The Role Of God In The Protestant Reformation
The theological assumption of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries assumed God as the ultimate source of intervention in day-to-day affairs – a reflection of the authoritative power of the Church of the era. Because there was no alternate existing explanation for the seemingly random occurrence of phenomena, people believed that God was the sole cause of natural events. Deism, the belief in a supreme being that created the universe but does not interact with humankind, distinctly contrasted with this prevailing religious dogma of the era. Essentially, this theological perspective brought the Protestant Reformation to a logical conclusion, providing empirical proof for the criticisms brought up by Martin Luther. The emergence of this new
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The previous ideal of God being the controller of all natural occurrences did not reconcile with the newly discovered natural laws. Deism did not gain popularity suddenly, but rather through years of accumulated subtle changes in theological beliefs as a result of various empirical developments. Faith-based religious ideals that contradicted scientific discoveries were eventually abandoned, as they could not be explained by the empiricism of science. This resulted in the denial of God’s role in everyday affairs. Gradually, religious rituals that praised God’s involvement in daily events were abolished. According to the beliefs of deism, God is only involved in the creation of the world (the past) and as a possible source of future destruction (the future). This is only because of the fact that scientists had not yet begun to explore these distant polar ends of the linear time scale yet, and therefore had not discovered empirical proof to explain this phenomenon. The events God was meant to explain were now explained by science, so society had no need to rely on theology anymore. Essentially, the emergence of deism is directly linked with the scientific and intellectual developments of the era in the sense that they replaced the previous faith-based explanation for natural
The previous ideal of God being the controller of all natural occurrences did not reconcile with the newly discovered natural laws. Deism did not gain popularity suddenly, but rather through years of accumulated subtle changes in theological beliefs as a result of various empirical developments. Faith-based religious ideals that contradicted scientific discoveries were eventually abandoned, as they could not be explained by the empiricism of science. This resulted in the denial of God’s role in everyday affairs. Gradually, religious rituals that praised God’s involvement in daily events were abolished. According to the beliefs of deism, God is only involved in the creation of the world (the past) and as a possible source of future destruction (the future). This is only because of the fact that scientists had not yet begun to explore these distant polar ends of the linear time scale yet, and therefore had not discovered empirical proof to explain this phenomenon. The events God was meant to explain were now explained by science, so society had no need to rely on theology anymore. Essentially, the emergence of deism is directly linked with the scientific and intellectual developments of the era in the sense that they replaced the previous faith-based explanation for natural