How New Ideas Replaced Medieval Knowledge

The 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,