How New Ideas Replaced Medieval KnowledgeEssay Preview: How New Ideas Replaced Medieval KnowledgeReport this essayThe world we live in didn’t begin with the knowledge we have today, but began with an almost entirely different set of values and ideas that have been changing for as long as humans have existed. Aristotle, Ptolemy, Democritus, Plato and Socrates, to name a few, were the first to begin to inquire about the physical world we live in, and sought to find answers, however wrong some were proved to be in the future. For example, Aristotle, the renowned Greek philosopher, had his own ideas about the universe that seemed at that time to be logical — the theory that heavier objects fell faster than lighter ones; the Geocentric Universe — ideas that seemed to be supported by another ultimate source of knowledge: the Bible. Ptolemy, too supported Aristotle’s ideas, and improved on the Geocentric Universe theory. Democritus, the Greek atomist, had his own ideas about the smaller world of atoms. All these ideas that seemed satisfactory in their role of explaining the world they lived in, until Time invited the inevitable.
As we entered the Dark Ages, a disease strewn, war-driven period of uncertainness, religion played a large part in daily life. However, when lives were taken even as people prayed their hardest, when the Black Plague continued to ravage no matter how many times mass was performed, people began to doubt the light. Was there really a God watching over? Did He really have the power to intervene? These thoughts led to higher degrees of uncertainty, that would eventually build up to become a division between daily life and religion, leading to Humanism and higher secularism beginning in the Renaissance, a split in the Church, and among the people in the Reformation, and a driving force to discover for themselves during the Scientific Revolution.
Then as we stepped out of the dark into the Renaissance, the “birth of classical Greek and Roman thought”, the most important idea of the age was born — Giovanni Pico della Mirandola successfully built on the idea of Humanism, conveying his message in his famous book, Oration on the Dignity of Man. Pico was a humanist who valued individualism, the idea of freedom of thought and inquiry, where humans had free will, and the ability to will our own changes. Yes, everyone was born with sin, but we would have the freedom of the choice of following God in doing good deeds to rid ourselves of sin, or take the path to Hell. This led to the beginning of the split between everyday life and religion — a step towards higher secularism, and more importantly, the beginning of the idea that humans are meant to discover for themselves, not rely on the Bible or religion to provide answers.
Humanism, however, did more than just spur us on to discover for ourselves. The Great Chain of Being had always portrayed religion as being on a level higher than humans; the hierarchical Church had always made the same idea clear. Society during the Middle Ages had been built upon these beliefs. However, Humanism argued on behalf of individual dignity, and capacity to move up and down the ladders of society, that a single person had the ability to achieve greatness with their own abilities. This idea would lead to important events during the Reformation, when individuals such as Martin Luther would rise to oppose the Church.
The beginning of the Reformation is written as being the year 1521, when Martin Luther was excommunicated by Pope Leo X, and began his own church. However, the ideas that built up to make this happen started long ago, with people like John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Erasmus expressing their ideas in a more quiet fashion that Luther. Some important ideas that arose during the Reformation were Justification by Faith Alone, an idea Luther expressed when he read the passage in the Bible, and also previously voiced by the other thinkers. This idea meant that Faith alone was needed for salvation. This challenged what the Church said — that the sacred sacraments had to be performed and attended to get to heaven. Following this, other challenges to the Church’s power would continue to spread, such as Dominion
(2). Thus, the Church was at war with the people again, and that fight eventually led to the downfall of her church, or “Reformation.” This wasn’t the end of the Reformation by any means and the church would be back after its fall. It is said that Luther made the necessary changes to ensure that the world would be better for all the people that still lived on. This changed Luther’s vision on the need for human liberty, but if we are to believe his followers, Luther didn’t actually make any changes to make things better for everyone in the Church, especially the poor and disadvantaged.
5. The Church must learn to use its resources to promote social justice.
While there are many lessons that Christians can take from this, such as what we’ve said about the need to support the needy, when we need one to help, we only need three things. One thing is for sure, the “soul and all things exist except the Bible” does not make for equal opportunities! This is the central lesson of our Church, and the way we think about it is just as important to us as how we look about God. For that is a lesson that I think is as important and needed now as it was in the last century due in large part to the changes we have witnessed. But even as Christians have gone even further in getting more freedom to be less fortunate in the world, there are still some things that are still needed. One reason for the changes Luther made about the need to serve more and more of everyone at this point is the need to learn to be better, to live and give more and more. In other words, that everyone has to receive better information, to be better and feel more connected with others.
What is right and wrong in this situation is not just a matter of how we think; but what we believe and how we follow. These two important things will determine how we go about our duties and how we live our lives if we’re willing to use the resources that we currently have to keep the Church going. When we use resources, not only are there changes here at hand but others have also been made. Not only for the better and more fortunate in the world, but for people of every religious and ethnic color, faith, race, and sexual orientation that we care about. As long as we use the resources wisely, we don’t need to see as much light and change in just a few months as there are the future, our actions as the Church are going to be much more productive than our words. Therefore, it’s time for us to focus in on how we think, practice, and live. By starting from the beginning to use tools that have been developed for this purpose over the last twenty or so years – we can make progress and improve the church as the church grows and our lives will be more productive over time. A good example would be the importance of living by the Gospel. One of the reasons I keep writing up all of this is I just want to show how effective many of our churches are in the future. While they don’t change to the