1. 종교개혁의 원인과 결과(Causes and Consequences of the Reformation) - 영문

[남인도_윤]

Ⅰ. Causes and Consequences of the Reformation
 
1. The Definition of Reformation
 
(1) Views of Protestant Church Historians
 
Mathias Flacius Illycius, a German religious reformer and one of the Protestant historians, interpreted church history in his book ‘Mahdeburg Centuries’ as a history of struggle between the Bible-centered ‘true church’ and the ‘false church’ that values rituals and hypocrisy.
 
He explained the Reformation of the 16th century as 'the history of the true church that rose against the false church'.
 
John Bale, an English historian of the 16th century, also explains the Reformation as ‘the history of the true church against the false church’ in ‘The Appearance of the Two Churches’.
 
In other words, he explained church history as the history of struggle between the true church centered on the Word of God and the false church emphasizing rituals and traditions.
 
British religious reformer John Fox also understood church history as a history of struggle between the true church, the Church of Christ, and the antichrist, the Church of Rome, the Roman Catholic Church.
 
In this way, Protestant historians commonly see the Reformation as the work of God's providence for the church that has been planned and prepared by God.
 
(2) The views of the Reformers
 
The Reformers said that in theological activities, the authority of the Bible should be emphasized rather than human reason, and it was possible by believing in the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible.
 
This correct theology can only be found in Reformed theology, which values the authority of the Bible above all else.
 
Then, what is the definition of the Reformation from the Reformed point of view that emphasizes these theological premises?
 
- The Reformation is a movement to go back to the roots.
 
The Reformation in the 16th century is a movement to return to the faith of the early church.
 
The early church, which began in Jerusalem around AD 30, recognized Christianity as the state religion in 380 during the reign of Roman Emperor Theodosius I (Flavius Theodosius, 347-395).
 
As a result, church power was concentrated in the Roman Church, which was one of the five dioceses at the time.
 
And in AD 590, when Pope Gregory I was inaugurated as the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, it was converted into a medieval church.
 
Afterwards, as the Roman Catholic Church dominated the world church for about 1,000 years, the Roman Catholic Church became corrupted due to various problems arising from the expansion of church authority.
 
So the Reformation took place in 1517 to return to the teachings of the early church.
 
Like this, the Reformation was a reduction movement that denied the medieval church and tried to return to the true form of the early church.
 
– The standard of the Reformation was the Scripture.
 
The Reformation opposed the unbiblical traditions that had dominated the Roman Catholic Church, the decisions of the Pope, and the authority of the church.
 
And it is a movement that tried to return to the teachings of the Bible and the early orthodox fathers.
 
In other words, the Reformation was only a movement to return to the teachings of the Bible.
 
– The purpose of the Reformation was ‘Glory only to God!’
 
Bible only (Sola Scriptura):
 
The Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages took the Bible away from the masses, but the Reformation gave it back to the masses.
 
Luther, a leader of the Reformation, translated the Bible into German in 1522 so that everyone could read it.
 
Faith Only(Sola Fide):
 
Reformers opposed the sale of indulgences, penance, and confessions that originated in the medieval Roman Catholic Church's idea of merit.
 
And he renewed the doctrine of justification by faith alone (Romans 1:17).
 
Sola Gratia:
 
Reformers refuted scholastic theology centered on Aquinas, which emphasized natural grace and common grace.
 
And he insisted on returning to Augustine's theology, which emphasized special grace, that is, God's grace.
 
Only Jesus (Solus Christus):
 
The reformers emphasized that salvation is only through Jesus Christ, not by the church's traditions and authority.
 
Glory to God alone (Soli Deo Gloria):
 
The ultimate goal of the reformers' Reformation was 'Glory only to God!‘
 
2. Background of the Reformation
 
In order to examine the background of the Reformation, we must first examine the indirect causes of the Reformation, focusing on the historical, social, political, and cultural circumstances of the time.
 
And next we should look at the religious causes.
 
