Bede

joedad,

If you read above I have already stated here (and elsewhere) that another system other than Christianity could have done the job. But given it was Christianity that supplied the framework, it is not wrong to say that Christianity was the necessary (but not sufficient) cause.

Familyman,

Just been to a talk by Diarmaid MacColluch who said that England was NOT tolerant during the scientific revolution - far from it. France (until 1685 when it became intolerantly Catholic after the Edict of Nantes was revoked), the Netherlands and Poland were the tolerant places. And Prof MacCollach (agnostic to those who care) should know.

B

Amaleq13

I think I'll have to see more in this forum before I decide it is worth to get the backstory. Your most recent statement suggests that might be a waste of my admittedly not-invaluable time.

Bede wrote:

Quote:

I have shown that Kep, Newton and Cop all introduced and worked through reformed world systems beause their religious beliefs made the current one(s) unacceptable. Those beliefs may not have been uniquely Christian but they were certainly present in their Christian belief. Hence, it is true to say that Christianity was a necessary impetus to their work.

Unless you are using some unique definition of "necessary", your conclusion above does not follow. Unless there was something specifically and uniquely Christian about their beliefs, you can't even argue that Christianity is relevant let alone necessary with those examples. You might be able to carry an argument that their religious beliefs, in general, were necessary but this far from establishing the need for one specific kind of religious belief.

Again, what is it specifically about Christianity that you consider to have been necessary for modern science to be developed? If you cannot make such an identification, your claim lacks credibility.

Family Man

Intolerant of what? If he meant Catholicism, that is undoubtably true. But science was little affected. According to Numbers/Lindberg, there were elements of Puritanism that were hostile to science, and they spent twenty years in power. However, they had bigger fish to fry than scientists, and they inadvertantly helped create scientists by forcing bright young men out of government positions (and into scientific ones). After the Restoration, the pro-science forces were firmly in control and not seriously challenged. And the late 17th century is the heyday of English scientific activity. Boyle was 33 at the Restoration, Newton 17, with the majority of their careers ahead of them.

Two points: first, religious intolerance does not necessarily relate to intolerance against scientific activity. France in the 18th century was very intolerant towards non-Catholics. Much of Voltaire's writings was against this. However, deists and atheists were fairly common and unharassed (it was far more dangerous to be Protestant than deistic in 18th century France). Scientists tended to held in high esteem, probably because most of whom were from the upper class anyway.

Second, there is a great deal of complexity in the social movements of these times. You can't just say "England was intolerant during the scientific revolution" and think you've said something meaningful. As long as you stayed in the religious mainstream (or essentially stayed out of the argument), you had little to worry about with any other thoughts you might have had.

The Netherlands was very friendly to science. Poland, on the other hand, was weak and divided. Science appeared to need a certain amount of social ability to grow, though the Interregnum might challenge that thought.

The bottom line is that I'm not claiming that tolerance and freedom of thought (at least on non-religious subjects) are the only causes of the scientific revolution. But I think it is clear that it definitely was a necessary prerequisite.

Bede

Am I the only one to be getting fed up with people asking utterly stupid questions when I have said now many times that IT DID NOT HAVE TO BE CHRISTIANITY BUT THAT WAS WHAT ACTUALLY DID THE JOB.

Joedad, amaleg13, Ipetrich and NOGO please stop wasting band width by asking the same irrelavent question over and over again. Our scientists' beliefs did not have to be uniquely Christian as long as their Christianity caused their beliefs. If that is the case then Christianity was a cause of modern science.

And before you start crowing, this has always been my position.

Yours getting increasingly fed up with all posters on this thread bar two

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Sauron

Perhaps the reason that the questions continue to come, is because there is a logical flaw in your statement.

If it didn't *have* to be christianity, then christianity wasn't the necessary precondition. You can't have it both ways.

The most you can say is "a religion or philosophy with attributes x, y and z was a necessary precondition. Christianity had those attributes, but then again so do A, B and C."

But if you acknowledge (as you do above) that other religions/philosophies could have done the job also, then christianity is no longer the necessary precondition. You have defined the "necessary precondition" too narrowly.

joedad

So christianity only had something to do with the emergence of science in Europe because christianity was there. Super! No one has been arguing against any coincidental relationship.

And as far as christianity being a necessary precondition for the emergence of science, well, the atmosphere over Europe was just as preconditionally necessary, but no one should be using up bandwidth to advertise that fact either, mate.

So I'll grant your request and leave the conversation to you and Family Man.

Family Man

I know that Bede isn't going to like this, but I still don't think Christianity had anything to do with it. To explain why, let me look at another situation and then apply it the issue at hand.

It is not unusual for Christians to tell me how wonderful their religion is because the abolitionists were all Christians who were inspired by their religion to fight slavery. The problem I have with this is that their opponents, the slaveholders, were also committed Christians who felt their religion justified their practices. So, we have three options here:
[list=1][*]The good guy's position had it's foundation in Christianity, but the bad guys didn't.[*]Both positions had their foundation in Christianity.[*]Neither had a foundation in Christianity. Both sides simply mined their religion for justification.[/list=1]

The first position isn't tenable. It is simply picking the winners and ignoring the losers.

Nor is the second. It renders analysis meaningless by suggesting all sides of an issue can be founded in Christianity.

