The Revival of Human-Centrism, Essay Example

Various epochs can be defined by breakthrough events that occur at their beginning and the end. However, the distinction of an epoch and its difference from another period in human history is conditioned by other considerations, particularly the perception of world and place of human being in it. Renaissance was a complete departure from the Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern era, because unlike before perception of human life has changed. While in the Middle Ages religion had predominant influence on human life and stated that human destiny is to suffer in this life for the redemption in the afterlife, the Renaissance was the time of human-centrism, meaning that instead of thinking about human life in terms of God, it was perceived through human personal experience. Thus, the trace to the modern era can be made due to the concentration on human experiences of the world and exploration of human body and development of science. Renaissance was also the time of cultural revival, where all aspects of the human experience were reflected in creative arts and literature.

Although the religious influence was still felt through such institutions as the Inquisition, it still did not stop the development arts and science exploring the human existence in this world beyond spiritual and religious explanations. In terms of arts, the particular feature was that the human body was no longer perceived just as sinful but also a beautiful embodiment of a human spirit. The revival of Antique ideals of a human nude body and human beauty was another contradiction to the Middle Ages and a step closer to the Modern epoch, where human experience and human body is accepted in its full complexity. Thus, Renaissance was like a certain temporal link between the Middle Ages and the Modern era, since it was a cultural movement that revived attention to systematic education, which moved the progress of human civilisation forward.

The Revolution in Christendom

Before Luther’s Reformation, Christian World was characterised by unity of Christian religion and the place of a human being in it. In this regard, although human sinfulness was recognised as an inevitable part of the human existence, the Christian Church stated that through good and charitable deeds people could buy themselves a place in heaven. In this regard, the Church was selling paper indulgences that served as forgiveness of one’s sins. In terms the role of the Church in the world, it was involved in every aspect of inter-state conflicts and served as one of the active participants of political and economic struggle in the Europe of that time. The Pope concentrated huge power in his hands by allowing European monarchs to divorce and remarry for political and economic purposes of gaining more power. Thus, there was no division between religious matters and state political interests.

In the aforementioned situation, Luther’s Reformation was a revolution in Christendom because it dismantled the previous order and destroyed the unity of the Christian Church. It created the diversity of beliefs and approaches to Christianity in terms of faith and its practicing in this world. First of all, Luther was against the merging of state life with religious life. He was convinced that Church should only deal with spiritual and religious affairs of people and should not get involved in political and economic matters. In other words, he suggested that Catholic Church had to give up a huge portion of its power in order to fulfil its primary duty – saving human souls and converting people to the right path of God. Secondly, Luther was convinced that good deeds and buying indulgences cannot save a person from sinful thoughts and buy someone a place in heaven. He argued that only faith itself could bring someone to heaven and not pretended good deeds and money donations to the Church. Thus, Luther was taking away financial power from the Catholic Church, stating that it was against the true faith and the very purpose of Christianity. Overall, the revolution of Luther’s Reformation was that it destroyed the unity and unarguable dominance of the Catholic Church and stimulated freedom of Christian thought resulting in the development of various branches of Christianity and smaller denominations.

Technology Supporting Necessity

The 15^th century was also characterised by the new chapter of European exploration and conquest. There were various reasons for it. However, the primary ones included politico-economical, religious and technological aspects. At the time of the beginning of the exploration, Europe was characterised by a certain status quo in power between the dominant monarchies of the time. The territorial division was mainly finished, and the access to the Mediterranean was divided. The nature of monarchies and strengthening one’s power required further expansion that required new territories and resources to be obtained in order to support strengths of those monarchies. Thus, in terms of politico-economic aspect, the main power required more sources to feed their strength. In this regard, political reasons for controlling and expanding trade routes were also part of this aspect. Another essential consideration in this regard was the diminishing amount of gold reserves in Europe, which required the exploration of the new sources of gold.

In terms of the religious factor, the conquest and exploration were conditioned by the desire of the European leaders to expand the rule of Christian religion and convert as many infidels into Christianity as possible. In this regard, this intention served as a certain payback to the European wars with the Ottoman Empire and desire to spread Christianity as a means of the further political influence. Finally, the last reason for conquest was the technological advancement that practically allowed the long-term and far-reaching travelling by sea to take place. In this regard, the development of shipping based on previous interactions with Chinese Empire and its trade ships, the relative freedom of technological research resulted in Europeans’ ability to build stronger and more enduring ships to travel across the ocean. Thus, it can, be concluded that the main factors driving the exploration were the politico-economic necessity of further territorial and resources gain, control over trade routes and finding of the new ones; religious concern of converting infidels into Christianity and technological advancement that made the expansion practically possible.