“Christ and Science” Invitation for Discussion
The following is from the booklet by Fr. Stanley L. Jaki, “Christ and Science.” I have not read the booklet, but I have read the more complete book he wrote covering the same subject matter, “The Savior of Science.” He contends and makes the eloquent case for the following assertion.
The summary of points come from the booklet, but are more fully treated with an exhaustive referencing (as in the references take up more room than the text on some pages) of historical and media documents to support every claim he makes.
Jaki gives four reasons summarized in “Christ and Science” (p. 23) for modern science’s unique birth in Christian Western Europe:
1. “Once more the Christian belief in the Creator allowed a break-through in thinking about nature. Only a truly transcendental Creator could be thought of as being powerful enough to create a nature with autonomous laws without his power over nature being thereby diminished. Once the basic among those laws were formulated science could develop on its own terms.”
2. “The Christian idea of creation made still another crucially important contribution to the future of science. It consisted in putting all material beings on the same level as being mere creatures. Unlike in the pagan Greek cosmos, there could be no divine bodies in the Christian cosmos. All bodies, heavenly and terrestrial, were now on the same footing, on the same level. this made it eventually possible to assume that the motion of the moon and the fall of a body on earth could be governed by the same law of gravitation. The assumption would have been a sacrilege in the eyes of anyone in the Greek pantheistic tradition, or in any similar tradition in any of the ancient cultures.”
3. “Finally, man figured in the Christian dogma of creation as a being specially created in the image of God. This image consisted both in man’s rationality as somehow sharing in God’s own rationality and in man’s condition as an ethical being with eternal responsibility for his actions. Man’s reflection on his own rationality had therefore to give him confidence that his created mind could fathom the rationality of the created realm.”
4. “At the same time, the very createdness could caution man to guard agains the ever-present temptation to dictate to nature what it ought to be. The eventual rise of the experimental method owes much to that Christian matrix.”
*See this selection at Colombia University website from “The Pope’s Physicist” by Fr. Paul Haffner, pp. 66-73 of the Spring 1996 issue of Sursum Corda.
It’s hard to argue against this assertion. Although there was plenty of evidence of scientific talent in other cultures and religions before Christianity, science as an enterprise unto itself as we know it today, science as a formal discipline, did not emerge except under Christian ideas about creation.
Think about what we know today of the physical world that has agreed with what Christianity held before modern science.
We have come to expect systematic order of material things both at the smallest and grandest scales.
We have come to accept that matter came to exist from nothing.
We have come to view the changing universe as a progression with a beginning and an end.
There is no evidence at all that any other creature possesses the intelligence of man.
Indeed if these things were not true, there would be no science. Or would there be?
“Christ and Science” available here.
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I notice that this is an ascendant theme with a recent book by Rodney Stark and perhaps others. Is the thesis that if not for Christinaity, we would not have science in its current iteration? An intriguing concept and one I would embrace in some form. Surely, science is subject to all manner of influences– positive and negative– social, political and financial. Is this to say that science was born in Christian Europe, or just “modern” science? Are we negating the contributions of the legion of Greek, Persian and Egyptian natural philosophers? I assume not.
I'm sure Jaki, as well as your scholarly work, develops this thesis beyond the short vignette provided (some links were broken), and I'm confident that other influences on the devleopment of science are considered: the globalization of commerce and information, the printing press, public and private universities, developments in agriculture that freed time for other pusuits, and especially, the rise of rationalism in the 16th century. Additionally, any discussion of the subject would probably include a perusal of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel which outlines the importance of geography on social and economic– and thus scientific– progress in Europe. Likewise, other social science writers like Robert Wright have written about the importance of nonzero sum economic influences that accompanied punctuated increases in scientific and other advances. My thought is that these influences are at least as great as any newfangled theology or Christian dogma, but I realize this all a matter of opinion.
Fr Haffner writes in your link: “…nevertheless the philosophical and psychological climate [in cultures and times other than Europe of the Middle Ages] was hostile to a self-sustaining scientific process… The rise of science needed the broad and persistent sharing by the whole population, that is, the entire culture, of a very specific body of doctrines relating the universe to a universal and absolute intelligibility embodied in the tenet about a personal God, the Creator of all.”
Quite a statement! Is this to assume that all great scientific advances were accomplished by indivduals who believed in a personal God and Christian Savior? Or is he merely referring to a “culture” of such belief?
(continued…)
I'll quote the venerable Will Durant, a Jesuit- educated historian, for his summary of the rise of Science in Christian Europe:
“…the expansion of commerce and industry were compelling the development of science. The Platonic artistic strains in the Renaissance hardly harmonized with the swelling economy; the demand grew for a mental procedure that would deal with facts and quantities as well as with theories and ideas; the Aristotelian empiricism revived, shorn of its Alexandrian and evil tasks… Men had to count and calculated measure and design with competitive accuracy and speed; they needed tools of observation and recording; demands arose which were met by the invention of logarithms, analytical geometry, calculus, machines, the microscope, telescope, statistical methods, navigational guides, and astronomical instruments. Throughout Western Europe lives were henceforth dedicated to meeting these needs.” (The Age of Reason Begins, published 1961, p. 163.)
I suppose one could argue that the necessary “mental procedure” was divinely inspired or the result of some switch that was triggered by Christian theology. I don't get it. I also suppose that one could argue that the economic, geographic and commercial milieu was divinely rendered, but again, I don't see a need for supernatural intervention as an explanation. Of course, the Church had considerable influence, both poositive and negative, on social and scientific development, but that thesis has been debated ad nauseum. Some will see God as intrinsic, others will not.
