Posted on 09/27/2005 7:37:51 AM PDT by NYer
Interview With Historian Thomas Woods Jr.
CORAM, New York, SEPT. 26, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Contrary to popular opinion, the Catholic Church historically has been the champion of scientific, economic, legal and social progress.
So says Thomas Woods Jr., history professor at Suffolk County Community College and author of "How the Church Built Western Civilization" (Regnery).
Woods shared with ZENIT how the Church has contributed to science, the development of free-market economies, Western legal systems and international law, and why Catholic intellectual and cultural figures desperately need to redeem Western civilization.
Q: How did it come to be that the Church is considered the enemy of progress, freedom, human rights, science, and just about everything else modernity champions, when in fact your book claims that the Catholic Church is at the origin of these phenomena?
Woods: There are many reasons for this phenomenon, but I'll confine myself to one. It is much easier to propagate historical myth than most people realize.
Take, for instance, the idea -- which we were all taught in school -- that in the Middle Ages everyone thought the world was flat. This, as Jeffrey Burton Russell has shown, is a 19th-century myth that was deliberately concocted to cast the Church in a bad light. It couldn't be further from the truth.
The matter of Galileo, which most people know only in caricature, has fueled some of this fire. But it is both illegitimate and totally misleading to extrapolate from the Galileo case to the broader conclusion that the Church has historically been hostile to science.
It may come as a surprise to some readers, but the good news is that modern scholarship -- say, over the past 50 to 100 years or so -- has gone a long way toward refuting these myths and setting the record straight.
Scarcely any medievalist worth his salt would today repeat the caricatures of the Middle Ages that were once common currency, and mainstream historians of science would now be embarrassed to repeat the old contention that the relationship between religion and science in the West has been a history of unremitting warfare -- as Andrew Dickson White famously contended a century ago.
Q: Can you briefly describe the Church's particular contributions to the origins and development of modern science?
Woods: Let's begin with a few little-known facts. The first person to measure the rate of acceleration of a freely falling body was Father Giambattista Riccioli. Father Nicholas Steno is considered the father of geology. The father of Egyptology was Father Athanasius Kircher, and the man often cited as the father of atomic theory was Father Roger Boscovich.
The Jesuits brought Western science all over the world. In the 20th century they so dominated the study of earthquakes that seismology became known as "the Jesuit science."
Some Catholic cathedrals were built to function as the world's most precise solar observatories, and the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna was used to verify Johannes Kepler's theory of elliptical planetary orbits.
The science chapter of "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization" is by far the longest. In addition to discussing examples like the ones I've just mentioned, it also notes that certain aspects of Catholic teaching -- including the idea of God as orderly and even mathematical, thus making possible the idea of autonomous natural laws -- lent themselves to the development of modern science.
Q: One question you have examined in particular in your books is the Church's role in the development of free-market economies. Many historians, including Catholics, claim that it was only with the Enlightenment and Adam Smith that Western nations were able to expunge "medieval" notions of economics and bring about the Industrial Revolution. Why do you think this is a misreading of history?
Woods: Recent scholarship has discovered that medieval economic thought, particularly in the High and Late Middle Ages, was far more modern and sophisticated than was once thought.
Many scholars, but above all Raymond de Roover, have shown that these thinkers possessed a deeper understanding and appreciation of market mechanisms, and were more sympathetic to a free economy, than traditional portrayals would suggest.
In general they did not believe, as has been commonly alleged, in an objectively ascertainable "just price" of a good, or that the state should enforce such prices across the board. To the contrary, the Scholastics were deeply indebted to Roman law, resurrected in the High Middle Ages, which described the value of a good as what it could commonly be sold for.
The common estimation of the market in effect determined the just price. Debate and discussion on this matter continues, but no serious scholar has been so foolish as to reject de Roover's findings root and branch.
I develop this point at even greater length in my book "The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy," which has received the endorsements of the economics chairmen at Christendom College and the University of Dallas.
An interesting tidbit, by the way, that I discuss in "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization" is that at the very time Henry VIII was engaged in the suppression of England's monasteries, those monks were on the verge of developing dedicated blast furnaces for the production of cast iron. Henry may have delayed the Industrial Revolution for two and a half centuries.
Q: One of the more interesting claims of your book is that Western legal systems developed from canon law. How was this possible considering the seemingly incongruous subject matter?
Woods: What I argue is that canon law served as a model for developing Western states seeking to codify and systematize their own legal systems. Harold Berman, the great scholar of Western law, contends that the first modern legal system in the Western world was the Church's canon law.
And that canon law, particularly as codified in Gratian's "Concordance of Discordant Canons," served as a model of what Western states sought to accomplish.
Scholars of Church law showed the barbarized West how to take a patchwork of custom, statutory law and countless other sources, and produce from them a coherent legal order whose structure was internally consistent and in which previously existing contradictions were synthesized or otherwise resolved.
