Paper
Nikoloz Burnadze
Western Traditions
2/22/2013
Power of Church
From the beginning of times, humanity was organized in small groups ruled by some authority. Small groups grew into the tribes, tribes into villages, villages into the countries. In the sixteenth century Europe Catholic Church and pope was the ultimate authority, world view, science and most importantly politics was based on Catholic church. Towards the eighteenth century even though religion was still huge part of European society, scientific revolution along with the enlightenment weakened the power of the church, religion was not the answer to everything and was not the ultimate authority.
As we know Catholic Church has been questioned before the eighteenth century, and many times it has been criticized for the corruption and the supremacy of pope. One of those people confronting the pope was German catholic monk Martin Luther (1483-1546). Aside from the theological and corruption reasons, one of the ideas that martin Luther had was the freedom of man, and how everyone can be in contact with god by themselves without help of the priest, and how bible was the ultimate authority and not the pope. In his writing “On the Freedom of a Christian” he quotes “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none.” However for Martin Luther still believed that church should have been the authority, and even though everyone could ask questions still the answers were given only by his doctrines. He did not really society to rise up and rebel against any sort of authority, and we can see that when right after he says the quote mentioned above he follows: “ a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one”. Reformation and particularly Martin Luther did weaken the Catholic Church but did not effected the society that much, religion still remained as an authority to manipulate people. Both Protestantism and Catholicism where used as shield by monarchs and clergy to
Western Traditions
2/22/2013
Power of Church
From the beginning of times, humanity was organized in small groups ruled by some authority. Small groups grew into the tribes, tribes into villages, villages into the countries. In the sixteenth century Europe Catholic Church and pope was the ultimate authority, world view, science and most importantly politics was based on Catholic church. Towards the eighteenth century even though religion was still huge part of European society, scientific revolution along with the enlightenment weakened the power of the church, religion was not the answer to everything and was not the ultimate authority.
As we know Catholic Church has been questioned before the eighteenth century, and many times it has been criticized for the corruption and the supremacy of pope. One of those people confronting the pope was German catholic monk Martin Luther (1483-1546). Aside from the theological and corruption reasons, one of the ideas that martin Luther had was the freedom of man, and how everyone can be in contact with god by themselves without help of the priest, and how bible was the ultimate authority and not the pope. In his writing “On the Freedom of a Christian” he quotes “A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none.” However for Martin Luther still believed that church should have been the authority, and even though everyone could ask questions still the answers were given only by his doctrines. He did not really society to rise up and rebel against any sort of authority, and we can see that when right after he says the quote mentioned above he follows: “ a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one”. Reformation and particularly Martin Luther did weaken the Catholic Church but did not effected the society that much, religion still remained as an authority to manipulate people. Both Protestantism and Catholicism where used as shield by monarchs and clergy to
Cited: Martin Luther - “On the Freedom of Christian” Immanuel Kant - “what is enlightenment?”