Christian Humanism And The Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation, followed by the Catholic Reformation, was an attempt to cleanse the Catholic Church of all corruption and blind teaching. As presented in the documents provided, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations represented great change in the life of Europeans. Whether positively or negatively, almost every European citizen felt the impact of the Reformations on their lives. This was due largely to the fact that the Catholic Church struggled to defend ideas, affecting the clergy, peasants, and nobles all in different ways.

In 16th century that time was given by God to be the time of reformation, and the Church was equipped for the reformation, with Spiritual, financial and dogmatic issues. There were also groups outside the Roman Church that opposed it. Dozens of Protestant denominations were born of the Reformation, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Church of Christ, and Mormons that influenced the American Protestant Reformation. The Reformation was the greatest spiritual crusade for Christ since the early church. The Reformers were all born, baptized confirmed, and educated in the Roman Catholic Church. We

Humanism was the study of Greek and Roman language and literature to educate one’s self and improve one’s reasoning. During the Middle Ages the church was looked upon as the absolute power, and many felt as if it was the end all be all in terms of God and salvation. Because of its high status, not many people questioned the Church. However, this all changed during the Renaissance. As discussed in document 5, the church basically only existed for money. They did this by selling indulgences and collecting money from the wealthy. People saw the corruption within the church and many were not happy. Martin Luther, a German monk and religious reformer, is thought to have started the Protestant Reformation. One of Luther’s boldest acts against the Church was translating the Bible into German. He did this so people did not have to rely on the Church’s interpretation of the Bible. This meant people could listen to God’s word and form their own opinions, something not previously possible during the Middle Ages. Document 2 provides a clear view to the difference of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Jacob Burchhardt compared the distinctness of the Renaissance to how Greeks were distinct from barbarians. The Humanism Reformation clearly separates the Renaissance and the Middle Ages, as does the revival of learning and scientific

The Catholic Reformation was the response of the Protestant movement in the sixteenth century. By the sixteenth century, many people lost the trust for the Catholic Church because it was corrupt. Popes and Cardinals became involved in politics and were more like kings than spiritual leaders and Nepotism was rampant. This loss of trust led people to moved on into other branches of Christianity which includes, Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Anabaptism. Catholic Church’s realized it needed to re-establish itself, thus beginning the Catholic Reformation. The Catholic Reformation was successful because it triggered the start of The Society of Jesus and The Council of Trent which helped resolve the church’s corruption through education,

A new way of learning was starting to be utilized and the study of the bible was beginning to be treated like any other classical piece and with the study of it came the realization of corruption in the church. The humanist movement came at a time when faith in the church war growing weak and educated men were growing bored with the old fashioned way of learning. The return to the study of the classics led to feelings of restless and a need to learn about the world around rather than the blind faith in the supernatural beliefs that Christianity was based. The extremist on both sides blamed each other, the church was leery of any teachings that came from pagan sources, and humanist, encouraged by their scientific discovery’s, were questioning long held

Before the start of the Renaissance, the Catholic Church influenced every aspect of society. The Renaissance and it’s ideals changed this. The Humanist movement opposed the Catholic Church’s involvement in the lives of the citizens. Humanists advocated for personal independence and individual expression, an idea that directly opposed the Catholic Church’s ideals. The Church believed that citizens should dedicate their lives to the service of God and by extension, the Church. The introduction of the idea that the Church does not control every aspect of society was revolutionary to Early Modern Western Civilization because it allowed people to pursue things that they had not been previously able to pursue because of the limitations the Catholic Church placed upon them. Although only the wealthy were able to dedicate all of their time to these pursuits, there were still significant advancements in art, literature, and science, all of which impacted Early Modern Western Civilization.