Moreover, the subject matter of canon law was not as far removed from that of civil law as we might think.
For example, the Church had jurisdiction over marriage. The canon law of marriage held that a valid marriage required the free consent of both the man and the woman, and that a marriage could be held invalid if it took place under duress or if one of the parties entered into the marriage on the basis of a mistake regarding either the identity or some important quality of the other person.
"Here," says Berman, "were the foundations not only of the modern law of marriage but also of certain basic elements of modern contract law, namely, the concept of free will and related concepts of mistake, duress and fraud."
Q: Additionally, you note that the concepts of international law and human rights were developed by 16th-century Spanish scholastics such as Francisco de Vitoria. How might this fact be relevant to today's discussions of international law, as well as the Holy See's role in shaping international institutions?
Woods: People such as Francisco de Vitoria were convinced that international law, which codified the natural moral law in international relations, could serve to facilitate peaceful coexistence among people of disparate cultures and religions.
The idea of international law, as the Late Scholastics saw it, was an extension of the idea that no one, not even the state, was exempt from moral constraints. This idea ran completely contrary to the Machiavellian view that the state was morally autonomous and bound by no absolute moral standards.
While the idea of international law is morally indispensable and philosophically unimpeachable, there are practical difficulties associated with its enforcement by an international agency.
If the institution has no coercive powers it will be impotent; if it does have coercive powers then it, too, must be protected against and becomes a threat to the international common good.
There is also the risk that the organization will seek to go beyond mediation and peacekeeping and seek to intervene in the domestic matters of member states or to undermine traditional institutions in those states.
This, of course, is what has happened today, what with the radical politics on constant display at the United Nations. The Holy See's role in international relations, it seems to me, is both to advance peace by means of its own initiatives, and to remain the great obstacle to the leftist social agenda put forth at typical U.N. conferences.
Q: It seems that over the last 40 or 50 years, Catholic contributions to art, literature and science have waned. Additionally, Catholic influence in the academy and other important cultural institutions has also declined. Why do you think this is the case?
Woods: This is a tough one to answer in brief, though I take it up to some extent in my book "The Church Confronts Modernity." That book looks at the great vigor of the Catholic Church in America during the first half of the 20th century.
Here was a self-confident Church that engaged in healthy interaction with the surrounding culture without being absorbed by it.
Hilaire Belloc observed at the time that "the more powerful, the more acute, and the more sensitive minds of our time are clearly inclining toward the Catholic side."
Historian Peter Huff notes that the Catholic Church in America "witnessed such a steady stream of notable literary conversions that the statistics tended to support Calvert Alexander's hypothesis of something suggesting a cultural trend."
According to historian Charles Morris, "Despite the defeat of Al Smith, American Catholics achieved an extraordinary ideological self-confidence by the 1930s, much to the envy of Protestant ministers."
That self-confidence and sense of mission has, for a variety of reasons, diminished substantially since the 1960s.
It is dramatically urgent that Catholic intellectual and cultural figures regain that old confidence and sense of identity, for people need to hear the Church's message more than ever. Pope Benedict XVI has made abundantly clear his displeasure with the moral condition of Western civilization and its need for redemption.
Simone Weil once wrote, "I am not a Catholic, but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without becoming degraded."
Western civilization seems to be learning that one the hard way.
I think this will come in handy too, thanks.
"You are correct, I was rude. Sorry."
Accepted.
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When people started reading the Bible and questioning the Catholic traditions that didn't seem to match Scripture, these words were given different translations. * latria - worship * dulia - honor * hyperdulia - venerate
And I like this little blurb from Catholic.com "Though one should know it from one’s own background, it often may be best to simply point out that Catholics do not worship anyone but God and omit discussing the history of the term. "
I did not misrepresent the catholic faith. Next time it would be best to simple say "Move along, nothing to see here!" because you're not supposed to talk about it.
You are correct that there are different words for "worship", however, as you (apparently unintentionally) demonstrate, they don't all mean the same thing. That's what the sentence from catholic.com is referring to.
More precisely, it wasn't until recently that in OUR language, English, the word "worship" was taken to mean ONLY the highest form, or latria, as you define. That is what catholic.com means when it says, "Though one should know it from one’s own background, it often may be best to simply point out that Catholics do not worship anyone but God and omit discussing the history of the term."
Again, the term "worship" didn't mean, until recently (the 20th century) ONLY latria. It could also mean dulia and hyperdulia. Thus, in attempting to discredit the Catholic "worship" of Mary with your definitions, you actually demonstrate quite effectively how Catholics do NOT "worship" Mary as we understand the word "worship" today.
Thanks!
Mental note to self: I must learn how to do those bullets in text. I'll get myself to the HTML sandbox one of these days for a refresher!
