And in both cases the Church put up a massive resistance.”
“I can well understand that. Because where was God in all this new stuff? It was
simpler when the earth was the center and God and the planets were upstairs.”
“But that was not the greatest challenge. When Newton had proved that the
same natural laws applied everywhere in the universe, one might think that he thereby
undermined people’s faith in God’s omnipotence. But Newton’s own faith was never
shaken. He regarded the natural laws as proof of the existence of the great and
almighty God. It’s possible that man’s picture of himself fared worse.”
“How do you mean?”
“Since the Renaissance, people have had to get used to living their life on a
random planet in the vast galaxy. I am not sure we have wholly accepted it even now.
But there were those even in the Renaissance who said that every single one of us
now had a more central position than before.”
“I don’t quite understand.”
“Formerly, the earth was the center of the world. But since astronomers now
said that there was no absolute center to the universe, it came to be thought that there
were just as many centers as there were people. Each person could be the center of a
universe.”
“Ah, I think I see.”
“The Renaissance resulted in a new religiosity. As philosophy and science
gradually broke away from theology, a new Christian piety developed. Then the Ren-
aissance arrived with its new view of man. This had its effect on religious life. The
individual’s personal relationship to God was now more important than his rela-
tionship to the church as an organization.”
“Like saying one’s prayers at night, for instance?”
“Yes, that too. In the medieval Catholic Church, the church’s liturgy in Latin
and the church’s ritual prayers had been the backbone of the religious service. Only
priests and monks read the Bible because it only existed in Latin. But during the
Renaissance, the Bible was translated from Hebrew and Greek into national lan-
guages. It was central to what we call the Reformation.”
“Martin Luther...”
“Yes, Martin Luther was important, but he was not the only reformer. There
were also ecclesiastical reformers who chose to remain within the Roman Catholic
church. One of them was Erasmus of Rotterdam.”
“Luther broke with the Catholic Church because he wouldn’t buy indulgences,
didn’t he?”
“Yes, that was one of the reasons. But there was a more important reason.
According to Luther, people did not need the intercession of the church or its priests
in order to receive God’s forgiveness. Neither was God’s forgiveness dependent on
the buying of ‘indulgences’ from the church. Trading in these so-called letters of
indulgence was forbidden by the Catholic Church from the middle of the sixteenth
century.”
“God was probably glad of that.”
“In general, Luther distanced himself from many of the religious customs and
dogmas that had become rooted in ecclesiastical history during the Middle Ages. He
wanted to return to early Christianity as it was in the New Testament. The Scripture
alone,’ he said. With this slogan Luther wished to return to the ‘source’ of Chris-
tianity, just as the Renaissance humanists had wanted to turn to the ancient sources of
art and culture. Luther translated the Bible into German, thereby founding the German
written language. He believed every man should be able to read the Bible and thus in