Lecture 2 - Historical Interactions

Three Questions:

1. What were religious and scientific beliefs before the scientific revolution?
2. Why did the revolution occur where and when it did?
3. What is the origin of the "conflict" which is perceived between Science and Religion?

Greek science - ideas persisted through the middle ages.

Explanation by purposes

• Fire
•  Air
• Water

Teleological explanation

• Earth

Matter composed of these elements and each seeks its natural level.

Heavier objects have stronger downward tendency -> fall faster.

Why does acorn grow? To become an oak.

Why does it rain? To water the crops.

Aristotle ( ca. 300 BC) always sought the "final cause".

Why does water boil at this temperature?

How does an arrow fly?

Medieval picture of the Universe

Combined cosmology from Aristotle with Christian theology.

Ptolemy: Earth fixed at centre and other planets follow circles whose centres are attached to moving spheres (epicycles).

Only the perfect form (circle) appropriate to heavenly, incorruptible bodies.

Position in the cosmos corresponds to destiny. Humans unique and central.

Sources of authority

Scholastic thought based on reason (Greek philosophy) and revelation (Biblical).

e.g. ethics:

natural reason

• what a person should plainly do.
• God's commands

knowledge of God:

• natural theology - "the book of God's works"
• revealed theology - "the book of God's Word" - Francis Bacon.

Pre-reformation: authority was Church.

Post-reformation: authority was Bible for Protestants.

God as the Supreme Good

Aquinas merged Aristotle's "Unmoved Mover" with Bible's "Personal Father"

God is the "prime cause" of every event.

God is the Supreme Good - draws all things toward their final purpose as perfection in Himself.

Nature merely a backdrop to cosmic drama:

God entering the World in person of Christ to make sacrifice of himself on the cross to pay penalty for people's sins and reconcile them to Himself.

Schaeffer critical of Aquinas: laid foundations for humanism.

2. Why did scientific revolution occur where and when it did?

Economic forces, practical problems, skilled craftsmen.

Combination of Greek and Biblical ideas towards nature - assisted Science.

(a) Greeks believed in intelligibility of nature and power of human reason.

Monotheism.

In Asia conceptions of God too arbitrary and impersonal (Whitehead).

(b) Creation doctrine. Details of nature can be known only by observing them.

Universe contingent on God's will.

(c) Affirmative attitude towards nature in the Bible.

c.f. Maya - matter is illusory.

(d) "Protestant ethic" endorsed scientific work.

Descartes - justified principle of linear inertia from the immutability of God.

Arabic scholars' work on algebra and astronomy - Omar Khayyam 1048-1122.

3. Origin of the Conflict.

 Causes celebres.

Galileo vs. Church.

Forces which led to his recanting that the earth moved were more political and personal than philosophical.

Charles Lyell

Prof of Geology, King's College, London. Rejected idea of universal flood - resigned after 2 years.
Forced out by church?
Women debarred from his lectures!

Huxley vs. Wilberforce

Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford: "the principle of natural selection is absolutely incompatible with the word of God"
1Corinthians 15³⁹ "All flesh is not the same .."

1860 debate with Huxley. Historical research shows Huxley's victory not so crushing.
Colin Russell declares conflict a "myth".
Influence of 2 widely circulated books:

• J.W.Draper: History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, 1875.
• A.D. White: A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 1896.

Books do not stand up to modern historical analysis.

Huxley's plan to advance Science and defeat the Church.

• 1864: Formation of the 'X-Club'
• 1882: Darwin buried in Westminster Abbey.

3 key concepts:

1. Daltonian atomism - billiard ball universe.
2. 1st Law of Thermodynamics - closed universe.
3. Evolution - reductionist and conflicting with Bible.

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Timeline

13^th Century

• Roger Bacon 1214-94 Thomas Aquinas 1225-74

14^th Century

• William of Ockham 1285-1349

16^th Century

• Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519
• Copernicus 1473-1543 Luther 1483-1546
• Vesalius 1514-1564 Calvin 1509-1564
• Brahe 1546-1601     

17^th Century

• Francis Bacon 1561-1626
• Galileo 1564-1642
• Kepler 1571-1630
• Descartes 1596-1650
• Pascal 1623-62
• Boyle 1627-91

18^th Century

• Newton 1642-1726 Voltaire 1694-1778
• Priestley 1791 Hume 1711-1776
• Paley 1743-1805
• Benjamin Franklin 1776

19^th Century

• Faraday 1791-1867
• Lyell 1797-1875 Malthus 1766-1834
• Buckland 1823
• Maxwell 1856
• Rayleigh
• Darwin 1809-82
• Kelvin/Thomson 1851

20^th Century

• Einstein 1879-1955

Further Information

Contact

• Associate Professor Robert J. Stening