I just noticed that the chapter I was referring to and quoting from in post #79 is Chapter 43. It is mislabeled 42 in the source, so that there are two 42's.
I do not disregard scripture, I disregard a self serving interpretation.
I will admit that there are mysteries in the Bible. However, I can not accept that a basic tennent of faith is stated only once and twice omitted.
Just because someone decided in 220 that the keys were another example of the primacy of the Peter does not mean that the mystery is solved.
The meaning of the keys did not occur because of searching for meaning, but because of searching for validation.
Isaiah 22:21-22 (NASB)(21)I will clothe him with your robe, and gird him with your sash, and give over to him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. (22)I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open.
There was no "search for meaning". The meaning was known.
BTW how could there be any mysteries in the bible, I thought the meaning of all scripture was plain as the nose on you face? If not, then surely God would have given us a mechanism for properly understanding scripture wouldn't He? IOW an infallible, authoritative, singular Church.
What part of the meaning of worship do you object to?
I'm not saying that Catholics worship Mary the same as God. I understand it is a heirarchy. God, Mary, then the saints.
Venerate means to treat someone or something with deep respect. I venerate the church building, but that doesn't mean I pray to it.
It seems to me that Catholics more than venerate Mary. Sure, there is deep respect, but there is also something more . Venerate seems insufficient. Worship seems to cover it nicely.
Our Lord believed Mary to be "better than normal people", who are we to argue with the Lord?
As to the mechanisms for properly understanding the scriptures, that is explained in 1 Corinthians 12. God gave gifts to the Body of Christ.
Notice it doesn't mention the RCC or the Pope as a gift to the Church.
Verse 23a is even more interesting. "and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor". So all of your hype that the Pope and the Bishops, and the Priest, and the Saints, and Mary are more important and deserve greater honor is just plain weird.
About your Old Testament reference to the keys, when was that explaination first mentioned. Just another example of looking back to the Bible to prove what you want. There are other keys mentioned in the Bible. If you can show that every mention of a key has the same definition and meaning, I might consider the issue more. But it does not.
Consider this: why did Christ establish a Church before He gave us the full canon of Scripture? Why did He instruct us to "take it to the Church" and not "take it to Scripture"? Scripture, the perfect, infallible word of God was, is and forever will be a teaching tool to be used by the Church to lead us to Christ along the narrow path. Christianity is not a religion of the book, that's Islam. Christ gave us a Church first and promised it perfection so we can know, with out fail or doubt, through the ages what is the broad road and what is the narrow path.
Modern Christendom is awash in churches, but there is only one that teaches the fullness of Christian Faith. One, not many. Once you accept that simple truth, your irrational fear of the Blessed Mother and the other stumbling blocks you have, will fall away. Remember, Mary did as Paul states as a requisite for being Christ like; she emptied herself completely in order to be the handmaiden of the Lord. She is greatest of all created beings precisely because she totally rejected her self for Him. You do the same and maybe you too can be the subject of the dulia of the faithful!
We believe she is an instrumental part of what Jesus did on the Cross. Without Mary's cooperation, Jesus would not have been born! Thus, it's not that she's "better" in the sense that she's a goddess, but she's much more coopertive with God than the "average Joe.
Catholics pray to Mary
Just like you (I assume) ask your friends to pray for you to God, so that is what we do when we "pray to Mary", we are asking for her intecessory prayer to God.
Catholics have created rituals around Mary
You say "Like the Rosary". First of all, the Rosary is merely a way to keep track of how many times the Hail Mary is said. It's a counting tool, like an abacus. The actual prayers in the Rosary are numbered (50 Hail Marys, 5 Our Fathers, etc) according to Tradition, but here your objection isn't with Mary, per se, it's with Catholic Tradition. That's a separate discussion.
You also claim that the Sacrement of Marriage is somehow based on Mary. I don't understand what you mean entirely by your use of the word "weddings", but I can assure you, the Sacrament of Marriage has nothing to do with Mary. I don't know where you get that.
Catholics have created tenents of faith involving Mary [like Ever Virgin, Immaculate Conception]
The reason I put an emphasis on your use of the word "created" there is because this is a common misconception among those who don't understand where Catholic doctrine comes from. Let's take the Immaculate Conception, for example. That wasn't simply "created" in 1854, rather it was formally declared part of our belief, however, that doesn't mean it was "created" then. It was merely a reflection of tradition that was passed down through the centuries. In other words, for centuries before 1854, many Catholics in the Church believed in the Immaculate Conception.
Basically put, to say the Church "creates" a doctrine at a certain date merely because that is when a particular Pope spoke ex cathedra on the matter is simply a misunderstanding. And indeed, you have to remember that Catholics believe that the Holy Spirit guides our Church and that the gates of Hell will never prevail against her. So, when a matter is spoken about ex cathedra, it's not the Pope, the man, talking, it's by the guidance of the Holy Spirit that a matter is being decided, once and for all.
