timeimmortal

Over on the Edmonton Atheists forum, someone else isn’t happy with me:

I get a kick out of his assertion that science didn’t flourish in non-Christian areas. Does he know nothing of history?
Egypt, Babylon, and Greece really got hings going, and Muslim countries in the middle ages were far ahead of the Christian Europe.
When missionaries got to China, they found that the Chinese already had their own science doing well (think gunpowder).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science #Science_in_Medieval_Europe

I’m not unaware of the fact that earlier in history, other societies — China, Egypt and various Arabic (it is especially important, regarding this issue, to distinguish between Arabs and Muslims) nations are excellent examples — had made considerable scientific advancement. I’m aware that, for a time, scientific development in non-Christian areas of the world outpaced scientific development in Christian areas of the world.

But that’s much earlier in history, isn’t it? Looking at those same nations a little later on, what do we see? It was the West, starting in the 12th or 13th century, that began to rise to scientific prominence, while in other parts of the world the early promise of science proved to be stillborn: it’s no accident that when one views, for examples, lists of Arabic scientific innovation, such lists tend to stop abruptly after about the 12th century.

That was my point. I don’t deny that other cultures gave scientific study a good start; I simply note that it also floundered in those places later on, and that it was out of Christendom that modern science emerged.

Wikipedia is not the most reliable of sources, but since it was cited in the argument against me, let’s note what the ol’ wiki has to say about scientific development in Christian Europe, shall we?

An intellectual revitalization of Europe started with the birth of medieval universities in the 12th century. The contact with the Islamic world in Spain and Sicily, and during the Reconquista and the Crusades, allowed Europeans access to scientific Greek and Arabic texts, including the works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Geber, al-Khwarizmi, Alhazen, Avicenna, and Averroes. European scholars like Michael Scotus would learn Arabic in order to study these texts. The European universities aided materially in the translation and propagation of these texts and started a new infrastructure which was needed for scientific communities. As well as this, Europeans began to venture further and further east (most notably, perhaps, Marco Polo) as a result of the Pax Mongolica. This led to the increased influence of Indian and even Chinese science on the European tradition. Technological advances were also made, such as the early flight of Eilmer of Malmesbury (who had studied Mathematics in 11th century England), and the metallurgical achievements of the Cistercian blast furnace at Laskill.

I should pause here and note one important detail: the Church was heavily involved in the development and growth of universities in Europe during the Middle Ages.

But let’s continue:

At the beginning of the 13th century there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of almost all the intellectually crucial ancient authors, allowing a sound transfer of scientific ideas via both the universities and the monasteries. By then, the natural philosophy contained in these texts began to be extended by notable scholastics such as Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and Duns Scotus. Precursors of the modern scientific method, influenced by earlier contributions of the Islamic world, can be seen already in Grosseteste’s emphasis on mathematics as a way to understand nature, and in the empirical approach admired by Bacon, particularly in his Opus Majus. According to Pierre Duhem, the Condemnation of 1277 led to the birth of modern science, because it forced thinkers to break from relying so much on Aristotle, and to think about the world in new ways.

The Condemnation of 1277 was issued by Bishop Tempier in Paris, and was a comprehensive response to teachings deemed heretical by the Bishop after due investigation. Its effects were far-reaching, but basically signaled a rejection of Aristotelean Peripatetic physics.

This paved the way for new ways of looking at the natural world. As Duhem went on to note, “if we must assign a date for the birth of modern science, we would, without doubt, choose the year 1277 when the bishop of Paris solemnly proclaimed that several worlds could exist, and that the whole of heavens could, without contradiction, be moved with a rectilinear motion.” And indeed, several principles of reasoning which are still applied today — being, perhaps, the most familiar one — can trace their origins to the philosophical ramifications of the 1277 condemnation.

The Church, then, allied herself with reason even at this early stage. And while at later times, the Church certainly made its share of mistakes with regard to science (the case of Galileo being the most famous example thereof), she also laid the foundations for science to transform itself into its modern form, and to progress with the breakneck pace that has characterized it ever since.