Others will argue that the sins of the Church delayed scientific advancement, wondering if maybe we would have landed on the moon in 1200 AD if not for the superstitions of religion. I don't buy that either.
Christopher quotes Aquinas: “To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
I do find it heartening, however, when theists attempt to take credit for scientific advancement instead of constantly lamenting it. Secular progrssives should welcome such agreement against the horde of Luddite fundamentalists who would see us fall backward into the morass of Dark Age superstition and suffering. Aquinas' great Scholastic accomplishment was to resurrect Aristotelian thought and logic. And who can forget that it was the monks who preserved the seminal works of the ancient and antique world? Whatever, or Whomever, is to be credited, great. Of course, Church doctrine prevented or slowed certain advancements–especially in cosmogony and anatomy, not to mention the subtle ways it may dissuaded scholarship by its political influence– but let's accentuate the positive today. I'll look forward to your complete thesis.
Thanks Tony. I'll respond better tomorrow, and I appreciate that you took the time to respond though. Reading through your comments, which I will do more thoroughly, I kind of feel like you didn't address the claim as stated or the last question I posed.
I think there would be science regardless of one's opinion of those four suppositions. I guess I don't see the relevance of those designations as to whether the scientific method can be applied. Also, I don't see the uniqueness of Christianity bringing these ideas to civilization. Creation myths, realization of the systematic order, intelligence of humans versus animals, beginnings and ends… none of these exist outside of Western Christian culture?
Tony,
I haven't read anything by Rodney Stark, but there do seem to be some recent publications about this topic. I'm about to read James Hannam's book, “The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution.” He doesn't reference (that I've seen yet) Jaki's work which is not recent at all and I'm curious to figure out why. Anyway…it's factual history. I think the ascendant theme you notice is in response to the cranky new atheism and all its claim to science.
“Is the thesis that if not for Christinaity, we would not have science in its current iteration?” Sort of, but more like without the basic assumptions that were only revealed in scripture and Tradition science would have remained stillborn as it had in other religious cultures. Think about how other religions have viewed creation. Just one example, but in Eastern religions the basic assumption about life and nature is that you live, die, are reborn and do it all over again, and that enlightenment came from within and not from material things. They had no reason for scientific progress. There are considerations for other religious cultures, even ones where there was clearly skill and talent. The ideas were always not really how the world *is* and so scientific progress, the scientific revolution if you will, never happened.
“Is this to say that science was born in Christian Europe, or just “modern” science? Are we negating the contributions of the legion of Greek, Persian and Egyptian natural philosophers? I assume not.”
Yes, and no. The scientific revolution (I don't really like that word) occurred in the Christian West under the assumptions of ex nihilo and in tempore, and that all matter was created to be ordered and conserved. Newtonian physics were anticipated by Christian philosophers. Newton studied at a Jesuit university and held these assumptions about the natural world, that all things move. Newtonian physics was largely responsible for scientific progress. Thus the “womb” and “birth” references.
“I'm confident that other influences on the devleopment of science are considered: the globalization of commerce and information, the printing press, public and private universities, developments in agriculture that freed time for other pusuits, and especially, the rise of rationalism in the 16th century.”
For all but the last one, yes. Those things came about because of science, not the other way around though. Rationalism, and all its other names, were in response to the Protestant Reformation. People today often don't realize it but before that Christian faith and what we now call “science” were naturally held in unison under the umbrella of metaphysics.
“My thought is that these influences are at least as great as any newfangled theology or Christian dogma, but I realize this all a matter of opinion.”
I think I agree with all of that but Christian dogma goes back much further than that.
“Or is he merely referring to a “culture” of such belief?”
The culture, the assumptions from revelation. I found another link that references Jaki's work. I recommend reading some of it, he was an accomplished physicist and science historian. There's no threat in accepting this claim (because it's true) as it doesn't change science as we have it today. It only provides some insight into the history, and strong arguments for ethical considerations. That's another can of worms. My irritation stems from atheists who seem to think they created science and it started the day they were born.
The Connection Between the Incarnation and the Birth of Science
“Of course, the Church had considerable influence, both poositive and negative, on social and scientific development, but that thesis has been debated ad nauseum.” No one is denying that, well, I'm not.
“Some will see God as intrinsic, others will not.” Because they are insane!
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
I know. This, however, is a historical argument. The facts are there.
“I do find it heartening, however, when theists attempt to take credit for scientific advancement instead of constantly lamenting it.”
I think some people don't understand what science really is.
“Secular progrssives should welcome such agreement against the horde of Luddite fundamentalists who would see us fall backward into the morass of Dark Age superstition and suffering.”
I don't know if they go that far, but yes, people should be happy to hear that science and faith do not contradict each other. They don't.
“Aquinas' great Scholastic accomplishment was to resurrect Aristotelian thought and logic.”
Yes, that's one.
“And who can forget that it was the monks who preserved the seminal works of the ancient and antique world?”
The releveant question here is “why?” They had a reason to do that.
“Whatever, or Whomever, is to be credited, great.” Don't you think we should care about the answer?
“Of course, Church doctrine prevented or slowed certain advancements–especially in cosmogony and anatomy, not to mention the subtle ways it may dissuaded scholarship by its political influence– but let's accentuate the positive today. I'll look forward to your complete thesis.”
Not doctrine, fallen egos.
I hit all your points, sorry it got long. What do you find offensive about this claim?
Thanks for the link– I'll read it in a bit when I have time. Thanks for the thoughtful response.
You ask what I found “offensive” about the claim. Did I sound offended?
I was just wondering the basis for your opinion. I'll get back to you later.