Early Renaissance Inventions

From 1450 all the way into the 18th century, the early modern period is understood and seen as the formation of the Renaissance, many scientific and technological discoveries and reformation. There were many discoveries of new lands, machines and cultures which became one of the main reasons on how society today has improved. The Renaissance started as a cultural movement based on the intellectual basis of its own version of Humanism, where Man is the measure of all things. This idea became evident and was influenced in art, architecture, politics, science and literature. The printing press by Johannes Gutenberg was one of the most important and influential inventions in history because it played a key role in the development of the Renaissance, …show more content…
This gave birth to westernized ideas, while the traditional norms of thinking were challenged and evaluated, creating the Protestant reformation. Martin Luther, a German priest, came up with issues that he saw in the Roman Catholicism in a document well known as his ‘Ninety-Five Theses.’ Luther believed that salvation came from believing in God, and not living a morally correct life. His intention was not to create a new religion, but to correct the things he didn’t agree with the Roman Catholicism because he despised the corruption of some of the clergy and the luxury that the Popes were living in. The Protestants did not acknowledge the Pope as an authority because they believed that by believing in God and being a believer, salvation after death was granted, while the Catholic Church taught that salvation could be achieved by faith and good works. Luther was dissatisfied with the hierarchy of the church also known as the ‘Order of Papacy’ because it was homogeneous to the ‘Great chain of all being’ where the Pope was at the top and going down the list until monks and nuns. Finally, Luther believed that the Bible was the ultimate source of religious authority and therefore Protestantism was born and resulted in the resolution of …show more content…
Calvin was a French pastor and one of the early Christian Humanists who turned protestant reformation. He believed that ‘Man is responsible for his own actions, God will reward or punish them because of their actions’ (Tutorial notes). Calvin’s interest in the study of human, paved the way for science and technology and an overall progress for Western Civilization. Calvin believed that God has a secret wisdom of predestination that we don’t know about, therefore we don’t know where we are going, so we must restrain ourselves. I think people were drawn to his belief because he offered a clear translation of Christianity, which then paved the way for future branch of Protestant Calvinism. As for Loyola, he was a Catholic theologian and the leader of the counter-reformation during the Renaissance period. Loyola came up with a 4-week journal for exercises with 18 rules so it would bring people closer to God and save the human soul. These three exercises he suggested were the Christian meditation, prayers and mental exercises. He believed that to strengthen relationship with God, ‘everything was put on this faith to help carry out spiritual exercises and to be able to tell the difference between good and evil’ (Tutorial notes). Although Calvin and Loyola had differences in their beliefs, they both praised the same God and held on to what they believed