August 31, 1688

After the Bible was available in local languages, and literacy began to seep into the population, many people began to assess certain religious questions for themselves. They may for various reasons feel an inner turbulence about how to act. Most everyone in the 17th century believed if they did not follow what they conceived as of as God's directions, as it was laid out in the Bible, that they would suffer physical torture after they died. If they saw this future pain as a certainty if they thought and acted a certain way, this was a motivating factor in their changing the way they acted.

John Bunyan, (November 28, 1628 to  August 31, 1688).was a spiritual guide for many on this path. What he felt was an enormous need to live correctly according to what god wanted. And when he figured out what was the right thing, he could not stop sharing with others what he discovered. He spent years in prison because he refused to stop public preaching. All he had to do was shut up, but he could not do this, even if, in prison, there was always the chance they would decide to hang him.

John Bunyan wrote The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) and the book is justly famous for the psychological insights presented there. One thing all the pressure Bunyan felt did, was force him to sort some things out, and be honest with himself. This kind of thinking -- what the crowd says is not important, but internal honesty is -- as you talk to god, god will know if you deceive yourself, of course. All this was part of a general growth in mankind. Man is now seen as an isolated entity, both responsible for himself, and accountable to a higher power. Man could not, as in the past rely on external authorities to guide him in his decision-making. The bible was written in a language they could not even read. Now, the individual was alone in making his path. Of course god could help, but only if the man who prays was honest.  This was the birth of modern psychological man; the really new thing was this excessive fixation on one's inner life, led by one's thinking processes.  Auden's "Age of Anxiety" was founded in the 17th century. 

Bunyan is quoted as saying (the first ellipsis is not my ellipsis):

Conversion is not the smooth easy-going process some men seem to think...It is wounding work, this breaking of the hearts, but without wounding there is no saving..Where there is grafting, there will always be a cutting.

Bunyan points here to the arduous nature of inner examination, of praying to God and asking for his help. Notice already in the 17th century there were apparently those who said, in effect, "Wake up? Oh yeah, I did that already." 

The view that the  mind is  rational at the same time as hormonal realities are the real power, was not an option for Bunyan. It was a real puzzle then,  for Bunyan, how man, if rational, then does not act in his own best interest. For centuries the idea of a devil explained the actions of hormones in western culture.  Such an creature, external to man, was accepted by Bunyan as well as all the religions of the time.

In this respect Bunyan reflected the prejudices of his age. Satan and witches were real phenomena. Here Bunyan tries to understand how men can do wrong, when their self interest should have them acting so as to avoid the torment of an after-life.  We quote Bunyan from an 1862 reprint, The Whole Works of John Bunyan, (volume 1).

But methinks this is the mystery of all as to this, that the soul should take ... such advantages against itself! For it is the soul that sins, that the soul might die! 0! sin, what art thou? What hast thou done? and what still wilt thou further do, if mercy, and blood and grace doth not prevent thee? 0 silly soul! what a fool has sin made of thee? what an ass art thou become to sin? that ever an immortal soul, at first made in the image of God, for God, and for his delight, should so degenerate from its first station, and so abase itself that it might serve sin, as to become the devil's ape,... upon any stage or theatre in the world! But I recall myself; for if sin can make one who was sometimes a glorious angel in heaven, now so to abuse himself as to become, to appearance, as a filthy frog, a toad, a rat, a cat, a fly, a mouse, a dog, or bitch's whelp... to serve its ends upon a poor mortal, that it might gull them of everlasting life, no marvel if the soul is so beguiled as to sell itself from God, and all good, for so poor a nothing as a momentary pleasure is.

Bunyan here accepts the idea that the devil can appear in the guise of common creatures. But you can hear where Bunyan momentarily is close to analyzing what he calls sin, in a more sophisticated manner. "O sin, what art thou?" This is the result of the rigorous self-examination referred to in our first quote. Everything you think you know, is questioned. This is why I suggest Bunyan's writing was the birth of modern psychological man.People then did not, nor now really, step back and say, if God created the world and all therein, then why would he want his creatures to suffer for something they had no part in making. An all powerful god suggests man is not really responsible for his own actions. And why would god want love from creatures who were just scared not to love him. 

So in the 17th century we note the inconsistency of a god who is all powerful expecting man to be responsible for his own actions. 

Modern science is no different though. It is not like we have progressed in self-knowledge. Experts in the physical sciences today cannot avoid a glimpse of a universe which is completely deterministic. But if the evidence is correct, then how can any speech of man's claim accuracy, when that speech itself is part of a mechanical flow. If thought/speech is  a helpless part of a larger flow, how can man's assessments pretend any veridical power?