The evaluation of the Renaissance and the Reformation in terms of which movement is to be posited as more radically revolutionary requires both a recapitulation of the fundamental essence of these historical phenomena and an account of the meaning of the concept of revolution. In the case of the latter, a truly revolutionary movement can be preliminarily abstracted as one in which a pronounced rupture or break from the past is realized. This rupture can take the form of profound changes in existing societal institutions, displacements of concentrated power, and a greater philosophical worldview that re-thinks the position of the human in the cosmos. Whereas both the Renaissance and the Reformation both understood themselves as essentially conservative movements, according to the former’s return to classical sources and the latter’s proclaimed commitment to a more authentic version of Christianity, the historical and social shifts caused by the respective approaches suggests that both possessed a revolutionary character. Nevertheless, when considering the dominant worldview of the time period in Europe as that of medieval Christianity, the paper shall argue that the Renaissance is more radically revolutionary than the Reformation insofar as the Renaissance essentially broke with the dominant Christian worldview and postulated the autonomy of human subjectivity and the contingency of existing structures of societal and political power. That is, while the Reformation may be summarized as an intended break with the historical center of Christianity as located in Rome, the Reformation remained a movement that was fundamentally informed by an interpretation of Christianity. Accordingly, the Reformation remained what may be termed a variant of Christianity, and thus did not designate a thoroughly revolutionary movement. The Renaissance, in contrast, essentially stood for a certain intellectual freedom that designates a radical variant of revolution, as it remains unbound to particular interpretations of Christian ideology, instead emphasizing the possibility for human and societal change, a change that is consistent with the notion of a radical revolution. The paper shall argue for this position by providing an interpretation of texts crucial to both movements.

The rupture that the Reformation marked certainly cannot be glossed over. Martin Luther’s successful challenge of papal authority may be understood as a crucial decentralization of power in Western European life, as the previously hegemonic locus of Rome underwent an attack that intends to subvert its dominance. The revolutionary essence of Luther’s movement is clear in a text such as “Letter to Pope Leo X”, in which Luther explicitly challenges the Papal authority. The boldness of Luther’s prose is what is immediately striking in this text, a boldness that indicates both Luther’s deep conviction to his own cause and the thought that his movement did in fact have the potential to minimize the influence of Rome. Luther’s contempt for the latter is clear throughout the letter, reaching points of crescendo such as the following passage: “For the Roman Court is not worthy of you and those like you, but of Satan himself, who in truth is more the ruler in that Babylon than you are.” Luther’s equation of Rome with Babylon, a symbol of primordial evil in the Christian tradition, is a clearly antagonistic and hostile assault against papal infallibility. In the context of Roman domination in Western Europe based on papal hegemony, such language itself thus possesses clear revolutionary consequences. Yet the extent of the latter is mitigated by the nature of the Lutheran revolution: while it is one primarily concerned with eliminating Vatican hegemony, the basic ideological position that informs this gesture remains determined by the content of a purely Christian discourse. Luther’s arguments are structured as appeals to Christianity, and in this regard, can be viewed as consistent with the Christian dogma and ideology that is the source of the Pope’s own claims to power. This struggle is thus a struggle within Christianity for domination. Insofar as Christianity can be considered as the dominant ideological worldview of the time, this is a significant struggle: who controls Christianity could be said to control Europe. However, when thinking of revolutionary potential in terms of a break with a pre-existing paradigm in order to inaugurate a completely new paradigm, the Reformation more closely resembles an internal power struggle as opposed to a truly revolutionary movement.