Posted on 04/15/2017 8:48:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
It’s Easter, a time when Christians the world over commemorate the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of their Lord and Savior.
However, it isn’t just Christians, but anyone and everyone who regularly reaps the incalculable benefits of Western civilization that should be grateful for the fact that Jesus of Nazareth walked among us. In virtually every conceivable way, Jesus, courtesy of the legions of disciples that He spawned throughout the centuries, has made the world that we take for granted.
Though it will doubtless come as an enormous shock to such Christophobic atheists as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and their ilk, it is nonetheless true that one especially significant contribution that Christianity made to the world is that of science.
No one has better established this than Rodney Stark, a sociologist of religion who makes his home at Baylor University, the school from which I received a master’s degree in philosophy. Stark’s The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, though published 12 years ago, is worth revisiting, particularly at this time when, not unlike at Christmas, journalists and others in the media presume to address the topic of Jesus.
In his introduction, Stark cuts to the quick in identifying why all too few Westerners are unaware of the richness of their religious inheritance. “During the past century, Western intellectuals have been more than willing to trace European imperialism to Christian origins, but they have been entirely unwilling to recognize that Christianity made any contribution (other than intolerance) to the Western capacity to dominate.” Instead, “the West is said to have surged ahead precisely as it overcame religious barriers to progress, especially those impeding science.”
Stark’s reply to this conventional wisdom is to the point: “Nonsense.”
He is unequivocal: “The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians” (emphasis added).
Christians, in stark contrast to virtually every other ancient tradition, endorsed a linear conception of time and a resolutely non-cyclical vision of the universe. The universe had a beginning because it was created by one, supreme, rational God. These metaphysical ideas in turn gave rise to the belief that the material world was at once good and rational. Hence, it warranted exploration.
From this metaphysic sprang as well the belief in progress.
The emergence of modern science was the culmination of centuries’ worth of the achievements of medieval Christian thinkers. Specifically, science was made possible by the twelfth-century creation of the university—another of Christianity’s gifts to humanity. The belief in the rationality of the material world is nothing more or less than a belief that the universe is governed by natural laws. In the absence of this idea, science never could have come about.
Stark draws our attention to the common error of confusing technology and observation with science. “Science,” he writes, “is a method utilized in organized efforts to formulate explanations of nature, always subject to modifications and corrections through systematic observations” (emphases original).
What this means is that science consists of two parts: theory and research. “Hence, the earlier technical innovations of Greco-Roman times, of Islam, of China, let alone those achieved in pre-historical times, do not constitute science and are better described as lore, skills, wisdom, techniques, crafts, technologies, engineering, learning, or simply knowledge.”
Stark is blunt: “Real science arose only once: in Europe”—in Christian Europe. “China, Islam, India, and ancient Greece and Rome each had a highly developed alchemy. But only in Europe did alchemy develop into chemistry. By the same token, many societies developed elaborate systems of astrology, but only in Europe did astrology develop into astronomy.”
The reason for this has everything to do with Christian Europe’s vision of God.
To further substantiate his point, Stark quotes Alfred North Whitehead, a 20th century philosopher and mathematician who co-authored, with the famed atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell, their Principia Mathematica. While delivering a Lowell Lecture at Harvard in the 1920’s, Whitehead shocked his fellow academics when he remarked that “faith in the possibility of science” derived from “medieval theology.”
Whitehead elaborated: “The greatest contribution of medievalism to the formation of the scientific movement,” he remarked, was “the inexpugnable belief” in “a secret that can be unveiled.” That this “conviction” has seized “the European mind” can only be explained in terms of “the medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher.”
This conception of God led to the notion that every “detail” in nature “was supervised and ordered: the search into nature could only result in the vindication of the faith in rationality.”
And there is no question that all of the great scientists of the early modern era, men like Descartes, Galileo, Newton, and Kepler, “confess[ed]…their absolute faith in a creator God, whose work incorporated rational rules awaiting discovery.”
In summation, Stark writes: “The rise of science was not an extension of classical learning. It was the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine: nature exists because it was created by God. In order to love and honor God, it is necessary to fully appreciate the wonders of his handiwork. Because God is perfect, his handiwork functions in accord with immutable principles. By the full use of our God-given powers of reason and observation, it ought to be possible to discover these principles.”
He concludes: “These were the crucial ideas that explain why science arose in Christian Europe and nowhere else.”
Science, with all of the ways in which it has enriched human existence, would never had come about if not for Christianity.
Remember this the next time some historical illiterate, like one of the so-called “new” atheists, tries to reinforce the fiction that Christianity and science are at odds.
And the whole Descartes question has no bearing on the larger point that western science is a direct result of Christian culture.
Precisely. Descartes himself was a direct result of Christian culture.
“He considered himself a devout Catholic.”
You really should read your link more carefully ...
Moses wasn't and isn't a Christian? Why, then, was he on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus? Isn't that determinative? I'll just suggest finding a different example to join Plato in your statement.
