- Perhaps the most we can assume is that the man of the Renaissance lived, as it were, between two worlds.
- The world of the medieval Christian matrix, in which the significance of every phenomenon was ultimately determined through uniform points of view, no longer existed for him.
- On the other hand, he had not yet found in a system of scientific concepts and social principles stability and security for his life.
- In other words, Renaissance man may indeed have found himself suspended between faith and reason.
- As the grip of medieval super-naturalism began to diminish, secular and human interests became more prominent.
- The facts of individual experience in the here and now became more interesting than the shadowy afterlife.
- Reliance upon faith and God weakened.
- The present world became an end in itself instead of simply preparation of a world to come. Indeed, as the age of Renaissance humanism wore on, the distinction between this world (the City of Man) and the next (the City of God) tended to disappear.
- Human experience, man himself, tended to become the practical measure of all things.