Williams - 1

Carrie Williams
Bennett
Humanities II 5
19 January 2016
Argumentative Essay #1
Relationships with the Divine have been an important aspect of everyday life
since the beginning of time. During this time, there were many disputes between different
systems of beliefs. One of the first was the Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism
schism in 1054. Then there was another split in the Roman Catholic Church in 1517. This
split was caused by the corruption in the Catholic Church and when the Church got
involved in the states affairs. The religion that came out of this was Protestantism. This
was one of the most beneficial events in history within a thousand years. With the
formation of the Protestant religion came many things that Europe needed. Some of these
included individual freedoms, protection for the poor from unjust tithing levels, increased
literacy rates and many more. The people in Europe, during the early 1500s, should have
had the freedom to think whatever they want without being afraid of being persecuted.
People were persecuted for simply disagreeing with one thing that the Pope said.
With the schism in the Church, there were many positive effects in the economy.
Some of these included: the formation of a less corrupt religion where people cannot buy
their way out of Purgatory and the new religion would not overtax to have a surplus of
money. In An Economic Analysis of the Protestant Reformation, the authors state that the
Catholic Church could grant benefits based on price-behavior choices by which
individuals might attain the main religious product: spiritual redemption (Ekelund,

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Hbert, and Tollison 650). This proves that the Catholic Church would accept money in
turn for someones salvation. When the Protestant Church separated from the Catholic
Church they would have noticed this issue and changed it, which they did. This was
because Martin Luther, the founder of Protestantism, believed in the Biblical principle of
salvation by faith alone. This idea of salvation through faith helps make Protestantism
more acceptable to the lower classes, because it now doesnt cost them anything to have a
relationship with God. Also in An Economic Analysis of the Protestant Reformation, the
authors speak on how the Catholic Church would overtax the members of the Church, so
that they would have a stockpile of money if the need ever arose (Ekelund, Hbert, and
Tollison 652). This shows the extent of the Churchs corruption, they were willing to take
extra money from their own congregation, in order that they could be ready for anything.
When the split occurred the Protestant Church would have gotten rid of this, because they
believe in tithing by choice.
Likewise, during the Protestant Reformation, there were many positive effects in
every day life. Some of these effects included increasing the literacy rate and boosting the
printing industry. In A History of the Protestant Reformation, Peter Manning argues
that Protestants made lots of copies of the Bible and urged that all boys and girls be
educated to vernacular literacy so that they could read the Bible directly and model their
lives on it (Manning 429). This statement discloses that Protestants wanted to read the
Bible for themselves instead of having it taught to them, in order to do this, they had to
teach children from a young age how to read. This was a big advancement, because
before this era there had been no reason for laypeople to learn to read. Also in A History
of the Protestant Reformation, Peter Manning speaks on the importance of how the

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message was spread, the printing press (Manning 429). Manning implies that without the
Reformation, the printing industry would not have been so important until much later
(Manning 429). The aforementioned literacy would not have been possible without the
mass capability of the printing press. So, these two cultural achievements go hand in
hand; without one the other would not have been as prominent.
Many people will say that more bad came than good, when looking at the
Protestant Reformation. When looking at this half of the argument one could agree with
the evidence that the Reformation did cause a lot of bloodshed, there are still corrupt
churches today, and it created many more divisions in the Protestant Church. Though
these are true, without the Protestant Reformation there would be no freedom to think
what you want to think and say what you want to say, there would also not be any
education opportunities for women, and there would not be as strong of an economy that
was caused by the education that came with the Protestant Reformation. Free will, a good
economy, and better education are way more important, in the long run, than a few wars
and more divisions in the Protestant Church. With all of this in mind, the Protestant
Reformation doubtlessly brought about more positives that negatives.