2019 Year 12 IB Extended Essays

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for new ways to solve problems. As a result, we have developed many different governmental styles, with differing thought processes, which allows society as a whole to better understand varying points of view.

The separation of the Church and State was the next period of development concerning the freedom of thought globally. Throughout the Middle Ages, there was no clear separation between the Church and State, with the Catholic Church being integrated within civil government, and ecclesiastic officials often making up most of the secular leaders (Sunshine, 2017). However, the development of Protestant states began a revolutionary process, in which they refused to accept the supposed spiritual authority provided to the Pope by God. The church often used logic that followed Aristotle’s syllogisms (refer to Appendix 1), being that if two facts were told to be true, then the outcome of those facts will always be correct – no matter which argument is presented against it. This made it difficult for states such as the Protestants to pursue Plato’s teachings that belief must be accompanied by a logical account in order for it to be considered truth, and their individual pursuits of new logical accounts and beliefs, and therefore new knowledge. At this point in history, the philosophy of ancient teachings was, whilst still heavily influencing the pursuit of development of knowledge, beginning to inspire modern philosophers to contribute further to its development. Martin Luther was a German professor of theology, and a key catalyst in the Protestant Reformation of the 16 th century (Hillerbrand, 2019). Once the Protestant states rejected the Pope’s authority, a need for distinction between the Church and State arose, in order to provide figures of authority for each, and maintain peace and order in humanity. Martin Luther distinguished between religious and civil governments with his Doctrine of Two Kingdoms. Within this doctrine, Luther differentiated two halves of society – the Right-Hand Kingdom, focussing on the biblical law, and the Left-