This is the Baymaw Podcast with Marty Solomon. I'm his co-host, Brent Billings. Today, we journey up to the end of the 18th century and follow the world of Protestant history as it moves out of the Reformation and through the age of enlightenment.

Remember we got a timeline for you? I think you should have just one today. I think a quote-unquote presentation.

Remember that this time I was just starting to get a little busy. I got some stuff in them. I got lots of information packed into these presentations.

Remember they're not meant to be perfectly to scale or the pins putting the exact right space or anything like that. But give us grace. They're meant to be a look at the bigger, larger picture.

Alright, let's go. As the age of enlightenment continues, our secular growth curve also continues.

If the theories and science proposed and proved by men like Copernicus and Galileo rocked the very foundations of our assumptions about the universe, it was only just setting the stage for what we would call today modernity or the modern era.

This growth curve would continue through the contributions of men like Isaac Newton, John Locke. Famous for his laws of motion, Newton is considered the modern father of mechanics and all of my engineering students have Newton to thank for so much of the field that they enjoy.

And I thank him as well. Yes, tell me more. Why? I just like things that move. I just love things. We don't have time to get into it. Alright, we all appreciate Newton explaining why things move the way that they do.

While this is not the only major contribution, for instance, Newton did incredible work in the field of color and the light spectrum. Did you know this print billings?

Yes, and I also appreciate that greatly. Another photographer. Absolutely. And other things. It wasn't just that. Newton was really involved. He changed the way that we think about physics. And therefore he set the stage for technological advancement like never before. How about John Locke? By the way, I often get in my brain.

John Knox and John Locke mixed up. I think I think last episode I talked about the political shaping that John Knox brought to the world. And I even insinuated that a lot of the things he did shaped ideals that like the Democratic Party is is. I don't even know if that's I'm sure that if that's not true.

I have already received at this point a million emails correcting me about who he exactly shaped which political philosophy. That is not my realm of expertise or something that I care a whole lot about because I often get him and Locke mixed up.

Locke is the one who is known as the father of liberalism. And while many in my circles here in the rural northwest, northwest that I grew up in.

See the word liberal is something close to a swear word. And I definitely am kidding. I mean, jovial here. I mean, I'm sure some people actually think that it's true.

It would be full hearty even if we do think that it would be full hearty to make assumptions about Locke. And it's most in it's most basic and earliest forms liberalism referred to a line of political philosophy that believes in liberty and equality.

Locke's influence, for instance, on the declaration of independence is unmistakable. And one of the reasons that American democracy even works on its good days is because of the tension and balance held between liberalism and conservatism.

One philosophy bent towards complete freedom and the other philosophy bent towards maintaining a constant ethic.

Outside of our modern American context, Locke greatly impacted other major thinkers and players in the next century.

Now the secular growth curve should not convince us that there was a lack of theological, like a lack in the theological department by any means.

The Protestant reformation was finally cooling down. The edict of non-tastes signed in 1598 had determined Protestants were granted civil liberty and equality, meaning that they no longer had to run around as heretics under the oppression of the Holy Roman Empire.

This freedom of thought had two results. Quick question. Okay. What do you mean by Holy Roman Empire? Catholic Church. Okay. Yeah.

The Catholic Church and its Holy Roman late classical period form. Because Catholic Church, if we were to do a whole session on Catholic Church history, they evolved, they changed, they grew, they morphed, they developed just like any other movement.

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