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, to a congregation in Enfield, Connecticut. Edwards warned his listeners of the terrifying reality of hell and their utter helplessness before divine judgment, describing humans as loathsome spiders held over a blazing pit by a slender thread: "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked... and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment." Edwards's listeners wept, shrieked, and fell to their knees begging for mercy. However, Edwards stressed that God's grace was equally abundant, offering immediate salvation and emotional renewal to anyone who experienced heartfelt repentance.
George Whitefield: The Great Itinerant Evangelist
If Edwards was the intellectual theologian of the revival, the charismatic English evangelist George Whitefield was its sensational public catalyst. Arriving in America in 1739, Whitefield was a master of theatrical, open-air preaching. Blessed with extraordinary vocal power, Whitefield could speak to crowds of twenty thousand people in open fields without a microphone, bringing listeners to tears with his passionate delivery.
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| Key Figures of the Great Awakening |
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| Jonathan Edwards | Intellectual theologian; preached "Sinners |
| | in the Hands of an Angry God" (1741). |
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| George Whitefield | Charismatic English orator; toured all |
| | thirteen colonies; preached to vast crowds. |
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| Gilbert Tennent | Preached "The Danger of an Unconverted |
| | Ministry"; attacked traditional clergy. |
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Whitefield became the first truly national American celebrity. He toured all thirteen colonies from Georgia to Massachusetts, preaching in towns, fields, and city squares. Even the skeptical, rationalist Benjamin Franklin was so moved by Whitefield's powerful preaching in Philadelphia that he emptied his pockets of all copper, silver, and gold to donate to Whitefield's orphanage project.
"Old Lights" vs. "New Lights" and Institutional Fracturing
The Great Awakening split American Protestantism into two bitterly opposing factions: the "Old Lights" (traditionalist clergy who condemned emotionalism, screaming in church, and unordained traveling preachers) and the "New Lights" (revivalist preachers who championed emotional conversion and direct spiritual experience).
Gilbert Tennent, a prominent New Light Presbyterian, published a scathing sermon titled The Danger of an Unconverted Ministry, asserting that traditional ministers who had not experienced personal spiritual rebirth were spiritually blind guides leading their congregations to damnation. The revival fractured traditional state churches, causing common people to leave authoritarian churches and join democratic evangelical denominations like the Baptists and Methodists. To train new evangelical ministers, New Lights established prestigious colleges that endure today, including Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, and Rutgers.
The Revolutionary Legacy: Challenging Authority and Continental Unity
Although the Enlightenment was secular and philosophical while the Great Awakening was devout and spiritual, their cultural and political impacts reinforced one another in ways that made the American Revolution possible.
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| Confluence of the Two Movements |
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| Questioning | Enlightenment questioned divine right of |
| Authority | kings; Great Awakening questioned authority |
| | of traditional aristocratic clergy. |
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| Spiritual and | Enlightenment asserted all men have equal |
| Civic Equality | natural rights; Great Awakening asserted |
| | all souls are spiritually equal before God. |
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| First Shared | The Great Awakening was the first shared, |
| National Event | intercolonial mass cultural movement uniting|
| | all thirteen colonies across regional lines.|
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First, both movements fundamentally challenged traditional, inherited authority. If an ordinary Christian could read the Bible, experience the Holy Spirit directly, and judge whether their ordained minister was truly saved, that same Christian could question the authority of an appointed royal governor or an English king across the ocean. The Great Awakening democratized religion just as the Enlightenment democratized political philosophy.
Second, the Great Awakening was the first truly intercolonial mass movement in American history. Prior to the 1740s, the thirteen colonies were isolated entities that traded with London but rarely communicated with one another. When George Whitefield and traveling revivalists toured from New England to Georgia, colonists shared a common emotional, spiritual, and linguistic experience. This intercolonial network broke down provincial barriers, forging an early sense of a collective American identity that would unite the colonies when British imperial crises arose a generation later.
Chapter Exercises
Exercise 1: Analyze John Locke's Social Contract Theory. Define the concept of "natural rights," explain the foundational purpose of civil government under Locke's philosophy, and identify the specific conditions under which citizens possess the moral right to revolution.
Exercise 2: Contrast the theological philosophies of the "Old Lights" and the "New Lights" during the First Great Awakening. How did the dispute over emotional conversion and ministerial authority reshape colonial church institutions and higher education?
Exercise 3: Explain how the Enlightenment and the First Great Awakening, despite their contrasting perspectives on reason and faith, worked together to undermine deference to traditional hierarchies and lay the ideological groundwork for the American Revolution.
Solutions and Explanations
Solution 1: John Locke's Social Contract Theory posits that in a pre-political "state of nature," all human beings are born free, equal, and endowed with natural rights—inherent, unalienable entitlements to life, liberty, and property that exist prior to any government. Because the state of nature is insecure and vulnerable to violent exploitation, individuals voluntarily enter into a mutual social contract to establish civil government. The sole legitimate purpose of government under this contract is to act as a trustee that protects the natural rights of its citizens. If a government betrays this sacred trust through tyrannical abuse, arbitrary taxation, or oppression, the social contract is broken; under these circumstances, the citizens have the moral authority and constitutional right to alter, resist, or overthrow the tyrannical regime and institute a new government to secure their safety and liberty.
Solution 2: The dispute between "Old Lights" and "New Lights" centered on the nature of Christian salvation, religious experience, and clerical authority. The traditionalist "Old Lights" valued rational theological scholarship, orderly church discipline, formal written sermons, and established clerical hierarchies, viewing emotional outbursts, fainting, and crying in church as dangerous fanaticism. The revivalist "New Lights" argued that true Christian faith was an intensely personal, emotional rebirth sparked by divine grace, rather than cold intellectual adherence to doctrine. New Light ministers like George Whitefield and Gilbert Tennent attacked unregenerate Old Light preachers as spiritually dead and urged believers to abandon traditional congregations. This schism fractured established colonial churches, led to the meteoric growth of decentralized evangelical denominations like the Baptists and Methodists, and catalyzed the founding of new colonial colleges (such as Princeton, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth) designed to educate a new generation of evangelical ministers.
Solution 3: Although the Enlightenment prioritized rational scientific inquiry while the Great Awakening emphasized passionate spiritual rebirth, both movements worked in tandem to dismantle unquestioned deference to traditional aristocratic authority. The Enlightenment dismantled the divine right of kings, asserting that political authority derives from the consent of the governed and that all citizens hold equal natural rights. The Great Awakening broke the monopoly of traditional ecclesiastical hierarchies, teaching that every human soul—whether wealthy planter, indentured servant, woman, or enslaved African—stood spiritually equal before God and possessed the capacity to judge their spiritual leaders. Furthermore, the Great Awakening served as the first shared national experience uniting all thirteen colonies, creating communication networks and a shared cultural vocabulary. When the British imperial crisis emerged in the 1760s, American colonists were intellectually and culturally prepared to challenge the authority of Parliament and King George III, armed with both Locke's political philosophy and the egalitarian fervor of the revivals.