By far the movement which most intrigues me during this period is the Renaissance and its effect on Christianity. It was the Renaissance that marked the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern world. It sparked interest in art and classical literature, in exploring and explaining the world that God had made through science, in understanding human anatomy. Portraits and sculptures were the artistic results of a renewed emphasis on man. The humanism of the Renaissance was actually of two kinds: South of the Alps was classical humanism, most apparent in the writings of Petrarch and Boccacio; North of the Alps was dominated by the biblical humanists, such as Erasmus, who emphasized the study of the classical languages of Greece and Rome.
It was Petrarch who founded the humanism of the Renaissance. Though a priest, he thought as a layman and rarely performed any duties associated with his office. He was a student of law (from which Renaissance thought was to rise) who was devoted to “discovering and propagating the texts, literary styles, and notions of the classical Latin authors.” 1
“Petrarch originated the concept of the “Dark Ages,” viewing European history from the 5th century to his own time not as the transfer of the Roman Empire to German-Christian successors, but as the residue of a decline and fall of a once great civilization. It was the task of his own day to recapture the virtue, and thus the glory, of the Roman past. Whatever romanticism about antiquity and distortion of plain facts of medieval history may be involved in this value judgment, in it must be recognized the humanist’s conception of their own age as a renaissance, attained, or programmatically to be attained, through the recapture of a true understanding of classical antiquity and through a reshaping of the recent in accord with antique esthetic, moral, and political values.” 2
Thus arose in the universities the study of the humanities. Men sought to imitate ancient literature, especially the rhetorical works of Cicero, and to combine wisdom and eloquence. Theirs was a world centered around man and the pleasures of life.
It was a direct result of, and reaction against, Scholasticism.
The Scholasticism of the 11th to 14th centuries was prompted by a rediscovery of Aristotle and the writings of Plato. It was an attempt to marry theology and philosophy and to systematically and rationally organize the Christian faith. It took for granted what was written in the Bible and what had been decreed by the councils and simply sought to determine whether or not that faith was reasonable. Because of this new-found study of ancient writers, the schoolmen set the groundwork for the Renaissance, a “rebirth” of culture and a rediscovery of the treasures of the past. The schoolmen also contributed to humanism in their belief that man and the environment constituted a universe that was created and governed by an intelligent Being.
Humanism was also a reaction against the corporate approach to life and the theocentric conception of the world that Scholasticism accepted. According to Aquinas, there was no salvation apart from the sacraments that were administered by the church. The individual was subordinated to the corporate body. [In later Scholasticism, nominalists such as Ockham created a new interest in man (since man was more real than the institution) and further paved the way for humanism by their emphases.] Scholasticism also emphasized reason at the expense of human emotion. One logical result of that was the prevalence of mysticism in the period from 1350-1500. “Movements emphasizing the subjective aspect of man’s relation to God usually come as a reaction to movements that emphasize the intellectual aspect.” 3 Although many of the Renaissance thinkers gave little respect to God, they did value man’s subjective experience. They were interested in biographies – in knowing what individuals thought and felt. They were interested in aesthetics, in the beauty of nature or of man. These were a direct reaction to the overemphasis on man’s cognitive abilities and the use of reason prevalent in Scholasticism.
“The resulting image of the universe [from Scholasticism], with its clearly defined hierarchically subordinated and articulated place for every type of being and activity, denied the status the humanists sought for themselves. More important, it was the encyclopedic, abstract, logic-based, unhistorical and impersonal character of this image that most seemed to offend the humanists.” 4
It contributed to the secularization of society.
“It often passed over into an arrogance which had no deep sense of sin or of creatureliness and which felt no need for the forgiving grace of God. To a larger proportion of the humanists, heaven and hell were either non-existent or unimportant. This present life was what counted. Some might be personally humble but were convinced of man’s self-sufficiency to solve his problems. More were vain, self-seeking individualists, nominally Christian, but patent contradictions of the Christian ideal. There was much scoffing at Christianity. This phase of the humanistic strain was to contribute to the secularism which then and in later centuries was to be one of the most serious threats to Christianity.” 5
The divorce of faith and reason following the era of Scholasticism, in men like William of Ockham, resulted in a separation of the sacred and secular. Some things could be understood by reason, but others (including much of theology) couldn’t. This tendency to separate religion from daily life was magnified during the Renaissance because of its emphasis on man to the exclusion of God. Formerly men believed they could do nothing apart from God. They could not change social position or obtain salvation apart from God and His Church. Now, the humanists were teaching that man has value (which wasn’t really inconsistent with the biblical understanding of man at all) and had the power to “save” himself. For the first time ever it was possible to not believe in a god or God.
