Primary Authors & Sources
PHIL-301 builds its reading list from required primary and classical sources in enlightenment empiricism and critical metaphysics. The authors below are read as teachers across the centuries, not as entries in a bibliography. Blaise Pascal contributes Pensées, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Nicolas Malebranche contributes Dialogues on Metaphysics and on Religion, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Gottfried Leibniz contributes New Essays Concerning Human Understanding, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. John Locke contributes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study.
Taken together, these readings form a coherent conversation across centuries — students encounter real arguments, not flattened summaries. George Berkeley contributes The Works of George Berkeley, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. David Hume contributes An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and an Enquiry…, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Thomas Reid contributes The Works of Thomas Reid, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Jean-Jacques Rousseau contributes The Social Contract, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study. Edward Caird contributes The Critical Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, offering firsthand access to the arguments, methods, and assumptions that shaped this period of study.
What You Will Study
Students examine Enlightenment empiricism, rationalism, and critical metaphysics from Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant alongside Christian responses in Butler, Reid, and early evangelical philosophers. The course analyzes how Enlightenment thought challenged revelation, miracle, and church authority while claiming to liberate reason from superstition. Readings include primary philosophical texts and Reformed critiques defending biblical theism against skepticism and deism prevalent in Anglo-American culture. Students evaluate which Enlightenment insights common grace affirms and which assumptions contradict creatio ex nihilo, sin, and special revelation. Attention falls on epistemological foundations necessary for apologetics and theological method in post-Enlightenment house churches and seminary-trained ministry.
Course Objectives
Objectives include summarizing Lockean empiricism, Humean skepticism, and Kantian critique of natural theology, explaining how Enlightenment thought influenced Deism and liberal theology, evaluating Reformed epistemologies of revelation against autonomous reason, and writing essays on faith and reason after Kant. Students will articulate presuppositional and evidential responses to Enlightenment challenges. The course cultivates intellectual defenses of Christianity in university-shaped culture. Students will connect Enlightenment assumptions to contemporary debates about science, morality, and religious knowledge. Assessments require primary source engagement and apologetic position papers grounded in confessional standards.
Ministry & Life Application
Enlightenment philosophy explains the default worldview of educated Americans who treat Christian faith as irrational or optional. Pastors equipped in this material can preach and counsel with awareness of hidden assumptions about evidence, autonomy, and progress. House church evangelism across the Florida Keys encounters retirees, military personnel, and students formed by Enlightenment categories even when they cannot name them. Pastoral ministry gains apologetic seriousness without surrendering Scripture's authority to modern epistemological fashions. Congregations are strengthened when leaders can unmask skepticism's faith commitments and present Christ as the true light enlightening every person.