The third scenario makes sense. The abolitionists opposed slavery out of humanitarian concerns while the slave-owners held their position out of self-interest. That both would try to justify their position in light of their religion is not surprising.

We have a directly analogous situation with the Scientific Revolution. The scientists weren't the only ones who claimed to be doing God's work. In the seventeenth century, there were literally thousands of Jesuits who felt they were doing the Lord's work in trying to save the Ptolemiac system. I'm sure they were just as devoted to serving God as Copernicus, Kepler, Boyle, and Newton were. But for some reason, their efforts doesn't get mentioned as being founded in Christianity.

Clearly, the sayings that Bede relies so heavily on can be interpreted as those scientists reconciling what they wanted to do -- science -- with their religious beliefs. And given that the other options appear to be untenable, it should be interpreted that way.

Note: The Jesuits made some real, albeit minor contributions to science during this time. However, their main mission was to defend the Church's position, especially the Ptolemiac system.

Family Man

Bede, I got on fellow atheists when I thought they were being unfair to you, now it's your turn.

First, that was not your position. Your position was that Christianity was a necessary precondition. That is not the same thing as saying that Christianity did the job.

Second, by allowing that other philosophies could have done the job, you've raised the possibility that another philosophy did do the job. And it occurs to me that there was another philosophy around at the time that probably did contribute -- humanism.

I'm sorry Bede, but you stepped in it. And I don't think it's fair that you accuse others so you can get out from under your own blunder. If other philosophies could have done it, it is your burden to show that it was Christianity, and not some other philosophy, that caused science. And I don't think you've come close to showing that.

lpetrich

And to add to Family Man's point, those who waved the Bible in opposition to heliocentrism also considered themselves Xtians.

What were Martin Luther and John Calvin? What were the geocentrists in the Catholic hierarchy? They certainly were not believers in some religion other than Xtianity.

Also, one could not have gotten very far back then without at least professing Xtianity. Consider Thomas Hobbes's rear-end-covering remarks about religion that I'd mentioned earlier here.

Bede

I don't think you are being fair here. A lot of the posters seem to assume I am making an apologetic argument that Christianity must have caused science because it is true - hence all that silliness about Jesus not doing experiments.

My position could be expressed as follows: Bob is killed in a car crash. He could have died of a heart attack or many other causes but it was a car crash that did the job on Bob. Hence it is fair to say the car crash was the cause of Bob's demise. It is also fair to say that the car crash was a necessary cause (and probably sufficient too although drink might be involved as well, for instance). No car crash - no funeral. Well not yet. If Christianity had not done the job eventually something else would have done and history would say that was the cause. It too would have turned out to be necessary because without a cause standing in that place there is no science.

So, I stand by my statement that Christianity was a necessary cause. But that should not be taken as a dogmatic assertion that if Jesus had decided carpentery was the way to go and Paul kept up the tentmaking, science could never have happened later and perhaps somewhere else.

A very real and interesting possibility. Can you explain how you think this helped? My PhD title is The Influence of Humanism on Mathematics [means science at the time] in the Tudor Age.

Frances Yates is adamant the humanists were interested in lit crit and basically anti-science. Erasmus puts the oar into natural philosophy and much else before inviting us to be fools for Christ. I think the humanists helped by providing improved ancient texts and encouraging a critical attitude to ancient authorities - including the Bible and Aristotle.

Also, was humanism a philosophy? Charles Nauert in 'Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe' writes: "Humanism was not, as many people assume, a worldly rival philosophy which displaced [clerical] scholasticism during the Renaissance. Humanism was not a philosophy at all." (page 4). This is a book I'd recommend as an introduction to humanism - it's an up-to-date undergrad text book and well written.

Agreed. My impatience is mainly due to the headbangers on this thread who have ignored everything I've said. I hope this post will mean you will stop defending them. I know I have a long long way to go to carry my thesis. But I've quit work for three years to do research here and have the time and inclination. I hope you will have the patience to stick around and bat down by ideas when necessary.

On your previous post - I must disagree. Of course different people can get different ideas from Christianity. Your point 2 is entirely correct. It happens all the time - at the moment in the argument over homosexuality. In the English Civil War (Divine right v Cromwell), on magic (Ficino v Bodin). The depressing thing for the atheist is that Chrisrianity is so purvasive in western society that itis probably one cause for nearly everything that went right and wrong from the abolision of slavery to the holocaust. The argument on slavery was between Christians who passionately believed that their religion meant their opposing positions were true. For the record, Christians won that argument.

And on tolerance: we have so many ifs and buts that you seem to have run into the same problem as me. Tolerance is only good if we are tolerant about the 'right' things. Clearly a society tolerant of science is good for science but that is all you have managed to establish. We agree these societies were no less religious than the ones were science didn't florish. You suggest that where the church was powerful science did less well. But we find that the church is France, England and Spain were all run exclusively by the monarchy and not the Pope. Hence tolerance becomes a question of royal policy rather than religion. And we are back to square one.

I agree that a truly liberal society (such as existed nowhere before the 19th century) is good for most things. Witness the massive boom in occultism in Victorian England that the church would previously have stamped on. And the the continuing massive boom in New Age related activites. [offtopic]Science too did well, of course, although now it is increasingly under attack from those who disagree with it (ususally the same New Age types in England if not the US). Should we be intolerant for science or risk the damge caused by banning animal experiments and GM food.[/offtopic]

Enough already!



Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason