The New Enlightenment

"The School of Athens" by Raphael

The 17th and 18th centuries were characterized by a period that we call the Enlightenment.  It was an age of logic and reason, full of philosophers and great scientists.  Many of these man are revered in our day as some of the greatest minds to walk the earth.  Men like Isaac Newton, Rene Descartes, Galileo Galilei, John Locke, Voltaire, and Adam Smith shaped the world with their ideas.  The Enlightenment was definitely an era of new and revolutionary ideas. 

However, in his "Argument Against Abolishing Christianity", Jonathan Swift brings up a very interesting point.  He gives many different reasons for why abolishing Christianity would be harmful, but an underlying theme is that although certain old practices may seem harmful and antiquated, they have some inherent value that we are sometimes too quick to throw away.

In today's world, we are in an era very similar to the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries.  Many new discoveries are taking place and changing the world we live in.  Sometimes we fall into this same trap that Swift is warning about- we tend to be quick to throw out the old in place of the new.  How many of us buy into the mentality that we must have the newest and best smartphones, even if our current one is still functional?  How many of us tend to throw away old philosophies and ideas without so much as a second thought?  We should be careful to not disregard old ideas just because new ones come along.  We need to be celebratory of the old ideas, like Raphael in the painting shown above.  Because without the old, we would never have the new.  As Isaac Newton is quoted as saying: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."