Scientific Revolution Dbq

The scientific revolution can be considered one of the biggest turning points in European history. Because of new scientific ideas and theories, a new dawn of thinking and questioning of natural elements had evolved. Scientific revolution thinkers such as Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus all saw nature as unknowable and wanted to separate myths from reality. During the scientific revolution during mid 1500-late 1600s, key figures such as Isaac Newton and Nicolaus Copernicus greatly impacted Europe in terms of astronomical discoveries, scientific methods, and the questioning of God to challenge the church’s teachings.

Before the scientific revolution, it was widely believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that everything revolved

around it which is shown as an illustration of the universe with the earth at the center and heaven on the outermost circle(1). Also, as Dominican monk Gio Bruno says in document 5, “Everywhere there is incessant relative change in position throughout the universe, and the observer is always in the center of things”(5). Bruno is saying that the earth is in fact the center of the universe and everything else is just floating around. He is disagreeing with Aristotle and stating that there is no absolute position space. He is just trying to find suggest another view of the universe to gain attention. People also believed anything the church said without questioning it. This is what also sparked the enlightenment-the questioning of the scientific church teachings. As Copernicus says in document 2, “They will cry out at once that I and my theory should be rejected.” Copernicus is saying that because are set to believe that the earth is the center of the universe, they will reject his theory immediately and basically call him crazy. This document is addressed to Pope Paul III and published after death. He is complaining to the pope about how no one will believe him. Copernicus seeks to convince the pope to help him publish and convince other people to believe his theories. Because of the church, it is no surprise Copernicus was having trouble with society excepting his theories. The church’s teachings have been drilled into people’s minds and was now impossible to accept any other scientific theory.

Religion played a major role in the Scientific revolution.

Not just the catholic church, but the new reformed religions such as lutheranism. Martin Luther, the founder of Lutheranism, discusses the events of the new scientific findings in document 3. He says that the new scientific discoveries are just fools. He does not appreciate it because he is a very religious man who lives strictly by the bible. “Joshua commanded the sun top stand still, and not the earth.”(Joshua 10:13). Luther does not want people to believe these new discoveries and lose people from the church. The scientific impacted europe religion in a huge way. It made people realize that not everything the church has teached us is true and to prove everything yourself. This is the attitude that led to the enlightenment. Luther views the scientific revolution as a threat to his church, where as John Calvin, the founder of Calvinism, agrees with the new scientific findings as said in document 4. Calvin says that the new findings supports the evidence of God and even proves His existence. “This art [astronomy] unfolds the admirable wisdom of God(4).” With the scientific revolution slowly gaining the support from different churches, the new ideas and discoveries start to be supported by

society.

Although Isaac Newton is not mentioned in any of the documents, he was still the most influential subject in the scientific revolution. He was extremely obsessed in the study of alchemy (as were a lot of the other scientist) which was the practice of using chemistry to transform matter into gold or elixir. Newton’s fame came when he published the universal laws of gravitation in the “Principia.” As said in the Principia, Newton demonstrated mathematical proofs for the universal law of gravitation. These new laws gave a whole new view and understanding of the universe.

Today, Isaac Newton’s laws are still used in space exploration and even satellites.The U.S government uses the laws of gravitation in their aircraft and even spaceships. Still today debates are popular between God and science. It is still one of the controversial topics of all time. Questioning faith is not a thing of the past, but a result of it. The scientific revolution will forever be one of the most awesome movements in European history without a doubt.