The Gray Monk

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August 28, 2004

Science and religion

Read any book on scientific discovery written in the last two hundred years and you will learn that the Church has tried at every turn to defeat the inexorable march of science. You will read (in a book by Carl Sagan) that Pope Calixtus III ex-communicated Haley's Comet, that the Church promoted a "flat earth" theory with the universe revolving around it, that Darwin's theories were "attacked" by the Church, that the dinosaur bones were declared fake by the Church, and so on, but are any of these charges actually true?

The Pope Calixtus story of the comet is completely apochryphal and was first recorded a hundred years after his death - by a writer who was of the reformers' school. A precursor of the Age of Enlightenment. There is no record of the Pope ever having done more than observe the comet as it passed. The story, however, served as a very good propaganda tool for those of the "new" persuasion as an example of the manner in which the Church "repressed" scientific development. No one it seems ever considered that fact that you cannot excommunicate anything which is not:

1) a baptised and communicating member of the Church, and
2) by definition, a man or a woman!

Not even a medieval Pope would consider a comet human or even a human agent.

The anti-science debate is further weakened when you turn to the earliest recordings of scientific discovery, almost all of which were made by monks or priests studying and observing the world around them. The "Flat Earth" nonsense arises from a 17th Century interpretation of such things as the "Mappa Mundi" - a medieval depiction of the world which even its originator would have told you was not intended to represent the world as it was, but to show the relationships between lands, seas and Jerusalem - the centre of every Christian's religious "world" but not necessarily their vision of the "universe". Even in those days sailors knew - and many Christian Scholars agreed - that the world was round. Solon's original calculations as to the diameter of the sphere that formed the Earth was well known to Christian Scholars in the 12th and 13th Centuries - and they wrote treatises based upon it, fully accepting the "round Earth" concept.

Galileo's main problem with the Inquisition was that he argued that Comets originated in the Earth's atmosphere whereas a Christian scholar had written a very learned treatise based upon observation and the records of Haley's and other comet appearances, that placed them as originating "beyond" the Sun. Galileo was not banned from studying or publishing, but admonished for not checking what others had observed! He, himself, regarded his faith as being confirmed by his observations and discoveries.

Newton's "apple" was another example of a "myth" becoming a "fact". Newton himself never mentions an apple in his books or in his correspondence - within which lie the origins of his observations and other references which led to his fully developed theory. He himself saw all of this as exciting and confirming his faith - a fact born out by the support given him by the clergy in his own day.

Even Darwin had vast support among the clergy, but, as usual, only the handful of idiots got into the papers because this supported the then growing "Humanist" and "Scientific Philosophist" propaganda that religion = superstition; science = knowledge. This is a view that has its origins in Protestant countries around the late 17th Century and onwards. It must not be forgotten that the struggle to break away from Catholicism had engendered deep hatred in many minds, and this was translated into a hatred for the whole spectrum of religious beliefs. Anything which could "prove" religion to be "superstitious nonsense" while at the same time furthering the "Philosophy of Science" was a fair tactic - to hell with accuracy or truth. Darwin remained a Christian to his death - his main concern in delaying publication being that he might not have all the evidence he needed and that his theory might not be fully understood by his fellow scientists! You can check this by reference to his letters to various friends including members of the clergy.

The whole debate is not made any easier by entrenched positions on both sides. There are those who insist on reading the Bible as "history" and forget that there are large parts of it that are "folk lore" with a historic foundation. Then there are the other end of the spectrum - those who regard the whole as a work of fiction - a collection of "stories". Neither side is right, and neither do science or religion justice. Many of the scientific discoveries in the last two hundred years have actually furthered our understanding of God and of His creation and do not challenge traditional beliefs at all, but confirm them. Other discoveries show us that there is a heck of a lot that we just don't know - and therefore must take on faith!

It is said that history is written by the victors in any conflict, but this is not always so, and probably won't be in this case. There is a lot still to be studied, there is even more that needs to be reconsidered and possibly retracted in this case. I put it to you that the charge that the Church has been the opponent of scientific study and advancement is unfair. The evidence is, for the most part (and I accept that there are those in the USA who have attempted to fight court cases to prevent the teaching of scientifically proven explanations including Evolution) tenuous, mostly hearsay unsupported by any real proof, and certainly doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

I think it is high time that this trend was reversed and that it was recognised that the vast bulk of the scientific research done prior to the Reformation and the Age of Enlightenment was carried out by churchmen with the full blessing of their superiors. Some of this would certainly have been kept "secret" as it would not have been understood by the population at large; they simply did not have the education to even begin to understand such concepts as the Earth moving about the Sun and the Sun being but one among many such stars. You have only to look at the furor it caused post-Reformation when many of the so-called educated classes suddenly found themselves having to contend with this sort of information. Even today, it is all too often the delight of sneering "enlightened" promoters of Humanist Theory who perpetuate these and other myths against Christianity and Christians generally.

It's time the truth about the Church's role in the development of the sciences was put straight. It's time that Newton's Apple, Callixtus' Comet, and other popular myths were put away - and the real stories told, no matter how uncomfortable. I think that many will find that the truth is much more interesting, anyway.

Posted by The Gray Monk at August 28, 2004 10:13 PM

Comments

Posted by: Atlantic at August 29, 2004 06:39 PM

Posted by: tim at August 29, 2004 11:03 PM