My atheistic detractor is here hoist, somewhat, on his (?) own petard; he notes, among his list of “counter”-examples to my point, that the ancient Greeks made an early start at science. He is correct in this observation…but modern science emerged in part from a rejection of the scientific tenets one of the major philosophical schools of the ancient Greeks.

Wikipedia continues:

The first half of the 14th century saw much important scientific work being done, largely within the framework of scholastic commentaries on Aristotle’s scientific writings. William of Ockham introduced the principle of parsimony: natural philosophers should not postulate unnecessary entities, so that motion is not a distinct thing but is only the moving object and an intermediary “sensible species” is not needed to transmit an image of an object to the eye. Scholars such as Jean Buridan and Nicole Oresme started to reinterpret elements of Aristotle’s mechanics. In particular, Buridan developed the theory that impetus was the cause of the motion of projectiles, which was a first step towards the modern concept of inertia. The Oxford Calculators began to mathematically analyze the kinematics of motion, making this analysis without considering the causes of motion.

In 1348, the Black Death and other disasters sealed a sudden end to the previous period of massive philosophic and scientific development. Yet, the rediscovery of ancient texts was improved after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when many Byzantine scholars had to seek refuge in the West. Meanwhile, the introduction of printing was to have great effect on European society. The facilitated dissemination of the printed word democratized learning and allowed a faster propagation of new ideas. New ideas also helped to influence the development of European science at this point: not least the introduction of Algebra. These developments paved the way for the Scientific Revolution, which may also be understood as a resumption of the process of scientific change, halted at the start of the Black Death.

And the foundation for that revolution? It is a comprehensive thing, which many different scholars contributed to, to be sure. But the Church was certainly one such element, and then a rather pivotal one. And at the core of the modern scientific method, there remains a rather Christian sensibility in the belief that the Universe itself is, to a certain extent, rationally ordered, such that scientific inquiry will in due season be rewarded with evidence or information of some kind. The scientific method, it seems, is built on the expectation that we will find when we seek.

Just as Christ promised.

I’m going to take a day’s break from all the brouhaha that normally percolates through the blog here. It’s Friday, and it’s a good time to turn my thoughts away from the matters that trouble the world which I inhabit, and the orbits I find myself in. It would be nice to start preparing myself for Sunday, for Mass, and for yet another encounter with the Lord.

I’m talking, of course, about Eucharist, the source and summit of Christian faith. And also, both inside and outside of Catholicism, one of the most misunderstood aspects of the faith.

Catholicism makes what seems, initially, to be a very bold claim: that Christ Jesus literally becomes present in the breaking of the bread at each and every Mass, that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine, retaining only the “accidental” (to use the Aristotelean term) of qualities of each — the bread and wine still look like bread and wine, and still taste like it. But, contrary to the “if it quacks like a duck” thinking of the rest of the world around us, Catholics nevertheless boldly assert that despite the fact that the bread and wine seem, by all appearances, to still be bread and wine, they are in fact anything but.

It’s a bold declaration of complete faith…faith not in the Church (as an institution), nor faith in the priest, nor faith in the wafer itself. No, it is a declaration of faith in Christ, an affirmation of the Catholic belief that Christ really is Lord and King of all creation, and the He does so love the world — and everyone in it — that He desires to draw to Him those who profess their need for Him.

Equally, it is a declaration of faith in a Christ whose love and desire to be in communion with those who profess their need for His promise of salvation and forgiveness of sin that He will make Himself present to them, in keeping with His promise that He would be in the midst of any number who gather in His name. We all must die in due course and will, in so doing, end up before the Lord. But prior to that, Christ — out of love — elects to come into our presence too. His love for humanity is so great, and His desire to be in communion with us so powerful, that He will step down, but for a moment, to be with us in our present-tense reality, appearing before us in a guise at once hidden and yet obvious, as surely as He appeared to the disciples walking on the road to Emmaus.

It’s a powerful belief. But then, Christ is Lord and King of all creation — it is proper that a teaching pertaining to the direct intersection of Christ and the world is powerful.

