Erasmus

Abstract

The main elements of a distinctively modern sense of the person came into focus during the Renaissance and Reformation, which is also the period of the scientific revolution. The rediscovery, especially in fifteenth-century Italy, of the ancient literatures of Greece and Rome mingled initially in complex ways with reform movements within the Church. Eventually, when Luther broke with the papacy, there developed throughout Europe a spectrum of independent Christian denominations. In general, the Reformation might seem at first to have little to do with the new science, but both movements criticised the futility and obscurantism of metaphysics in a similar way.¹ For Martin Luther as for Francis Bacon, scholastic philosophy was a principal enemy because it depended so heavily on a metaphysical language that seemed empty and impractical. As we have seen in Chapter 4, by the end of the Middle Ages the coherence and authority of a metaphysically-buttressed, feudal Church was much eroded, not least by the rise of a sceptical, philosophical critique questioning the reliability of human language for describing the causes, essences, and ontological dimensions of the natural and spiritual worlds. Thus, when Luther learned by experience that the official ecclesiastical instruments for dispensing divine grace did not necessarily bring about peace of mind or a tranquil conscience, his subsequent teaching fell upon many ears already well disposed to receive it.²