In the realm of invention, what is greatness? Scholars have debated this question for centuries. Is a great invention one that has advanced technology to new heights? Is it an invention that works perfectly and fulfills its purpose in a way only it can? Or is it an invention that has the potential to bring humanity to heights unimaginable today? The Gutenberg printing press, the miracle that it is, has smashed through all these expectations and more. But its true ingenuity is even more meaningful. The Gutenberg press is the greatest invention in Western history, not because of its other successes but because of its effect on the dynamics of society. The role of the printing press in the Protestant Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment illustrates this point.

For example, the Gutenberg printing press contributed to the Protestant Reformation, which arguably molded the core values of Western society. Back in the 16th century, the Catholic Church offered indulgences to those who gave alms to rebuild St. Peter's Basilica. An "indulgence" is a way to reduce the time in purgatory for sins during the afterlife. In short, the Church claimed that in exchange for alms, they would ensure members a better afterlife experience. A friar named Johann Tetzel championed the cause, going as far as to cry, "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs."

Many modern Bible followers would renounce this as heresy. After all, Romans 6:23 reads, "From the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ Our Lord." "You can't pay off heaven," they would argue. And Martin Luther, an ordinary Catholic priest, very much agreed. But he had no way to spread his revolutionary views and empower the peasant class. No way-- if it wasn't for the printing press.

After Martin Luther famously nailed his 95 Theses on a church door in Wittenburg, Germany, one thing led to another. Soon enough, printers began distributing copies of the revolutionary dissertation all over Europe.

The Catholic Church had formerly called printing "the divine art." But they hadn't expected Martin Luther to become the first bestselling author.

However, that's not all. The printing press didn't only aid Luther in spreading his pamphlets like wildfire throughout the continent-- it allowed him to snap back at any naysayer in record time. These rebuttals persuaded thousands of people on the fence to join the revolt. Now, the Catholic Church had a problem.

But why? Why should modern readers care about the Protestant Reformation? The answer is simple: without the Protestant Reformation, the Western world wouldn't be what it is today. The values that founded America-- free speech, democracy, and limited government-- are all direct consequences of the Protestant Reformation. (Ryrie) And the Protestant Reformation never would have boomed into the revolution it became without the Gutenberg printing press. Even though the United States often fails to live up to the visions of its idealistic founders, it would be different for the worse if not for those values. Furthermore, since the US is a global superpower, it has the potential to spread democracy throughout the world. In the far future, society could evolve into a paradise of equity and liberty-- and no one could say the printing press had nothing to do with it.

How, exactly, did the printing press spread these values? Through empowering and unifying the people at the bottom of the social ladder until the pressure of public opinion forced the oppressor to show its hand. However, the Gutenberg press didn't only spread values and beliefs to the lower class. It also fostered a new kind of rebellion, one of rapid scientific advancement and knowledge spreading into every corner of the continent. But most people know it as the Scientific Revolution.

The Scientific Revolution emerged like a bold summer sunrise from the bleak, pitch-black night of the Dark Ages. From the ashes of poverty and plague, great philosophers and scientists arose. Newton, Copernicus, Descartes, Bacon-- all were products of the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution advanced mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, and chemistry to new heights, introducing concepts such as the laws of motion and heliocentric theory. And it is widely postulated that the Scientific Revolution may not have even happened if not for the Gutenberg printing press. 

Before the printing press got involved, science was irrational and unreliable. Even civilizations widely applauded for their scientific advancement used promising but very flawed methods to get results. For example, ancient Greeks did not differentiate between science and philosophy. Though they brought some crucial concepts, such as the Pythagorean theorem, into the world, they had some questionable theories. (They thought that women had "spongier" bodies than men.) The Dark Ages weren't much better. Knowledge was a precious, near-legendary resource hoarded by religious institutions and the rich. The vast majority never left their towns. They lived in painful ignorance, living off the table scraps of the upper class with no way to look up and realize there was a feast above their heads. 

The printing press obliterated these obstacles to general intelligence. Instead of aimlessly making scientific conjectures, scientists now had the work of other scientists to inspire them only around the corner. Tycho Brahe, a Danish astronomer who discovered the solar system, went as far as to build a printing press and paper mill only to publish his findings. Copernicus hurriedly flipped through pages of printed works on astronomy and tables of data on planet movements to print his book-- the book that would argue that the Earth went around the Sun. And even Sir Isaac Newton, the scientific giant who discovered gravity and established the laws of motion, had a bookshelf packed with works from Galileo and Aristotle. He would one day say, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." So instead of scientific discoveries festering, trapped in the minds of rejected prophets, they were published for the world to see. Any ordinary citizen could marvel at the power of gravity or the idea that the Earth spun around the Sun.

If the Gutenberg press had never entered the scene, Copernicus wouldn't have been able to rely on data tables from fellow scientists published in books. He would have to make all those months or even years of tedious calculations. Would heliocentric theory be an accepted fact today? Also, Tycho Brahe needed the printing press to issue his books on the theory of the solar system. He needed it so much that he built one himself. What if he hadn't been able to do that? How much would Earth know about the planets around it?

"That is a bit ridiculous," one might argue. "Society would have discovered these concepts eventually." And that may be true. But that alternate, hypothetical reality might be even worse than the first. Imagine a world where children don't learn about the solar system in school. Imagine a world where gravity is a little-known concept. Imagine a world where many people never learn to read.

Imagine a world where people are afraid to question authority, where the majority lives trapped between the fingers of the state's tight grip. It would be a world where democracy is unheard of, debating is forbidden, and defiance is blasphemy.

The danger of a world without the printing press is not that knowledge would be extinct. It's that knowledge would not be common. Information should never stagnate, chained to desks in a suffocating monastery. It should never be leisure or a luxury reserved for the rich. And thanks to the Gutenberg printing press, it's not. Anyone in this country can go to a library and slip open a book, breathing in its comforting scent. It smells like fresh ink. But it also smells like a revolution.

"Knowledge is power," they say. Yes, and power is greatness. An invention becomes great when it shakes society to its core by giving power to the people. In conclusion, the Gutenberg printing press is the greatest invention in Western history because it changed the course of Western history. It accelerated the Protestant Reformation, which gave weight to public opinion and led to the popularization of concepts such as free speech and democracy. It founded the Scientific Revolution, which distributed knowledge to the common folk and made great strides in scientific progress. Without these two historical movements, America might be a clear dystopia today-- that is, more than it already is-- or it may not even have ever existed in the first place. Because of the Gutenberg press, a poor child in public school can have more potential than a billionaire child home-schooled in their parents' yacht. What invention could be greater than that?