Protestant Project: Five Hundred Years Later

... heralded the beginning of the Modern Era. Capitalism emerged as a profit-based rational economic system. The ideas of John Locke were a rational liberal and political doctrine. And the philosophy of René Descartes offered a rational scientific worldview. Protestantism in turn became a rational system of values designed to overcome medieval theocentricism. It is difficult to imagine a European in the 16th century who does not believe in God. But it was in the 16th century that active trade and entrepreneurial ...