Tags
Catholic, Christian history, Christianity, history, James Hannam, religion, Rodney Stark, science, Tim O'neill
Go through what you know about the title. What comes to mind?
Did anyone think of Galileo?
For many people Galileo seems two epitomize the relationship. But to say that turns history on its head. Science was born in a deeply Christian culture. As I indicated I recently finished some books by Rodney Stark and I also just finished a book by James Hannam called the Genesis of Science. (Painting a basement is always a good time to listen to some audible books) I have to say I am simply amazed at how much of science middle age “natural philosophers” put together before even Copernicus came on the scene.
The importance of applying math to nature, using empirical evidence to test theories, including but not limited to, how objects move, how light works, whether the earth moves, how things might work in a vacuum etc. Why was I so ignorant of all this? I can tell you it’s not that I was taught all this and forgot it. All of these great medieval thinkers were left out of my education. None of it quite fit the “scientific revolution” view of history. You know the story where the Catholic Church had to let the poor scientists out of their evil clutches before science could advance. If you read Hannam’s book you will see that the Catholic Church and the university system (which was heavily fostered and influenced by the Church) was actually the major force that brought about science.
So what are the facts about Christianity and Science? For that I highly recommend Hamman’s book to get a fuller picture. Honestly it was such a flood of new and interesting information I do not have the perspective to summarize it properly. (I offer some other blogs below that do that.)
But here I will just offer something from Rodney Stark. Rodney Stark is what I consider a hard working scholar. He tends to do the nitty gritty work of looking up facts and delivering the information. He did the legwork and looked up the all the major scientists during the “scientific revolution” and addressed how religious/Christian they were. Here is his explanation of his methodology:
“Historians typically define the era of the “Scientific Revolution” as stretching from the publication in 1543 of Copernicus’s De revolutionibus to the end of the seventeenth century. Therefore, I selected Copernicus as my first case and included all appropriate cases, beginning with Copernicus’s contemporaries and stopping with scientists born after 1680. The “whom” was a bit more difficult. First of all, I limited the set to active scientists, thus excluding some well-known philosophers and supporters of science such as Francis Bacon, Joseph Scaliger, and Diego de Zuniga. Second, I tried to pick only those who made significant contributions. To select the cases, I searched books and articles on the history of science, and I also consulted a number of specialized encyclopedias and biographical dictionaries, among which I must mention the several editions of Isaac Asimov’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology for its completeness and lack of obvious biases. Having developed a list of 52 scientists, I then consulted various sources, including individual biographies, to determine the facts that I wished to code for each case”
Christianity and Science from Stark (2003) For the Glory of God p.22
Click to access Stark%20(2003)%20Ch.2%20For%20the%20Glory%20of%20God.pdf
Stark put the 52 scientists in 1 of 4 categories. Clergy, devout, conventional Christian, or skeptic. “Devout” meant that they did things that demonstrated an unusual commitment to Christianity such as writing extensively on Christianity or other works indicating strong commitment to the faith. “Conventional Christians” would be those who did not appear to be much more than typical Christians of the time. He gives some explanations of how he grouped these people but in general he appears to have underestimated the religiosity. For example a scientist who became the Popes physician was categorized not as devout but just as “conventionally” religious.
Here were the results:
13 (25%) were clergy 9 of them catholic clergy, 60% were devout. There were only 2 who were skeptics.
Now yes it’s true that people in Europe at this time tended to be Christian. But that raises the question: Of all the places and times, was it coincidence that Science developed in Christian society? Not in the Roman Empire, not in China, Not in Islamic cultures or Persia. Not in any of the other times and places. Rodney Stark and others think that is not just a coincidence. For example, early on Christians have been open to the idea that our senses can be reliable guides to reality. (Unlike certain Greeks that taught how the material world was relatively unreliable) Moreover, Christians put a high value on logical thinking and reason in theology. Christianity is an intellectual religion which made science (then known as natural philosophy) and mathematics required courses in its medieval universities. People who argue there is a conflict between Christianity and Science are taking the rare exception and calling it the rule.
