The Enlightenment and Original Sin

An eloquent microhistory that argues for the centrality of the doctrine of original sin to the Enlightenment.

What was the Enlightenment? This question has been endlessly debated. In The Enlightenment and Original Sin, historian Matthew Kadane advances the bold claim that the Enlightenment is best defined through what it set out to accomplish, which was nothing short of rethinking the meaning of human nature.

Kadane argues that this project centred around the doctrine of original sin and, ultimately, its rejection, signalling the radical notion that an inherently flawed nature can be overcome by human means. Kadane explores this and other wide-ranging themes through the story of a previously unknown figure, Pentecost Barker, an eighteenth-century purser and wine merchant.

By examining Barker's personal diary and extensive correspondence with a Unitarian minister, Kadane tracks the transformation of Barker's consciousness from a Puritan to an Enlightenment outlook. This reveals, through one man's journey, the large-scale shifts in self-understanding whose philosophical reverberations have shaped debates on human nature for centuries.