As new humanistic philosophies gained traction. Christian humanists became vocal critics of the corruption that plagued the Church. Leading to the creation of new forms of Christian practice like Lutheranism. Humanist thinkers saw the need for Church reform. They saw the

People began to value the church and religion a lot less and started to emphasize on the values of people and the world. With people enjoying life rather than treating it as a sufferance people started to explore the Classical World, which had a significant influence on the way people thought about the world and humans. Giannozzo Manetti says that “the world in indeed created by god, but humankind has changed and improved it”, which is saying that the world was created by god but without us humans, it wouldn’t be the same nor as pleasant (1396-1459). Source B says “people began to think more about themselves and their place in the world” and that “they became less interested in thinking about god and the church”, which is implying that the new philosophy of humanism was more about what people could achieve and the world around them rather than religious beliefs and the church. Humanism was a new way of thinking that was influenced by the Ancient Rome and Greek civilization.

During the Renaissance, ideas and beliefs were dramatically changed. Life went from circling around religion to the philosophical concept of humanism becoming the center of society. Humanist beliefs stress the potential value and goodness of human beings rather than supernatural and divine matters. The ignorant beliefs of the Middle Ages began fading away and the Church began declining in power because they were losing followers due to humanism becoming more prevalent. People began thinking for themselves and believing in their own ideas rather than blindly listening to the Church because they were told to.

Christian humanism is an intellectual movement in Northern Europe that combined the interest in the classics of the Italian Renaissance with an interest in the sources of early Christianity. It helped pave the way to the protestant reformation by bringing the focus of old Christianity back into modern Christianity, which was a protestant ideal. Erasmus paved the way for Luther’s break with Rome and Catholicism by writing the Handbook of Christian Knight, stating his belief that Christianity should show people how to live good lives on a daily basis, not just to provide believes for them to be saved. This belief was shown also by Luther, it being his belief that a common man should be sanctioned to interpret the bible in his or her own way.

The Effects of the Reformation on European Life European society was divided from the word go, people all around Europe were dominantly Catholic before the reformation. This time was bringing change throughout Europe with a heavy influence on art and culture because the Renaissance was occurring; a religious revolution was also beginning, which was known as the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant Reformation was the voicing of disagreements by a German Catholic priest about the Catholic Church; this priest was Martin Luther and was excommunicated from the church for his actions. The Protestant Reformation helped to influence and strengthen the Renaissance that was just arising in England.

During sixteenth century Europe a wave of religious dissatisfaction swept the European continent. There were cries for the restructuring of the Catholic Church. These cries grew into more than just a simple remodeling of the Catholic faith they grew into the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther is credited for the reformation movement against the Catholic Church that began in 1517.

The renaissance period marked radical changes in many fields, this includes religion. The so-called Protestant Reformation was the split within western Christian Church initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other early Protestants. Calls for reform came form all sectors of the European society and it is this dissatisfaction that explains why the ideas of Martin Luther evoked such extreme responses, there was already a ready audience. Although there had been significant attempts at reform before Luther, the date usually given for the start of the Protestant Reformation is 1517, when Luther published The Ninety-Five Theses. As he developed his ideas, Luther gathered followers, who came to be called Protestants. The word protestant

For centuries, people looked to religion for the answers to their greatest questions. The Church had a firm grip of how people viewed the world. God's will was to be followed without question and any attempt to explain a phenomenon without God's involvement was heresy. When the Renaissance began to spread across Europe, the qualities of humanism became more prominent. Scientific and rational analysis was becoming of great interest compared to supernatural explanations. Renaissance world-view can be characterized by a growing humanistic orientation that can be demonstrated by analyzing cultural artifacts from the era.

With the arts the artists began to think on their own and those movements began to spread. It was not just what the church said anymore that was right. Humanism, one of the new beliefs which was formed during the Renaissance, said that people should read the works of the greats and focus on writing, and the arts. Humanists believed that they were equal with the ancient Greek and Roman writers and philosophers. Petrarch was the original humanist, and a writer who wrote many letters to the people of ancient Rome. In those letters he spoke as if he was an equal with them. Another of the new beliefs was scholasticism, which was the opposite of humanism. Scholastics thought that people should spend more time the sciences, they also wanted the church and science to be brought together as one. As new scientific discoveries were made many of the churches theories were beginning to be questioned.