A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance

Manchester casts the tension between the Dark Ages and the Renaissance as one in which faith is in conflict with reason. The pursuit of reason requires that any claim or proposition be subjected to logical inquiry based on evidence. If there is enough evidence to support the proposition, it can be viewed as true or factual. If there is not enough evidence to merit its acceptance as truth, then the claim is discarded or refined prior to further evaluation. But faith as dictated by the Church was not subject to questioning. The pope’s edicts were unassailable and expected to be taken as true at face value since the pope delivered God’s messages. In this arrangement, to reason was to argue both with the pope and with God. For instance, Leonardo’s vaunted curiosity was praised until it revealed truths that were potentially at odds with scriptural precepts.

Luther’s theses were the result of his reasoning with the Church’s behavior, rather than his mute acceptance that his own understanding was incomplete. The Church’s resistance to change was one of its greatest strengths until skeptics and reformers began to reason that this very resistance was the Church’s greatest weakness.