“…in practice Western Europe had never been Christian. Yet it paid lip service to that faith, canonized some of its monarchs for what it deemed their approximation to the Christian ideal, and read with approval Augustine’s City of God. Now it seemed to be throwing off even the pretense of honoring what great Christians had endeavored to embody. It appeared to be in process of resolving the tension between the Christian demand on man and man’s performance, so marked in the Middle Ages, by abandoning any attempt to live up to that demand.” 6
Positively, it brought renewed interest in the Bible.
At the outset of this period, very few clergy were schooled in Greek. But the revival of classical studies found its way into Christianity, and men like Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples (who translated the Bible into French and advocated going back to the primary sources), Johann Reuchlin (who used firsthand sources to find errors in the Vulgate), and Desiderius Erasmus (who translated the Greek New Testament into Latin) used their humanistic influences to plant the seeds of Protestantism. In this respect, the Renaissance could be said to be a primary contributor to the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. As Christians became more aware of the teachings of the Bible, and as they began to value individuals above the institution, the practical authority of the Papacy and church hierarchy declined, making possible the break with the Catholic Church that would eventually ensue.
So, what can we learn from this period in church history?
First, it is helpful to remind ourselves that humanism is nothing new – and nothing unchristian. Jesus was profoundly interested in the individual souls of men, and all of Scripture affirms the beauty of the created world. Christianity actually teaches a “Christian humanism.” But what happened in the Renaissance was that men “worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25b). They focused on the creation to the exclusion of the God who created it. The problem with the Renaissance was not humanism, but secular humanism.
Humanism was dangerous to Christianity during this period not because it openly attacked Christianity, but because it simply ignored it. The same is true today. We have little to fear from those who are most antagonistic toward the Christian cause. Atheists are not as much a threat as are governments that simply ignore their Christian heritage and the rights of Christians today. Many Christians in the period 1350-1500 embraced humanism, not realizing that it had the potential of possibly destroying it.
Along those same lines, a great lesson can be learned from the origin of Renaissance thought. It was the schoolmen of the preceding period who opened the door to humanism. By attempting to define Christianity in Aristotelian or Platonic terms, they were using a medium that was inherently hostile to the faith they were trying to rationalize. We must be careful when trying to define the Christian faith today that we don’t use means that are actually hostile to our faith. When we use secular marketing strategies or church growth methods, or worship forms that appeal to a secular audience, there is the real danger of paving the way for the defeat of our own cause. But, on the other hand, we must also remember that humanism was a reaction against the doctrines of the church, many of which were in error. We must be certain that we are not needlessly distancing ourselves from our culture or distorting the truth of Scripture, which might cause people to react against us by denying Christianity. The clergy in 1500 was pathetic. No wonder people could scoff at religion and exalt man above this “God” that seemed to be so powerless to change lives. Many in the church today similarly are lax in morals and show little of the Christianity espoused in the Bible. Is it any wonder, then, that America has scorned the God we profess?
And yet there is something very positive to be learned from the Christian humanists. They were not afraid to challenge the forms of the past (i.e., the doctrinal positions of the Church and the accuracy of the Latin Vulgate). They were also intensely interested in studying the original languages in order to better understand the Gospel as it was first preached. They sought to understand the Bible in its historical and geographic setting (as opposed to the allegorical method of interpretation that had been popular since the time of Origen). Expositional Bible preaching (along with historical and textual criticism) was the result, to which we in the Protestant tradition are deeply indebted. Even today we must be careful not to blindly accept the teachings of a particular denomination without carefully studying the Scriptures in their original languages. Even in Christian colleges and seminaries, fewer and fewer pastors are being trained in Greek and Hebrew. The rationale is that we have so many study tools today and so many good translations that the study of original languages is needless. We must forever be people of the Word. We must be committed to its teachings and committed to studying it with all diligence. If American Christians would begin to spend more time reading the Bible and less time watching Christian television or reading Christian romance novels, and if pastors spent more time preparing biblical messages as opposed to self-help sermonettes, perhaps a second Reformation would take place. God is always faithful to move among His people when they are serious about His Word.
Although this fourth period of Christian history was bleak, it was not as dark a recession as the period from 500 to 950. The darkness was only to last for a night, and with the dawn would arise one of the greatest revivals in the history of the church – The Protestant Reformation.
This concludes the four-part series “Lessons from Church History”: Part 1 — Part 2 — Part 3 — Part 4
End Notes
1 Charles Trinkhaus, The Scope of Renaissance Humanism. (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press), 1983, p. 3-20.
2 Ibid., p. 3-20
3 Earle E. Cairns, Christianity Through the Centuries. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House), 1954, p. 248.
4 Trinkaus, p. 3-10
5 Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, Vol. 1 (San Francisco: Harper), 1953, p. 606
6 Ibid., p. 642
