This article uses Johan Joachim Spalding’s Bestimmung des Menschen (1748) to explore the transformation of German Protestantism in the second half of the eighteenth century. The text was at once a philosophical and religious meditation about the senses, the spirit, the nature of creation, and the immortality of the soul. The essay demonstrates how Spalding’s text points to three central features of the Protestant Enlightenment: an apologetical effort attempting to show how Christianity is compatible with polite society, a vernacular idiom that appealed simultaneously to heart and mind, and an engagement with philosophical arguments about man’s place in the world.
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