The Butterfly Effect of the Printing Press

The Butterfly Effect is the theory that everything is conditional upon something else and small occurrences can result in massive occurrences. We may not always know the cause of such massive occurrences, but they're there. The term "the butterfly effect" suggests that something as massive as a tornado or a hurricane could have been started from the smallest wind coming from a butterfly's wings, therefore suggesting that nothing is an accident and everything has a stimulus.

While studying the Reformation, especially right after studying the Renaissance, I realized that the chronology of the way that religious reform happened was just like the butterfly effect - it could not have been an accident. There were a lot of aspects of history involved in the Reformation, but one of the biggest had to have been the invention of the printing press during the Renaissance. If the printing press had not been invented, Martin Luther's theses may not have been read by the public and, therefore, might not have had as much of an impact. Martin Luther was only able to make his voice heard and make monumental changes in Europe and in the Americas because of the Renaissance right before the Reformation.

Luther's 95 Theses. Ferdinand Pauwels, via Wikimedia Commons

The Renaissance paved the way for religious reformation by allowing Europeans to think for themselves and to make their thoughts known through publication and the press. Again, there were so many other factors involved in the Reformation, but I can't help but think that the Renaissance's attitudes and inventions were the butterfly (or maybe the dragon) that initiated the Reformation and gave everyone in and from Europe the eventual opportunity to choose for themselves what they believe and how they will live their lives.

Our religious freedom and our beliefs are such an integral part of our lives. There are few things that affect a person more than their core, moral, and spiritual beliefs. Can you imagine if we couldn't choose for ourselves what those beliefs were? We are who we are because of who we say we are or who our deity says we are, and we might not have had the opportunity to think like that if it hadn't been for the outcomes of the Renaissance that led to the Reformation.