The social contract, an Enlightenment tenet, asserted that legitimate political power results from an agreement among individuals to build a society and establish a government to defend their natural rights. This tenet opposed the "Divine Right of Kings" theory.
The Enlightenment principle that disputed the principle of the "Divine Right of Kings" was the social compact. According to the social contract idea, legitimate political power does not come from a king's divine or inherited right, but rather from an agreement among citizens to join a society and establish a government to defend their natural rights. The traditional belief that monarchs received their authority directly from God was severely contested by this thought, which also helped to establish the foundation for contemporary democratic government.