(1) Indirect causes of the Reformation
 
– Geographical change
 
The discovery of the New World by Columbus in 1492 brought about a great change in the world view of medieval people.
 
A civilization centered on rivers was transformed into a civilization centered on oceans.
 
In the Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church dominated not only religion, but also politics, society, economy, and science.
 
They believed that the sun revolved around the earth and that the earth was flat.
 
However, due to the discovery of the new continent, people in the Middle Ages broadened their horizons and pioneered colonies through the development of science and technology and navigational technology.
 
As a result, a great upheaval occurred in the perception of people in medieval society.
 
– Changes in economic and social structure
 
After the Crusades, feudalism collapsed along with the manor system.
 
Therefore, the rise in status was restricted around the manor system.
 
However, as the feudal system collapsed, a new middle class emerged, resulting in changes in the social structure.
 
In other words, the pyramidal social structure composed of a small ruling class and a large number of ruled classes was destroyed.
 
In addition, a number of middle classes that formed capital through commerce and trade brought about changes in the social structure.
 
In addition, capitalism of commerce and trade began to form in an agricultural society.
 
After the Crusades and the Hundred Years' War, the peace era brought an abundance of labor due to population growth.
 
So the lords oppressed the farmers by raising the rent for farmland, which resulted in many unemployed people.
 
Farmers who lost their jobs moved to the cities.
 
As a result, lords who owned large lands gradually promoted mechanization to solve the shortage of labor.
 
As a result, industries developed and cooperatives and banks sprang up.
 
And with the advent of banks, new types of economic structures such as credit systems, banknotes, and discount systems appeared.
 
This rapid change in the economic structure threw society into chaos and made people yearn for changes such as reform.
 
– Development of nationalism and national consciousness
 
As royal power grew, absolute dynasties arose in England, France, Germany, and Spain.
 
Secular monarchs pursued absolute power, expanded their territory by causing wars, or insisted on the theory of divine right.
 
This weakened the papacy of the Holy Roman Empire.
 
Previously, the Vatican had a lot of property, but as the royal power of the nation-states was strengthened, they resisted the flow of their own money to the Vatican.
 
Secular monarchs had to support the Reformation in order to secure the national finances by preventing the outflow of money to the Vatican.
 
– Literary revival and humanism
 
The Reformation is also called the revival of the theology of Augustine of Hippo (345-430).
 
This means a reaction against the Roman Catholic theology of Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274).
 
Thomas Aquinas emphasized the dual structure of nature and grace and argued that he could understand the universe and the universal through nature.
 
This natural theology, based on general revelation, made sacramental theology important, and neglected grace by neglecting special revelation.
 
On the other hand, Augustine insisted on a theology of grace emphasizing special revelation.
 
This theology of grace had a great and deep influence on John Wycliffe, Lollard and Luther.
 
In this way, the revival of Augustinian theology occurred through theologians, and at the same time, the literary revival movement, that is, the humanism movement, was developed through the general public.
 
From 1096 to 1291, through eight crusades over 200 years, Eastern literature and works of art were introduced to the West, and cultural exchanges between the East and the West progressed.
 
As a result, under the influence of literature and art works from the East, a literary revival occurred in architecture, music, and painting.
 
This literary revival movement is also the result of the 'return to the original text' to go back to the faith of the early church fathers religiously.
 
In addition, in the academic aspect, humanism was developed and a movement to find the essence of human beings arose.
 
It tried to find the answer to the question "What is human?" in Eastern literature, that is, Greek culture and philosophy.
 
Thus, a movement arose to read the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew texts.
 
The humanist movement can be divided into general humanism and Christian humanism.
 
General humanism, along with the development of philosophy, influenced the generation of the modern Enlightenment.
 
And Erasmus, represented as a Christian humanist, tried to find the essence of man through the Bible.
 
Therefore, his Bible study maximized the public's interest in Bible study.
 
This increased interest in Bible study had a great influence on the Reformation.
 
As such, the humanist movement contributed to the Reformation by promoting the study of the Bible.
 
– Invention of the printing press
 
In 1455, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and had a great influence on the spread of knowledge and information.
 
