How The Scientific Revolution And The Reformation Were Revolutionary

1. Discuss whether the Scientific Revolution and the Reformation were “revolutionary”.

What does it mean to be revolutionary? To be revolutionary is to be, as defined by dictionary.com as “markedly new or introducing radical change”. It is my educated opinion to believe that the scientific revolution and the reformation were both revolutionary without a doubt. A revolution involves change, mass amounts of change which affects nearly everything. It’s not a change of wardrobe, or a new car, it is much, much greater than that. A revolution changes the way people view themselves and the universe in which they are living in and it doesn’t come easily. Revolution is usually brought about as a very last option. People do not welcome change; they
are very uncomfortable with it. They fear it, what if the situation gets worse? People allow change only when they have finally hit rock bottom. Things must get extremely messy before anything can improve. In order to understand the scientific revolution and the reformation it is key to understand the dramatic change which underwent.
The Scientific Revolution was nothing less than a revolution in the way the individual perceives the world. Ultimately the scientific revolution challenged conceptions and beliefs about the nature of the external world. This revolution changes the man’s thought process. It was an intellectual revolution -- a revolution in human knowledge. The scientific revolutionaries attempted to understand and explain man and the natural world. Thinkers such as Copernicus, Descartes, and Newton overturned the authority of the Middle Ages and the classical world. By authority I don’t mean that of the church but of the “triad” Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Galen. The revolutionaries of the new science had to escape their intellectual heritage. The long term effects of both the Scientific Revolution and the acceptance and dependence upon science can still be felt today in our daily lives.
Philosophers of the middle ages had used the ideas of Ptolemy, Aristotle, and Christianity to form the geocentric theory of the universe, which until the scientific revolution was never challenged. The time had come, a challenge was formed. Nicholas Copernicus hoped that his heliocentric theory would offer a more accurate explanation. He claimed that the sun was motionless at the center of the universe and the planets revolved around the sun, the moon however revolved around the earth. The next step in destroying the geocentric conception of the world and supporting Copernicus’ belief was Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. He did oppose Copernicus by saying that the orbits of the planets were not circular but elliptical and sun is at one focus of the ellipse rather than the center. Another breakthrough emerged with the observations of the heavens by means of a telescope by Galileo Galilei. His telescope showed him remarkable discoveries such as mountains on the moon, four moons revolving around Jupiter, and sunspots. The universe seemed to be composed of material similar to that of the earth rather than a perfect and unchanging substance. The Catholic Church condemned Copernicanism and ordered Galileo to abandon the Copernicanism thesis because it threatened the entire conception of the universe and the Scripture. By the 1630’s and 1640’s most astronomers had come to accept the new heliocentric conception of the universe. The world is transformed; people emerged from a closed world into a world of light and reason. It is then Isaac Newton who explains the motion of the universe and ties together the idea of Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. Newton defined the three laws of motion that govern the planetary bodies, as well as objects on earth. He also had the universal law of gravitation which explained why the planetary bodies did not go off in straight lines but continued in elliptical orbits about the sun. He explained the term of gravity he also described the world as one huge, regulated machine that operated according to natural laws in absolute time, space and motion. The new conception of the universe had an impact on the Western view of the humankind as seen through the work of Descartes. He came up with Cartesian dualism which is a dualism between mind and matter. His separation of mind and matter allowed scientists to view matter as dead or inert, as something that was separate from themselves and could be investigated independently by reason.
My greatest point of explaining all of this is to show the importance of all of this change. This change has brought us to the world we live in today. By challenging the church, by challenging old thoughts, we now know the truths. For this time period it was certainly radical change, that is what a revolution is. The Scientific Revolution was undoubtedly a revolution is every sense of the word. This is proven mostly through viewing the medieval world view, the reliance on authority of the Bible and Greek philosophers, the medieval understanding of the universe, then the scientific revolution begins, the Church is resistant to change, however science is triumphant Kepler supports Copernicus as do others. This is the main point, there is a revolution a change and science comes out on top.
The reformation can be split into two different subjects, the Protestant reformation and the Catholic reformation.
It is my opinion that the Protestant Reformation dealt more with religion while the Catholic Reformation dealt more with the “politics”. The major goal of the Christian humanism was the reform of Christendom. The Christian humanists believed in the ability of human beings to reason and improve themselves and thought that through education in the sources of classical, and especially Christian ancient times, they could instill an inner godliness or an inward religious feeling that would bring about reform of the church and society. Simply stated, they wanted change. Corruption in the Catholic Church was another reason why people wanted reform. Many high church officials were also concerned with money and used their church offices as opportunities to advance their wealth and careers. Martin Luther was a monk and a professor who lectured on the bible. He believed that humans are not saved through their good works but through faith in the promises of God made possible by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. This doctrine became the primary doctrine of the Protestant Reformation, because Luther had studied the Bible and arrived at this doctrine by doing so it became the chief guide to religious truths for all Protestants. Luther was outraged at the idea of selling indulgences and issued the Ninety-Five theses which were printed and quickly distributed all over
Germany. Luther began to move toward a more definite break with the Catholic Church by 1520 and he called on the German princes to overthrow the papacy and establish a reformed German church. The church excommunicated him in January 1521. Members of the Reichstag became outraged and ordered that Luther be captured and delivered to the emperor, Luther’s ruler protected him. It is during the next few years that Luther’s religious movement became a revolution. He was able to gain the support of many of the German rulers among three hundred or so states that composed the Holy Roman Empire. These rulers quickly took control of the churches in their territories. They developed state dominated churches and instituted new religious services to replace the Catholic Mass.
John Calvin became a new leader in Protestantism after he published the first edition of the Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Calvin placed much emphasis on the absolute sovereignty of God or the all-powerful nature of God, he also believed in predestination. The English Reformation was rooted in politics, not religion. The Protestants were especially important in developing a new view of the family. The family could be placed at the center of human life because Protestantism had eliminated any idea of special holiness for celibacy and had abolished both monasticism and a celibate clergy, a new stress on “mutual love between man and wife” could be celebrated. A woman’s role however was obedience to her husband and to bear children. By the mid-sixteenth century, Lutheranism had been established in Scandinavia and Germany and Calvinism was established in Scotland, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and Eastern Europe. In England, the split from Rome resulted in the creation of a national church. The Catholic Church also
underwent revitalization in the sixteenth century, giving it new strength. The three chief pillars were the Jesuits, a reformed papacy, and the Council of Trent.
There were many subdivision of the Reformation. Much like the Scientific Revolution we can see that the Reformation was in fact “revolutionary” because of the radical change that underwent during this time period. Nearly everything had changed, the power, the family, beliefs. I believe that is just what a revolution entails, radical change. Therefore, I firmly believe that both the Scientific Revolution as well as the Reformation were “revolutionary”.