The French Enlightenment and the Modernization of Christianity during this Period

The European Enlightenment differed from country to country and was often shaped by local conditions and grievances. In France, the French Enlightenment began to take shape in the early 1700s, reaching its peak by the middle of the century. The French Enlightenment in the eighteenth century was a great intellectual movement started by advanced bourgeois thinkers in France before the revolution to inspire people to free their minds from the confinement of religious theology and feudal dictatorship. Politically, most of these philosophes concerned with two issues: how to understand and improve government and how to create a society based on reason, logic and merit. The objects of criticism ranged from the established church, judicial practice, freedom of speech, art, literature and manners in general, the role of the King, and economic reform. The French Enlightenment achieved a complete negation of the feudal autocracy and fundamentally denied the existence of theocracy, monarchy and privilege. The French Enlightenment thinkers used their pens as weapons to expose the hypocrisy of religious theology, unveil the mysteries of tyranny, and accuse the evils of social inequality. The French Enlightenment also promoted the modernization of Christianity. As a result of religious tolerance, non-believers were no longer discriminated and persecuted, and people of pagan faiths in various countries began to enjoy universal human rights. The principle of disestablishment was finally established as a constitutional principle. Although it pit modern society against religious faith, which brought negative influence, the French Enlightenment had the significance as a milestone. It broke up religious regulation and feudal tyranny, reconstructed the ontological order and the legitimacy of the social and political orders, and formulated a cultural and political program of modernity.