“The characteristic doctrine of the Enlightenment was the belief in inevitable progress ‘onward and ever upward.’ Those who gave expression to this belief little realized how profoundly indebted they were to the interpretation of history given in the Bible. However, the leaders of the Enlightenment defended their confidence in the future by arguments that revealed the increasingly secular spirit of the age. The Christian belief in man as a sinner was replaced by the view that man is rational and morally virtuous; the Christian emphasis upon salvation through God‘s grace was surrendered in favor of confidence in science; and the Christian believe in divine Providence was superseded by the belief in the operation of ‘natural law’ which guaranteed the progressive movement of history.”

(Bernhard W. Anderson, Rediscovering the Bible, New York: Association Press, 1952, 2)