As we have noted, the HOB included has included ignorance of the NT Gospel by most of the people in the world until the invention of the printing press, the Protestant Reformation and the European colonization in the 1500s, during which the proto-gospel via general revelation was the main method of discerning God and GRFS. Since that century, NT Christianity continued to be ignored by many as atheist philosophy became more popular. Still, we must remember that a remnant of folks affirmed biblical faith that flourished in the free atmosphere of America. However, we will continue to cite the problematic beliefs that competed with the Gospel of Christ.
In 1785, William Paley published The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, in which he supported abolition of slavery, then in 1794 he wrote on natural theology, describing the teleological argument using the analogy of a watchmaker.
About this time Jeremy Bentham propounded utilitarianism, which valued the greatest good as the primary ethical principle. He designed a prison called the Panopticon, which contained cells surrounding a central post for a hidden jailer, and advocated menial labor to help pay the cost of imprisonment.
In 1791-92, Thomas Paine published The Rights of Man in defense of the French Revolution against criticisms by Edmund Burke, and then in 1794 The Age of Reason, criticizing organized religion and biblical inerrancy and advocating deism.
In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, defending women’s equality, and Johann Fichte went beyond Hume’s and Kant’s subjectivism (inability to know things in themselves) by proposing idealism, the idea that consciousness is separate from anything outside of itself.
Another idealist was Friedrich Schelling, who published System of Transcendental Idealism in 1800. He said that nature is visible spirit, and that history is the progressive disclosing of the Absolute.
In 1818, Georg Hegel succeeded Fichte as professor of philosophy in Berlin. He took his cue from Heraclitus, viewing Absolute Knowledge as evolving in a dialectical process of contradiction and negation, in which a thesis and its antithesis form a new and better or more complete synthesis, which in turn serves as the new thesis.
Also in 1818, Arthur Schopenhauer published The World as Will and Idea. He affirmed Hinduism and agreed with Buddhism’s negation of volition in order to avoid painful desires, but viewed Hegel as vacuous and criticized Kant for over-looking the validity of intuition as prior to the operation of conscious reason. He adopted Aristotle’s four-fold analysis of knowledge: material using cause and effect, abstract using logic, mathematic using numerical operations, and psychological using moral reasoning.
In 1820, Friedrich Schleiermacher published The Christian Faith, in which he argued that dependence on God rather than understanding Him is fundamental. He rejected hell in favor of universalism.
In 1785, William Paley published The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, in which he supported abolition of slavery, then in 1794 he wrote on natural theology, describing the teleological argument using the analogy of a watchmaker.
About this time Jeremy Bentham propounded utilitarianism, which valued the greatest good as the primary ethical principle. He designed a prison called the Panopticon, which contained cells surrounding a central post for a hidden jailer, and advocated menial labor to help pay the cost of imprisonment.
In 1791-92, Thomas Paine published The Rights of Man in defense of the French Revolution against criticisms by Edmund Burke, and then in 1794 The Age of Reason, criticizing organized religion and biblical inerrancy and advocating deism.
In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft published A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, defending women’s equality, and Johann Fichte went beyond Hume’s and Kant’s subjectivism (inability to know things in themselves) by proposing idealism, the idea that consciousness is separate from anything outside of itself.
Another idealist was Friedrich Schelling, who published System of Transcendental Idealism in 1800. He said that nature is visible spirit, and that history is the progressive disclosing of the Absolute.
In 1818, Georg Hegel succeeded Fichte as professor of philosophy in Berlin. He took his cue from Heraclitus, viewing Absolute Knowledge as evolving in a dialectical process of contradiction and negation, in which a thesis and its antithesis form a new and better or more complete synthesis, which in turn serves as the new thesis.
Also in 1818, Arthur Schopenhauer published The World as Will and Idea. He affirmed Hinduism and agreed with Buddhism’s negation of volition in order to avoid painful desires, but viewed Hegel as vacuous and criticized Kant for over-looking the validity of intuition as prior to the operation of conscious reason. He adopted Aristotle’s four-fold analysis of knowledge: material using cause and effect, abstract using logic, mathematic using numerical operations, and psychological using moral reasoning.
In 1820, Friedrich Schleiermacher published The Christian Faith, in which he argued that dependence on God rather than understanding Him is fundamental. He rejected hell in favor of universalism.