Within Scripture, the first hints of the Eucharist are presented in the Gospel of John, in chapter 6. The close association between the Eucharistic revelation and the Paschal Meal is at once obvious.

[4] Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was at hand.
[5] Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a multitude was coming to him, Jesus said to Philip, “How are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”
[6] This he said to test him, for he himself knew what he would do.
[7] Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.”
[8] One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him,
[9] “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish; but what are they among so many?”
[10] Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place; so the men sat down, in number about five thousand.
[11] Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted.
[12] And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost.”
[13] So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten.
[14] When the people saw the sign which he had done, they said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world!”
[15]Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

These are not usually the verses cited in any apologetic concerning the Eucharist, but I would like to preface my analysis by noting the significance of the event within them. A large multitude has gathered to see and hear the teachings of Jesus, and Jesus — deeply moved — worries after the need of the people to eat. There is precious little food available to achieve that end, of course — to feed five thousand, two loaves and five fishes would amount to mere crumbs per person.

And so Jesus effects a miracle, both as a sign to the people and as a test of faith for the disciples. I’ve always thought the scene’s portrayal in Jesus of Nazareth captured the mood of the disciples perfectly, and I am still struck by the image of the apostle John holding forth an empty basket, apologizing that what little is in it is all he has. And yet, when the camera pans back to the basket, it is overflowing.
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I do wish I could write as eloquently as David Warren does, especially when communicating a point of such profound importance:

To those who know some history, the modern sciences emerged in an unambiguously Christian milieu. They flourished, over centuries in the West, as the direct result of the Judaeo-Christian teaching that “God does not contradict Himself.” The whole notion of unalterable physical laws, and thus a universal order that will repay inquiry, is the product of a theological position unique to the West. It is a view that has been glimpsed in other civilizations, but could only be doggedly pursued in this one. science was stillborn in all other civilizations.

By contrast, an atheistical view involves no such dogma; and the prevailing Darwinist scientistic view involves an actual self-contradiction so glaring that it cannot withstand a moment’s review. For it claims to explain order by the chance accumulation of random events. Such a view is itself in revolt against a tradition which found reason in nature and an answering reason in man. It can only lead to the death of science.

The Christian outlook stood from the beginning on two ancient legs. One was the revelation to the Hebrews, which lights the way to Christ. And the other was our inheritance from the Greeks. For “Western Civ” emerged out of the ancient world as a set of uncannily adequate replies to questions Greek philosophers had raised about time and final causation. Indeed, the rebirth of empirical science in the Christian Middle Ages was a return to Athens and Alexandria, and to the inquiries of e.g. Aristotle, and Aristarchus (“the ancient Copernicus”).

…

One of the historical myths of today is that such pseudo-sciences as astrology and alchemy preceded the emergence of true science, which overcame them by its superior predictive powers.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the actual ancient world of the Mediterranean and Near East, it was the other way around. Astrology, alchemy, and various kinds of sorcery emerged from the decadence of Greek empiricism. The mystery cults that sustained them, began to flourish just as that Greek world was crumbling under the might of an expanding Roman power, in the centuries before Christ. The ancient degeneration of science was predicated not on the rise of an “irrational” religious force, that suppressed it, but on progressive loss of faith in, and growing cynicism towards, the ancient religious and cosmological order.

Indeed, many atheistic commentators often seem to forget, in their zeal to use highly selective examples to claim that the Church is antagonistic towards science, that it was the Church which preserved the accumulated knowledge of the “Old World” through the Dark Ages, that it was the Church which frameworked the ancient academies of learning which became the modern university, and that it was the Church and the scientific inquiry conducted through it during the Middle Ages that laid the groundwork for all the innovations and discoveries of the 17th century onward. Far from being anti-science, or anti-reason, or anti-knowledge, the Church has been at the forefront of reason and discovery through the centuries. Animism, Islam, Hinduism, and other religions have not produced the same vibrant tradition of inquiry and discovery; only the West founded by and upon Christianity has done so. And it is the height of foolishness to deny that the Christian origins of the West have had anything to do with the wondrous discoveries that have been made therein.