GakuseiDon

I'd just like to ensure that the distinction is clear (if I understand correctly) between "Christianity was essential for the rise of science" and "science could only arise under Christianity". I don't know Stark's view, but IIRC Bede's view didn't preclude science developing under other religions, it's just that Christianity was the first one that provided the necessary framework that allowed that development. (I'm not convinced of that myself btw)

GakuseiDon

It is the general adoption of the philosophy of the scientific method that is in question. It should be noted that this didn't take place until 1500 years after Christianity began, which to me appears to discourage a strong link between Christianity and science.

ynquirer

William of Occam, who was a Franciscan, a teacher of theology, and is probably the philosopher most cited at this forum, inferred his famous “razor” from a sort of divine economy: God would not multiply the entities without a necessity. Thus, he disposed of the essences that, following classical guidelines in metaphysics, allegedly crowded the world, and opened the door to modern science.

Steven Carr

Who had developed these 'classical guidelines in metaphysics'?

ynquirer

Certainly, previous Christians kept under the sway of classical thinking. Yet the relevant question IMO is not whose mind developed an intellectual framework, since such development might have occurred in an alienated form, but whose mind created it. And no one may deny that such people like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Leibnitz, Newton, Franklin and Lavoisier were full-convinced Christians.

Roger Pearse

I probably misunderstand the argument, but I understood it to be thus:

The limitation of philosophy was that it was also a form of paganism. If we look at writers such as Ptolemy, there is acceptance of astrology and the idea that the deities were visible in the sky. But Christianity was hostile to the idea that the universe included or depended on supernatural forces other than God and his saints. Consequently writers like Severus Sebokht accept the astronomy but refuse the astrology. This is a step that was not taken in antiquity in any general way, since to do so involved rejecting so much of contemporary culture and belief, while failing to take the step was ideologically difficult for Christians, so most of them would have to do so.

Of course we know that a Christianised astrology was also possible.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Jack the Bodiless

His ability to take reasonably well-accepted facts and spin them to promote a controversial agenda (often against a strawman caricature of his opponent's position) was notable. For instance, his attempts to belittle the tortures of the Inquisition were to refute the "widespread myth" that the Inquisition "burned millions of alleged witches": a myth generally not shared by those he was debating. There was also his insistence that "the Church never taught that the Earth was flat", an attempt to dispel the myth that this was official doctrine until Columbus. Of course, there was a time when "the Church" apparently DID teach flat-Earthism: when the flat-Earth doctrines of the Bible itself were written. But this somehow "doesn't count": and Bede is correct that round-Earthism was generally known by educated folks in the medieval period, but we already knew that...

Steven Carr

So people like Alving Plantinga are heretics when they postulate that some natural disasters may be the work of demons?

So what causes natural disasters, if Christians abhor the idea that there are forces of evil that can interfere with the laws that God sustains?

Gamera

People don't create cultural change - institutions do. As I pointed out, the Greeks had numerous scientifically minded persons, like Aristotle, who basically followed the scientific method. What they lacked were institutions to empower science and hence make it a social fixture.

This happened slowly in the West over a period of time, but clearly gained momentum in the Renaissance as monarchs and parliaments attempted to enhance their political power (often at the expense of the church's power), through economic development. Science was fostered in that context because it could be used to produce economic wealth. It would have been fostered whether people like Galileo were Christians or not.

Gorit Maqueda

Newton also believed in Astrology.