'Enlightenment' is an awakening movement arising in Europe during the 17th and 18th Centuries. The English term 'Enlightenment' means 'illumination', and the German term 'Aufkl?rung' means 'illustration' and 'clarification'.
Kant has given a famous definition of the Enlightenment: 'Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.'1 Through such a definition, Kant appealed that the human being should make use of reason bravely. He quoted a motto of the Enlightenment: 'Dare to be wise (Sapere aude)!' For Kant, the Enlightenment refers to both a divine right of the human being and a respect for the value of the human being. Such kind of enlightenment is a main power for the construction of modernity.

We might like to ask about ourselves as those who are in the Chinese culture, one of the old civilizations originated from the pre-modern society, and who are facing a challenge to step rapidly into the modern society and to encounter the post-modern thinking in a very short time, are we really enlightened? In other words, whether the context of the Sino-theology is really enlightened?

In fact, the context of the Sino-theology is very complicated and confusing. The shadow of thousands of years of feudal traditions from the pre-modern society, the overall invasion of the technological civilization of the modern society, and the coming across the ocean of the post-modern thinking, all lead to a phenomenon in which the pre-modern traditional authority, the modern self-centredness and the post-modern de-centredness have been mixed up together. Are we really enlightened?

In certain aspects some philosophers actually went beyond their own times. For instance, Nietzsche saw the limitation of reason and therefore resorted to the huge power of the Non-rational world as if he had skipped over the Enlightenment and the modern society, and reached the post-modern thinking. But one of the problems is that whether people in general are capable of skipping over the Enlightenment as those philosophers. Such a view sounds too optimistic, because it is not difficult to see the shadow of feudal traditions over every corner of the whole 'modern society' in appearance. If we tend to go for the postmodern vision in haste as if we couldn't wait any longer, the outlook will be like wearing new clothes with a big hole on it.

According to the Western experience, a thousand year medieval system has not been terminated in a blink, but rather it has broken down gradually over a period of five hundred years through a series of awakenings, including:

The awakening of the humanistic consciousness of the Renaissance in the 15th Century,
The awakening of religious conscience of the Reformation in the 16th Century,
The awakening of reason of the Enlightenment in the 17th and 18th Centuries,
The rise of science of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century,
The development of technology in the information age in the 20th Century.

We may learn from what the Western have experienced. In a broad sense, the Enlightenment is not only an awakening of reason, but also an awakening of humanistic consciousness and religious conscience. In a word, it is a manifold respect for the human being. On such a ground, there arises technology of the modern society which starts from the industrialization, information revolution, to nanotechnology & bio-technology. While stepping into the 21st Century, so many Asian countries are running for various technologies in order to pursue wealth. We want to question, 'Whether the human being as the agent of all those technologies has been well enlightened?' A simple criterion is: how to evaluate the human being as such?

Those who have grown up in the surroundings of a pre-modern society and been put into the context of modern technology are more or less like a medieval person dressed in a modern way. Moreover, there are people who wear the post-modern decorations, but there are none the less many pre-modern factors inside, such as ignorance, superstition, and endless complicated human relations and taboos.
 
One of the main characteristics of a pre-modern society is ignorance, which is due to negligence of making use of reason. Accordingly, the most important value does not lie in the truth, but in human relations. If one has relations, he may go around the world without any difficulties. But if one has no relations, it is impossible to make any move. Another main characteristic of a pre-modern society is superstition. People follow various taboos blindly, so there are many obstructions in every corner of the society and there are also many forbidden areas everywhere. Each individual is assigned to walk on a narrow track. Most of the people believe that there is no chance to survive at all if they leave one inch away from such a track.

Are we really enlightened? If not, we do need to get rid of the incapability of making use of reason without the guidance of others, no matter it is in the form of well-packed ideology or the valuation spread through whispers. We do need resolution and courage to make use of reason, and bravery to face the decision accompanied with any possible error, in order to embrace freedom to correct ourselves according to the direction of the truth.
Reason is not everything. There are many voices from modern thinkers indicating that reason is limited and proving that reason is not absolute. Gadamer points out that the biggest prejudice of the Enlightenment is to think as if it were totally free from any prejudice. However, is this just the prejudice of the Enlightenment? When a pre-modern dictator upholds his own authority, is he not a person who thinks of himself as totally free from any prejudice? When a post-modern thinker drifts in the endless 'Differance' (Derrida), doesn't he think of himself as totally free from any prejudice? We would rather say that, if only if it is a human being, there is no way for him or her to escape from prejudice.

'Absolute man' is a term adopted by Barth to describe those who are conceited and insolent because of being inspired by the Enlightenment. But, is the Enlightenment the only cause to produce the absolute man? Didn't a pre-modern dictator absolutize himself? When post-modern thinkers claim for the end of the human being and put the human being into the power relations in order to be examined, isn't such an examiner himself an absolute man (Foucault)? Isn't it better to say that, if only if it is a human being, there is a tendency of absolutizing himself or herself.

While facing those who are under a social system of emphasizing the traditional authority, those who are self-centred and with an ambition to dominate the whole nature, and those who are de-centred and intend to deny self and any kind of centre at the same time, it is important for the Sino-theology to re-evaluate how we understand the value of human beings from the perspective of Christian faith, in order to clarify our own prejudices and the way in which we absolutize ourselves, to preserve the value which the human being should have, but not to lose it due to prejudice and absolutization.

Endnotes:
1. I. Kant, 'An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?', in From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology. ed. L. E. Cahoone, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 51.