Why did Renaissance and Reformation thinkers criticize Scholasticism?

Renaissance and Reformation thinkers criticized Scholasticism primarily because they viewed it as a needlessly speculative and sterile system that obscured authentic Christian themes.1

Renaissance Criticisms

Renaissance humanists rejected the medieval tradition in favor of returning to the pristine sources of Classical civilization. They often denounced scholastic logic as "sterile" and filled with "subtlety and arid ingenuity," preferring the literary charm of Plato over the Aristotelian dialectic that dominated Scholastic methods. Humanists sought to replace the formal, rigid treatises of the Scholastics with more discursive, conversational methods.123

Reformation Criticisms

Reformers, such as Martin Luther, were disillusioned by the entire scholastic scheme of redemption, which they felt relied too heavily on human works rather than faith. They emphasized the supremacy of Scripture and argued that the unaided human mind was unreliable for reasoning about God. Reformers contended that Scholasticism had become an "all-engulfing rationalism" that threatened the primacy of faith, and they advocated for a return to the authentic religious experience of the primitive church.415