He also expedited the spread of Reformation ideas.
 
In particular, he helped spread biblical knowledge, resulting in over 100 Bibles printed across Europe between 1457 and 1500.
 
The development of this type of printing had a great influence on the spread of the Reformation by allowing the Reformation ideas to be spread all over Europe in a short time.
 
(2) The direct cause of the Reformation
 
ignorance and superstition
 
By about 1200, the laity were genitalized by using the Latin Bible as the only standard.
 
Ordinary believers did not have the opportunity to know the truth right away because they could not own or read the Bible.
 
For this reason, the prelates strengthened their authority.
 
In order to prevent errors from freely interpreting the Bible, only the pope had the authority to interpret the Bible.
 
Therefore, biblical Christianity disappeared and the lessons provided by human invention and convenience dominated the lives of the church and believers.
 
The general saints' ignorance of the Bible led to spiritual ignorance, and the general saints tried to obtain vicarious satisfaction through superstitious behavior.
 
The ideology of indulgences, the ideology of worshiping saints, the ideology of worshiping Mary, and the ideology of worshiping sacred objects appeared as the products of this spiritual ignorance.
 
As such, the Middle Ages became an age of spiritual darkness as the light of the Word was obscured.
 
Corruption of church finances and corruption of clergy
 
The church's financial corruption provided another motive for the Reformation.
 
The church's financial corruption was accelerated in the 13th century when a canon law was enacted that the pope could reallocate the clergy book at will in the case of the death of a clergyman.
 
As the pope's position on church finances strengthened, the popes devised various tax systems for the rich.
 
In consideration of the death of a clergyman, he came up with a reservation tax to promise a successor, an appointment tax to pay the income for one year to the Holy See after being appointed to the priesthood, and an appointment change tax to pay when the oath cannot be kept.
 
They made a huge fortune through methods such as sex trade.
 
This financial corruption made not only the pope, but also ordinary priests enslaved to money.
 
The clergy became unspeakably corrupt due to money, as they accumulated wealth through high-paying debt and the vacant ministry system.
 
The corruption of the church eventually led to the corruption of the clergy, and the moral and sexual corruption of the clergy was a universal phenomenon.
 
As a result, the laity even tolerated the clergy's concubines.
 
As such, the moral and sexual corruption of priests emerged as a social and religious problem.
 
Corruption of church finances and corruption of priests provided one of the indirect causes of the Reformation.
 
sale of indulgences
 
As the basis for the sale of indulgences, the Roman Catholic Church cited Matthew 16:19 and interpreted that Peter, as the disciple of Jesus, had the right to forgive sins and the right to bless.
 
That is why the Pope, the successor of Peter, justified the sale of indulgences by arguing that he had the right to absolution.
 
This movement started during the Crusades, and the Roman Catholic Church propagated that sins would be forgiven if one directly participated in the war or provided material support.
 
In particular, Pope Callixtus III asserted in 1457 that souls in purgatory (Limbo) could be saved by means of indulgences.
 
And the event that directly affected the Reformation was that Albrecht von Brandenburg, the archbishop of Mainz, was in charge of three archbishops by the vacant pastoral system, and a priest named Johann Tetzel (1465-1519) and actively sold indulgences.
 
Luther was greatly stimulated by his collusion with Pope Leo X to monopolize the sale of indulgences in his diocese.
 
And as a result, Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, which became a direct cause of the Reformation.
 
The influence of the Reformation
 
The era of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, called the Religious Dark Age, came to an end through the Reformation, which was initiated by God's providence.
 
The Reformation removed everything that was preval‎ent in the medieval church and restored biblical doctrine, worship, and church government.
 
Through the Reformation, all humane traditions and authority of the medieval church disappeared and Bible-centered faith and life were restored in the church.
 
Also, in a hierarchical society, the age of equality and freedom presented by the Bible has arrived.
 
In this way, through the Reformation, people were able to rediscover the gospel and enjoy the freedom of faith to lead active and positive church life.