Rise of French Laïcité. Stephen M. Davis

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Название Rise of French Laïcité
Автор произведения Stephen M. Davis
Жанр Историческая литература
Серия Evangelical Missiological Society Monograph Series
Издательство Историческая литература
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781725264113



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though primarily ‘secular’ and ‘laic,’ was not intrinsically ‘irreligious’ or ‘anticlerical.’”125 However, faith and reason became recognized as two distinct modes of knowledge. Free will won the day against blind religious devotion and the political arena ceased to be considered as the fulfillment of a divine project. Scientific and technical progress in both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries associated with Ambroise Paré, Copernicus, Kepler or Galileo, contributed to demonstrate that human reason was equipped with the capacity of investigation. There were no longer absolute truths. There were only convictions or hypotheses, all necessarily relative. With Descartes (1596–1650) arrived methodological doubt leading to a new orientation with man thrown into history and seeking to change its course.126

      The seventeenth century likewise left its mark on the world of ideas. Fix writes,

      Walker captures well Voltaire and his genius, a man who has achieved almost mythic status: