“Behold, the man is become as one of us [meaning like the gods]”
Genesis 3:22. The Father of Heaven himself proclaims the unlimited potential of humankind and our destiny to become gods. Man, because of their fall, has received the divine gift of “knowing good and evil”. The possibilities are limitless.
Now what does this have to do with the Renaissance?
After nearly nine centuries of silence, this truth concerning man’s glorious potential rang forth again. In 14th century Italy, a “rebirth” of interest in classical civilization began. The scholar Petrarch, now known as the father of humanism, propelled this movement when he discovered long-lost writings of the great orator and statesman Cicero. Petrarch’s thirst for truer language and self-improvement reflected (and inspired) a yearning for a greater humanity. After the harrowing bubonic plague-- as Gideon Burton eloquently stated, “an equal-opportunity destroyer”-- feudal society’s structured class system and the sedimented economic locks were worn away. Thus, ancient Greek and Roman ideals brought forth by scholars were absorbed by a decimated Europe. Now, however, they were fused with Medieval faith. The hybridization of these worlds-- pagan and Christian, democratic and feudal-- created a unique era known as the Renaissance.
Nowhere is this fusion better embodied than in society’s new attitude towards mankind. The medieval society tended to view man as a lost, fallen creature totally dependent upon God’s mercy and Grace. While movers and shakers of the Renaissance did not deny this dependence upon God, they began to realize man’s potential to become like Him. To do so, they argued, would require a rigorous and well-rounded education, a flair for rhetoric, civil involvement, and a certain dignitas. As Pico Della Melandola stated, ““Let some holy ambition invade our souls, so that, dissatisfied with mediocrity, we shall eagerly desire the highest things and shall toil with all our strength to obtain them, since we may if we wish.”
Your post reminded me of a quote in the Bible Dictionary that says, "One progresses only as fast as he/she gains knowledge." As people learned more about their Greek and Roman forefathers and their practices, their curiosity grew which led them to develop themselves--as you put it, to "become greater."
ReplyDeleteThis concept that you explained as man being lost as reminded me a lot of the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; previous to the Restoration, men were lost because of the Apostasy, they had no direction and no sense of identity because God was distant from them. And while after the Restoration man still relied on what you describe as the “mercy and grace of God,” the gospel of the restored Church points more to the individual identity of each of God’s children and the potential that He believes we have. Funny how history repeats itself and how we have very similar knowledge that those people of the Renaissance had!
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