VI. Stupidity Reformed

At the same time that people were turning away from theological truths and looking outward at the world, those truths were undergoing dramatic revision as both the Christian religion in particular and Western Civilization in general were thoroughly reformed. In the early sixteenth century, with religious man seeking biblical answers to theological problems, Christianity underwent a number of soul searching revisions. Meanwhile, with Renaissance Man seeking human answers to temporal questions and functional solutions to real problems, the secular religions of capitalism and nationalism were taking shape. Thus, as Christian theology was being redefined, the Bible reinterpreted and the Church both split and reformed, rising capitalism was undermining the medieval guild system while growing nationalism was enfeebling the Holy Roman Empire and weakening the papacy.

The net result was not a reformation but four of them. Martin Luther began the revolt by trying to reform the Church but ended up reforming Christianity. John Calvin carried on the movement by expounding a theology which ended up putting capitalism on a tenuous metaphysical footing. As a reaction to the Protestant challenge, the Catholic Church staged a Counter-Reformation which sought to restore power if not goodness to orthodox Catholicism. Meanwhile, princes were reforming the political realm by framing various sects of the secular religion of nationalism.

In general, the overall reformation of Western Civilization was due to the dilution of Church influence which accompanied the rise of capitalism and nationalism. However, the Christian Reformation (with a capital "R") itself, which splintered the monolithic theocracy of the Catholic Church, was due primarily to a revival of religion. Christianity, if not the Church, thus was saved by reformers who made religion the chief issue again by appealing to the Bible and the spirit of Christ. Hence, although the Reformation was a theological backlash against the temporal Renaissance, it likewise began by looking backward to a renewal of the values of antiquity and ended by stumbling forward into the modern world.

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