Church and the Scientific Revolution, Essay Example

The technological and scientific discoveries of the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th century came up with some fundamental transformation on the perspective in which the people viewed the natural world. This had considerable implications in areas of religious and political thought. The period of scientific and technological revolution led to discovery of new animal and plants species thus created much interest in the physical, chemical and biological sciences, with keen interest in the astronomy and navigation. With the help of the printing press, scientific knowledge was able to move swiftly than previously done. The increased warfare between warring nations created the necessity to improve scientific and technological advancement. This revolution ushered in the modern science understanding as much of the work carried out in this period formed the backbone of most of the current understanding of the modern natural science and astronomy (Porter 12). This created a more logical understanding of physics in terms of gravity and laws of motion thus setting the path for more inventions and scientific breakthroughs.

During the same period, scientific revolution came also with enlightenment, which put into practice the scientific knowledge discovered earlier in the 17^th century to the human behavior of the 18^th century. This effectively demonstrated the power of human being to distinguish and discern through perception and reasoning. The influences together with the reduced reliance on the convectional traditional church teachings created a phase of philosophical motion unparallel with the emerging modernity (Anderson 56).  

Scientists and discoverers such as Newton, Galileo, Copernicus and Bacon crashed with the intrigues about God, human propensity, and the potential of understanding nature. This eventually influenced the way people thought and behaved throughout Europe and America. The new ideas were naturally opposed by the Roman Catholic because the associated information did not correlate with the earlier created model of the church (Porter 45).

The singe world viewpoint embraced by the Christian foundation faith was strongly challenged by Nicholas Copernicus; the pioneer astronomer. Through his publishing of the Revolutions of the heavenly Spheres, he raised the question of correctness of the world’s mechanics. Although he did not fully substantiate his description of the solar system, Copernicus became the first scientist to use observation and mathematics to portray the modern picture of the universe. He was however cautious in making his consideration so as to try and conform to the teaching of the Roman Catholic.

Galileo using the telescope of his own creation, created a rather new model of the universe. Unfortunately the strong church figures failed to concur with him. He was a times physically tortured in order to retract his teachings in vain. This kind of resistance was however not met by Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton I their quest to shape modern natural scientific knowledge. This is attributed to their rather passive approach to the church teachings unlike Galileo. Basically, church concentrates more on faith but during this time they actively hoped to lengthen their grip to knowledge of science (Anderson 23).

At the political, economic point of view, enlightenment changed the western world especially the United States as it infiltrated into the peoples lives. This is attributed to the creation of the pioneer democracies in these parts of the world. There was more fairness in their judicial systems and higher educational opportunities. Almost the entire scientific knowledge in the modern world has some foundation on the enlightenment (Anchor 54).

Work Cited

Anchor, Robert. The Enlightenment Tradition. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967.

Anderson, M. S. Europe in the Eighteenth Century: 1713–1783 . London: Longman Group, 1987.

Porter, Roy. The Creation of the Modern World. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000.