II. Some Important Moral Outcomes of the Sixteenth-Century Religious Reform
The reform movement reënforces the ethical tendencies of the Renaissance
Though the immediate results of the Reformation were disastrous to Humanism, the ultimate effect of the religious movement was to reënforce the true ethical tendencies of the intellectual revival. As we have seen, the thing of deepest import for morals in the Renaissance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was the announcement of the freedom and self-dependence of the individual spirit, since such self-sovereignty is the prerequisite of a true and vital morality. Likewise the essential proclamation of the Reformation was the autonomy of the individual in matters religious and moral. It is true that the reformers, though proclaiming liberty of conscience, the right of individual judgment, did not, as has already been said, at once recognize all the ethical implications of this principle. “The Reformation,” as Dr. Arnold truly observes, “was weak in that it never consciously grasped or applied the central idea of the Renaissance—the Hellenic idea of pursuing, in all lines of activity, the law and science, to use Plato’s words, of things as they really are.”[717]
But the assertion of the right of individual judgment in matters religious and moral was bound sooner or later to lead to the recognition of the duty of inquiry, of investigation of the law and science of things as they really are, and of absolute loyalty to the truth when found. The final outcome within the Church of this new mental attitude has been the “Higher Criticism,” which is simply the continuation by modern scholars within the reformed denominations of the scientific criticism of the Bible begun by the distinguished humanist Erasmus. In this remoter issue of the Reformation the essential oneness of its spirit with that of the Renaissance is revealed, and the ground for the assertion that the ultimate moral results of the religious reform were a reënforcement of the deepest ethical tendencies of the intellectual revival is disclosed.
Substitution of an inerrant Book for an inerrant Church
Had all the implications of the principle of the right of individual judgment in matters of religion and morals been seen and frankly accepted by the reformers of the sixteenth century, the Protestant revolution would have effected at once the transfer of morality from a supernatural to a natural basis. But for an inerrant Church the reformers substituted an inerrant Book, which every one should accept as an infallible guide and rule of conduct. The ultimate sanctions of morality were still looked for in the historic past, in an outer revelation and an outer authority. Consequently the moral ideal of Protestantism retained the essentially theological, supernatural character of the ideal of Roman Catholicism.
New ranking of virtues in the moral type
But the changes effected by the reformers in the body of the teachings of the old Church resulted necessarily in a certain displacement and shifting of the virtues in the moral type, and in a new estimation of ethical values. Various virtues or duties hitherto regarded as essential to excellence of character were assigned a lower place in the rank of virtues or were excluded altogether from the ideal, while new moral qualities or attributes were added, the outcome being what we must regard as a new moral type. In the following pages we shall comment briefly upon the more important of the changes effected in several domains of the religious-ethical life.
Protestantism brings into disesteem the monastic ideal
We proceed now to notice some of the immediate and special moral effects of the Reformation. In the first place Protestantism discredited the monastic type of goodness. The meritoriousness of celibacy was denied. The austerities of the ascetic were declared to be not only useless but positively wrong. Instead of being an object of profound veneration and homage, the saint of medieval times became to the Protestant reformers an object of the deepest moral detestation.
The immediate consequences of this change in men’s conceptions of what constitutes the highest moral excellence was that throughout one half of Europe the monasteries, which the religious-moral enthusiasm of the earlier centuries of Christianity had created, were dismantled and razed to the ground, and an institution which had dominated Christian Europe for a thousand years was suppressed in all the northern lands.
This revolution, we believe, effected on the whole a great gain for morality and marked a forward movement in the moral evolution of the Western world; but at the same time it must be recognized that the destruction of this system, which throughout a full historical period had fostered some of the most admirable of Christian virtues and nurtured unnumbered saintly lives, resulted in the exclusion of valuable ethical elements from the moral life of Protestant communities. There are types of character nourished by the conventual system that society can ill afford to spare. Very few will dissent from Lecky’s view that “in the Sisters of Charity the religious orders of Catholicism have produced one of the most perfect of all types of womanhood.”[718]
Effects upon industrial morals of the dissolution of the monasteries
In destroying monasticism the Protestant reformers destroyed an anti-industrial type of character, and thus helped to clear the ground for the great industrial development which during the last three centuries has given a new aspect and outlook to civilization. The reformed Church gave prominence to the active masculine virtues as opposed to the passive feminine virtues exalted by the conventual system. Hence it was more favorable than the old Church to the development of civilization on its material side. It hardly admits of doubt that in these opposed tendencies of the ethical ideals of the two churches is to be sought one cause of the amazing contrast, industrially viewed, long observed between the distinctively Protestant and the distinctively Catholic countries of Europe. It is true that the line of demarcation once so observable is now becoming blurred, and that modern industrialism with its ideal of industrial virtues is fast becoming equally characteristic of all lands of advancing culture, whether Protestant, Catholic, or pagan.
Effects upon morals of the abolition of purgatory
The Protestant denial of the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which followed as a direct logical result of the reformers’ doctrine of justification by faith, had consequences for morality no less positive than those that followed the denial of the Catholic teaching of the meritoriousness of the ascetic life.
It is undoubtedly true that the doctrine of purgatory, conceived as part of a system of future rewards and punishments, has exerted on the whole an influence favorable to morality. But the institution lends itself easily to misuse. In the Middle Ages the doctrine of indulgences was applied to souls in purgatory, and the shortening of the period of their suffering there made dependent not alone upon the prayers of their friends on earth, but often practically upon the payment of sums of money, designated as alms to the poor or gifts to the Church. The forgiveness of sins was thus too often made a commercial transaction. Thus the doctrine of purgatory, beyond controversy, contributed essentially to that despiritualizing of religion and that deadening in wide circles of the moral sense which characterized the later medieval period and which, through inevitable reaction, helped to provoke the Protestant revolt.
The effect upon morals of the abolition of purgatory by the reformers was immediate and far-reaching. Many specific duties were at once dropped from the moral code. Prayers for the dead ceased to be a pious duty; they were not even morally permissible. Furthermore, the performance of such good works as the making of pilgrimages and the giving of alms for the benefit of souls in purgatory not only ceased to be regarded as meritorious, but came to be looked upon as positively wrong. Besides these direct ethical consequences of the abolition of purgatory there were indirect ethical results which we shall notice in another connection.[719]
Effects of the religious reform upon the virtue of toleration[720]
Ultimately the Reformation, largely through the outworkings of the principle of the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, was destined to foster the growth of the important virtue of toleration. But throughout the first three centuries of Protestantism, owing mainly to the great emphasis laid by the reformers on the doctrine of the supreme ethical value of correctness of religious belief, this principle of the right of private judgment exerted little appreciable influence upon the moral evolution. Holding fast to the doctrine of the criminality of wrong belief, the new Church like the old was necessarily intolerant. It regarded heresy with dread, looked upon toleration as a fault, and, whenever circumstances favored, engaged in persistent and unrelenting persecution to maintain uniformity of religious belief. It was not till late in the modern period that religious toleration came generally to be recognized by the Protestant conscience as a virtuous disposition of supreme worth.