Becoming a Renaissance Woman (or Man)

Renaissance woman (or man): one who has broad intellectual interests in various fields including art and science; one who strives to learn on more than a superficial level; one invested in personal discovery and creativity; one who controls their own learning and exploration.

As we begin to discuss the Renaissance and New Worldviews, I see an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and true understanding at the root of each new thought, theory, scientist, artist, or even the seemingly average man. What made Copernicus want to study the cosmos? What drove da Vinci to invent and paint? Why did Tyndale take the risks to translate the Bible into English? Or Von Hohenheim to reform chemistry and medicine? How did Palissy come to the conclusion that  fossils were the remains of plants and animals? What made Joseph Smith kneel down to pray in a grove of trees? Why did Gilbert think of the Earth in regard to magnets? And the answer, I believe, comes down to searching for truth.

Being LDS, I believe that there are different levels of truth. Neal A. Maxwell in a talk entitled "Disciple Scholar" states that " there is no democracy among truths, they are not of equal significance." He presents the idea that there are three levels of truth: Descriptions of reality (i.e. airline schedules, exchange rates), proximate or lesser truths consisting of verifiable scientific information (the what and how of the universe), and finally, the ultimate and eternal truths. The second level is always growing and expanding with our study and research, yet it still remains separate from the ultimate truths because of the limitations of humans. Aristotle and Ptolemy believed in the model that stated that the Earth was a place of change and corruption, decay and death, while heaven (they were referring to space as well as the kingdom of gods) is a place of perfection. Since then, the idea of a distinct separation from divinity has perpetuated in science. Now as we are disciple scholars and participants in the new Renaissance of our age, we have the opportunity to change this separation. For everything points to God, from the Milky Way to homologous pairs of chromosomes, from the Mona Lisa and Sistine Chapel style of art to Picasso and cubism. 

The Renaissance men and women were searching for truth and meaning in their world, for explanations to phenomenons and problems. Today many are still searching for those things, but we have the ability to see the divinity within ourselves and connect the proximate truths to the eternal ones in order to bridge that age old separation.