If you object to this line of reasoning, then you must burn your Bible now, as the Cannon of books in it was decided by the exact same method.
Catholics have huge statues of Mary in church
First of all, I like how you editorialized it by saying "huge". I wonder what you would not consider a "huge statue"? What's the height requirement to make something "huge"?
Beyond that though, this is perhaps the most trivial objection of all, in that I would hardly object to YOU keeping a picture, or a video tape, or some other visual record of your loved ones in your house. I'd hardly consider it idolotry or blasphemy to keep such pictures once they are dead. It's the same with the statues of Mary, Joseph, etc.
If you still object to any kind of statue or icon being present in a church building, thinking that any such representation MUST be idolotry, then I guess you must object to God Himself when he instructed the Jews HOW to build the Ark of the Covenant, and was very specific about it, right AFTER He gave them the Ten Commandments. If ALL iconography/statues/concrete representations are idolotry, then I guess the cherebum on the Ark were idols too, right?
It seems to me that Catholics more than venerate Mary. Sure, there is deep respect, but there is also something more . Venerate seems insufficient. Worship seems to cover it nicely.
That's because you don't understand how we worship God. The only mention of Mary in the Mass is during the Creed (Nicene). All other focus is on HIM, no one else (except, I suppose, when we devote some prayer time to worldly causes, but we're instructed as Christians to pray for one another right?)
As far as what you perceive as "worship" of Mary, it's not at all, as I think I've explained above. But if you remember anything from this reply, remember this: When we venerate Mary, we're not putting her on her own little pedastal, SEPARATE from God, we're acknowledging her own special place in God's Kingdom, in other words, we're worshipping God THROUGH Mary.
The last word will have to be yours on this subject, if you even want to reply. I've got to run. God Bless, I hope this was helpful!
Disappointing? What a condescending word to choose. Did you expect better of me? How superior of you. I could understand if you were saddened, because I'm going to hell because I think that Mary was godly woman who performed her wifely duties towards Joseph. But disappointed? Come on.
Christ established the Church. He left it to His apostles to establish the churches. To proclaim one physical church to have dominion over all other churches is disappointingly human in the search for power over other men.
Our understanding of what the Church represents is very different. I understand the Church to be the Body of Christ, all true believers. Reading the Nicene creed, it speaks of the one holy, catholic and apostolic church. This is the Body of Christ; all true believers. When Christ returns to bring home His Church, it will be the individual members, not the RCC. I'm pretty sure that the Throne of Peter will stay where it is.
Your confusing physical churches with the one Church. the location of the Church is not the issue, it's the doctrine of the Church that is important. The apostles established many churches that preached the One True Faith of the One True Church. The RCC is not a location or a building or a man: it is the deposit of the fullness of God's revelation to man. If tomorrow Vatican city burned to the ground, the Church would continue, it is not particular to a location or even the pope, but it is particular to one Church, which teaches one faith.
Now, you keep mentioning the true believers, can you define what a "true believer" believes in? Also, what exactly does it mean to believe?
Asking a live friend to pray for me is very different than asking a dead person. There is a promise that Jesus will hear our prayers. There is no such promise that anyone dead can hear us, pray for us, or respond.
In the Catholic weddings that I've attended, they have placed flowers at the foot of the Mary Statue. I consider this a ritual.
The development of Marian theology is very tracable. This pope added this and another pope added that. As a member of an apostolic church, I do not believe that any apostle taught anything special about Mary, except she was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. I have 2 reasons for this belief. First, the scripture. Second the creeds.
In the early churches, there were fragmented beleifs. They called the Nicene council to formalize the core of christian belief. The nicene creed is a statement of faith. If you believe the words of the nicene creed, you can call yourself christian. The only tenet regarding Mary in the basic christian faith is that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary.
None of the future creeds ever expand into more detail about Mary.
Then around 1200 (I think) some Pope comes along and declares that belief in Mary as ever virgin is a condition of salvation.
Are you really trying to tell me that christians always believed this, just never wrote it down?
Burn my Bible because the Catholic Church claims ownership over God's Word? Not likely.
Huge statues was an editorial comment. I have this mental vision of always looking up at the statue of Mary. Are they life sized, smaller or larger?
True believer is easy to define. That's why the creeds were created. A simple statment of faith.
Fine, but what of those, and there are many, who claim to be true believers but disavow any creed as a man made device? Have they by that act excommunicated them selves from the body of believers? Is it enough to simply recite the creed? Or is some action required?
If someone denies the authority of the creeds as man made inventions, that's fine with me. They are man made. I believe they are consistent with Scripture, not equal. However, if someone denies any specific part of the creeds, then I might personally have a problem calling them christian.
Reciting the creed does not bring salvation.
Salvation is by grace, through faith, for works.
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