Indeed, Galileo may be the only scientist who was ever persecuted by the church for his scientific view. And those who are aware of Galileo case can legitimately question whether it was really his views as opposed to essentially calling the pope a simpleton which lead to his persecution. Feel free to read more on the story for youself and draw your own conclusions. Based on what I have read I do find the Church blameworthy in that case, even if Galileo was a stubborn, egocentric, and abrasive genius.
Remaining ignorant of all the people who lead up to Galileo and Copernicus in order to push the “enlightment” myth was a sad state for educational institutions. But there is hope this prejudice is being scraped away thanks to scholarly work. Not only has Hamman’s work received acclaim but I am told scholars are viewing his books and their views as relatively uncontroversial – at least to those who study this matter.
Short of reading Hamman’s book I would invite those with an interest in the history of science to take a look at this blog by Tim O’neill where he reviews God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science By James Hannam:
http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/2009/10/gods-philosophers-how-medieval-world.html
Although he is himself an atheist, he also has a blog that debunks much of “new atheist” history here:
http://historyforatheists.blogspot.com/
As people who are interested in truth we should read about history and where we see the ignorant prejudices of the past being propagated, suggest the person at least read some of the above listed books or blogs.
True and Reasonable 
Interesting thoughts, Joe. It seems to me also that history has be re-written by science to suit it’s own ends. It’s not even clear that Galileo’s science was a problem for the church except for the particular political situation that existed, and it encouraged his work in many ways.
Perhaps by placing God beyond the universe as something apart from Man the Catholic church cleared the way for physics. It’s a common view that materialism grew out of Christian theology, or was even made necessary by it. But for me modern science began with Democritus and his abandonment of philosophy for naive realism. After that the damage was done.
Hi Peter thanks for the comments.
It seems more that the history of science was written by non-scientists who have an ax to grind. I suppose I can fit that category myself. That is why I fully invite people to investigate what I say here. The problem is if you read certain popular books they will simply leave all these medieval thinkers out and fail to mention their contributions. Then they argue see nothing happened here so it was a “dark era”. Its very misleading at best. I hope that people will seek more information and not just be content with the old stereotypes pushed on us.
As far as Democritus starting modern science. Although admitting I have not read allot about him I would be skeptical of that view. That said I fully admit that there is considerable room for reasonable disagreement on what “science” is.
Certainly if you take someone like Sam Harris’s view (not something I generally recommend) that Science is something like any time you apply reason and observation in forming beliefs, then sure science has been around as long as Humans.
https://scientiasalon.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/sam-harris-and-the-demarcation-problem/
So you might be perhaps too narrow in your definition according to Harris. But I think allot of people (myself included) would be ok with understanding science as something more than that. Trying to define exactly what that is is somewhat difficult.
Sometimes we say scientific beliefs should be based on on repeated experiments. If you want to know if a heavy bowling ball will fall at the same rate as a ball-bearing anyone can repeat that experiment over and over to see for themselves.
But for certain types of science that seems impossible to do directly. For example lets say humans evolved. And lets further say that is a scientific belief. We have not been able to repeat this directly. That is we have not been able to see humans evolve from other animals repeatedly. Instead we tend to see less direct evidence that supports this view. And we can repeatedly see evolution generally in action in creatures with a shorter life spans such as fruit flies and bacteria.
It seems to me that sort of lab work is science. But is finding transitional bones science? I am not so sure – albeit perhaps due to ignorance of how it would be. But I tend to think of that at least as much as history. I know everyone is just crazy about science and wants to call everything they do science – which I find rather silly – and so this may be upsetting to some people. But I don’t mean to disparage archeology or anthropology by saying it doesn’t seem as “sciencey” as certain other activities. I think they are wonderful and one of my favorite blogs is this one:
https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/
Rather I would say let the evidence stand on its own and trying to characterize it as “scientific”,(whatever that might mean) or not, is silly. My main problem with science is that science describes what is, and what was,(such as in the case of the claim that we evolved) not what should be. For me, the last question is the most interesting one.
I really don’t have any strong opinions on how science is defined. But I do find the general question of how “science” is defined of some interest.
I thought of George Lemaitre and Gregor Mendel.
Absolutely, even in later history the Church continued to foster intellectual development in Science. Thanks for reading and commenting.