Descartes, Bacon, and Religion

Rene Descartes was a both a philosopher and a mathematician. He developed the Cartesian coordinate plane that is so crucial to mathematics today. However, Descartes disliked the idea that he had to accept all previous scientific advances and advances in logic as fact. Essentially, what he did was disregard everything that he had learned and accepted so far. From there, he tried to reprove whatever he could, but he found this very difficult. Eventually, he decided that there was absolutely no doubt that he existed. From this came his famous statement, "cogito ergo sum," or, "I think, therefore I am." Descartes' beliefs insisted that people think for themselves which, to some extent, gave people freedom to question beliefs that they had held for their entire lives.

Francis Bacon was a philosopher and a scientist, but he was also involved with the political system. He was a huge advocate for the scientific revolution. Perhaps he is most famous for the Baconian Method, or the scientific method. The Baconian method asserted that scientific investigation must be carefully done, looking for agreement, difference, and variation in order to formulate a clear opinion. This process went against believing something to be true based on inconclusive evidence. It required significant observation for something to be accepted as fact.

Descartes and Bacon's reluctance to believe what is accepted by others as true may have encouraged people to rethink the validity of the Church. If people rely on concrete evidence rather than belief, it becomes increasingly difficult to prove that some sort of divine power exists. Descartes and Bacon may not have intended to counter the Church, but with their ideas, some may have begun to question their religion more carefully.