“Consider what would have happened to a Muslim who behaved as Decartes did”
Many consider that Descartes was assassinated by a Catholic Priest.
Yes, but there were many complications in his case. He was one of many proponents of Copernicus's heliocentric theory of the solar system, published 100 years previously, which was unproven--because it couldn't yet be proven. The technology to do so wasn't there. The measurements of the planets and their orbits for an earth-centered solar system worked just as well as they did for Copernicus's model. The question was finally settled in the early 19th century, when better telescopes were able to detect a parallax effect in viewing the planets at various times of year, which proved they were going around the sun and not the earth.
Galileo was disciplined for 1) publishing a book about the solar system wherein in for no apparent reason and without warning, he made fun of his friend and the financial backer of his scientific work--the mild-mannered Pope Urban; 2) making a number of scientific claims about the solar system--not just the Copernican theory--that were unproven and stating them as fact, some of which claims later turned out to be wrong; 3) alienating absolutely everyone in authority by his arrogant, cantankerous, and loopy behavior.
He was also one of the greatest scientific minds who ever lived.
Not only were most scientists at the time opposed to the Copernican theory--other Christian religious leaders, notably including Martin Luther, were vehement in denouncing it as opposed to the truth revealed in the Bible.
By the way, Copernicus was a Catholic priest, and he had been ordered by his bishop to publish his controversial theory. The reigning Pope at that time (a century before Galileo), Clement VII, was fascinated when he heard of his work, and had his Cardinals write to Copernicus to request copies of his books.
This case is an example of why there can never be any theory worthy of being called "settled science." The only thing "settled" in real science is the scientific method itself, which guarantees that any theory can be tested at any time until the end of the world--when, we can hope, all these things will be revealed!
“Precisely. Descartes himself was a direct result of Christian culture.”
Fortunately he did not adhere to the ‘Christian’ science teachings of that day ...
What God has done is so amazing, even more than I can understand. And the gifts he gives us are so great, my words fail me. For one thing, allowing me to discuss here with you, giving me the opportunity learn more about the heresy of Descartes. And where his faith in our Lord and Saviour might have taken detours, or stumbled into mishaps.
Re: “Please enlighten me where Descartes professed a belief in Jesus Son of God.”
Whether or not Descartes was a doctrinally correct, believing Christian is beside the point. He clearly had a Christian view of the universe. Being a Theist does not mean one is also necessarily a believer in Jesus as God’s Son, and Descartes was, if nothing else, at least a Theist with a view of God that matched that of the Judeo-Christian God.
Thomas Jefferson was not an orthodox Christian either, yet his view that God endowed mankind, as Creator, with inalienable rights, is still a Judeo-”Christian” worldview - not Islamic, or Hindu, and certainly not atheistic.
Atheism is defined as a specific belief that God doesn’t exist. Very different from heresy.
Important to note: atheism is a belief system which gives rise to the thoughts, feelings and behaviors (practices) of the atheist.
I believe so too.
“Yes, but there were many complications in his case. He (Galileo) was one of many proponents of Copernicus’s heliocentric theory of the solar system, published 100 years previously, which was unproven—because it couldn’t yet be proven. The technology to do so wasn’t there. “
Copernicus didn’t publish his major work till his death because he was afraid of the Christian Church.
Galileo showed that the planets orbited the sun by documenting the phases of Venus.
“Atheism is defined as a specific belief that God doesn’t exist. Very different from heresy.”
Yes. Is a muslim an atheist or heretic?
“Whether or not Descartes was a doctrinally correct, believing Christian is beside the point. He clearly had a Christian view of the universe.”
The predominant Christian view of the universe at that time was that the sun orbited the earth. That was NOT his view.
Your argument seems to be that Descartes was persecuted by the Church, therefore he was not a product of Christian culture and cannot be said to have been produced by Christian culture.
That is the counter argument. Science sprang from Christianity, and not from other religions. The persecutions of the Church were relatively feeble attempts that did not stop the development of science. In fact, the Church did numerous things to promote science. The pope funded Galileo, as noted above, as it did many early scientists.
From TexasGator:
“Fortunately he did not adhere to the ‘Christian’ science teachings of that day ...”
Exactly the point, isn’t it?
Islam, China, India, all had several times the population of Christendom. None of them produced science. They could easily have copied early Christian scientists, and made discoveries of their own. They had the resources. They had the contacts with Europe. They did not do it. Why?
Because their basic philosophies were not compatible with scientific inquiry and the search for truth.
“By the way, Copernicus was a Catholic priest, and he had been ordered by his bishop to publish his controversial theory. “
LOL!
This article is complete and utter garbage designed to make Christians feel good about themselves. It’s entire argument that all other scientific achievement in history were mere skill and basic knowledge is a simple handwave. And the claim that science is really just about figuring out how awesome God is ignores countless acts of willful ignorance institutionally condoned by the religious. Obviously the faithful here are going to eat this up like figgy pudding, but it is perhaps the most ridiculous thing I have ever read.
Theist.
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