Term Paper on "Age of Reformation"

Term Paper 9 pages (2475 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

European History

The Age of Reformation

It is a cliche that the pen is mightier than the sword - that ideas shape the course of human events to a far greater extent than the use of power. Many ideas have been discussed about the Age of Reformation in Europe, not only those of religious thinkers such as Luther and Calvin, but also those of political thinkers (Machiavelli and Hobbes, for example), scientists, and commentators on their world such as More and Montaigne. Also, the careers and achievements of a good many wielders of power, not only kings and queens, but also Popes, ministers, such as Richelieu, and rebels such as Coligny and William the silent have been discussed by historians regarding this time period. Did the writers and thinkers of the age of Reformation have a greater impact on this period that the politicians?" The Age of Reformation, like most periods of reform, was influenced most heavily by the opinions and dialogues of the time.

There were actually several influences responsible for the Reformation Era. One is that Europeans were suddenly expanding all over the globe, due mainly to the economic activity of mercantilism (Hooker pp). The world for Europeans at the beginning of the fifteenth century, was small and contained, and while they were aware of faraway places such as China and southern Africa, they remained focused on their immediate world, Europe and the Mediterranean (Hooker pp). By the beginning of the 1600's, Europeans had been all over the world and had settlements on every continent except Australia and Antarctica (Hooker pp). In fact, most of the coastline of the Americas and all of the major cities in eastern Africa were under the domination of Europeans (Hooker pp). The discovery of the Americas did not merely challenge the Europeans' ideas of world geography, it fundamentally changed their view of history as well (Hooker pp). Richard Hooker writers:

From the time of early Christianity all through Middle

Ages, Europeans thought of history as an ordered and rational affair. History was by and large understood as salvation history; the larger meaning of history was the salvation of humanity in a Christian sense. The meaning of all historical events could be determined by correlating those historical events to events or sayings in the New

Testament which served as a kind of decoder ring; this way of understanding human experience and history is called typology (Hooker pp).

When the New World was discovered, Europeans began to realize that there was an entirely different human history on this new continent, and not only was it different from European history, it was "unknown and unknowable" because most Europeans could not decipher the writings they encountered (Hooker pp). Thus, the salvation model of history could no longer apply to human experience because a total history had existed outside the context of salvation history (Hooker pp). Therefore, Europeans began to think of history in new and different ways (Hooker pp).

Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the history of the Catholic Church if one that is filled with spiritual, artistic, and intellectual accomplishments, yet also one filled with shameful abuses and doctrinal foals (Hooker pp). During the Middle Ages, there was strong criticism and passionate reactions to Catholic doctrine and church practices, however, none had such an impact as Martin Luther (Hooker pp). Luther's impact permanently changed the face of Christianity and European culture, and his call for reformation of corrupt church practices eventually erupted into "the greatest spiritual and political challenge medieval Catholicism ever faced" (Hooker pp). Not only were wars waged, with Christians killing Christians, but the European state itself was shook to the core by the political implications of Luther's newly formed church (Hooker pp).

Luther's initial call for reform concerned the church practice of selling indulgences (Hooker pp). The concept of indulgence is based on the medieval doctrine that sinners must repent and confess their sins and pay some sort of retribution, the idea being that without retribution no one would really know if the sinner had repented except for the sinner, thus some outward action, such as doing some good deed, was necessary to show proof (Hooker pp). With mercantilism, came money, and instead of using the barter system, people traded for money, and by the late thirteenth century, the church decided to sell indulgences (Hooker pp). The logic was that since the expiation of sin involves temporal punishment and that in turn involves doing good works, then "why no substitute someone else's good works for the good works you're required to do" (Hooker pp)? Thus came the practice of the Catholic Church of selling indulgences for money (Hooker pp). However, indulgences became big business for the church and criticism mounted, especially in northern Europe (Hooker pp).

Two major influences from the north were Desiderius Erasmus and Sir Thomas More (Hooker pp). Erasmus, 146-1536, developed a simple theology of Christian love, and believed that Christianity was basically an ethical religion, the philosophy of Christ, which was one of selfless love and piety (Hooker pp). He believed that the Church's practices and dogmas were a profound departure from the philosophy of Christ (Hooker pp). Some of the foundational texts of Protestantism belong to the writings of Erasmus (Hooker pp).

Sir Thomas More, 1478-1535, was the most prominent English humanist of the sixteenth century and an unwavering Catholic who was executed by Henry VIII for not renouncing this Catholicism, yet although he never converted to Protestantism, his writings were highly critical of the papacy and church abuses, and thus, also became part of the foundation of English Protestantism (Hooker pp). The terminology and ideas laid down by these Northern humanists would fuel the Reformation movement, sparked by the German monk, Martin Luther (Hooker pp). He became the catalyst for what was astir in many areas throughout Europe (Wright pp).

When Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses, attacking papal abuses and the sale of indulgences by church officials, to the door of the Wittenberg Church, that act became the symbolic fire that began the Reformation (Martin pp). Luther did not view the Reformation simply as a revolt against church abuses, he saw it as a fight for the gospel, and claimed he would have "happily yielded every point of dispute to the Pope, if only the Pope had affirmed the gospel" (Martin pp). At the core of this was the doctrine of justification by faith, that Christ's own righteousness is imputed to those who believe, and thus, "on that ground alone, they are accepted by God" (Martin pp). He believed that because of the original sin, man was completely depraved, and that even good works were simply an outgrowth of his corrupted will, therefore he could only be saved by faith alone (Martin1 pp). Thus, "Be a sinner and sin on bravely, but have stronger faith and rejoice in Christ," doctrine of justification by faith gradually developed and became on the central doctrines of Christianity (Martin1 pp). For Luther, man is saved by believing that God will pardon him and grant him an unconditional release from it penalties, therefore, the hierarchy and priesthood are not Divinely instituted or necessary, and ceremonial or exterior worship is not essential or useful (Martin1 pp).

The Ninety-Five Theses outlined the argument against the use of indulgences, based on the idea that Christianity is fundamentally a phenomenon of the inner world of humans and had nothing to do with the secular world, such as temporal punishments (Hooker pp). This was the heart of the argument, not the indulgences themselves, and this is what led to Luther being brought before the court in 1518 to defend himself against cardinal Cajetan (Hooker pp). When Luther refused to recant his arguments, the split with the church was set in motion, and many Northern Humanists embraced Luther and his ideas (Hooker pp).

In "The Sermon on Good Works," Luther argued that good works do not benefit the soul, that only faith could do that, and this led Pope Leo to declare forty-one articles of Luther's teachings as heretical and ordered his books publicly burned in Rome (Hooker pp). Even more passionate, Luther's "Address to the Christian Nobility of Germany," urged the German nation to use military efforts to force the church to discuss grievances and reform (Hooker pp). "A Prelude Concerning the Babylonish Captivity of the Church" actually called for the church clergy to openly revolt against Rome (Hooker pp). In 1521, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, brought Luther before the diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Worms and when Luther refused to recant, he was placed under arrest, but escaped to Wartburg (Hooker pp). Although he wrote a letter to Pope Leo, explaining his ideas, "On the Freedom of the Christian," Luther was excommunicated from the church in 1521, and what began as an attempt to reform the church became the birth of a new church independent of the Catholic church (Hooker pp). Luther's "The Freedom of the Christian," became the theological and… READ MORE

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