The scientific revolution also gained legitimacy during this period. Early modern attempts to grapple with the philosophy of infinity focused on and discussed three fundamental disagreements about the infinite—differences that had their origins in the academic philosophical tradition. Philosophers such as Leibniz and Spinoza used this distinction to distinguish God’s qualitative infinity from the mathematically abstract concept of infinity. Early modern thinkers differentiated between actual and potential infinity. Academic tradition has traditionally rejected the existence of actual infinities in the created world but has acknowledged potential infinities, following Aristotle’s approach to Zeno’s paradoxes. Additionally, the advent of early modern thought was linked to changes in the period’s intellectual and cultural context, such as the advancement of natural science, theological contradictions within and between the Catholic and Protestant churches, and the growth of the modern nation-state.