Bede

This is a follow up to the discussion on Copernicus involving Hugo and Familyman.

I've been attending lectures given by Andrew Cunningham and Simon Schaffer here at college and they have been hammering away at a point that I think clears up a lot of the confusion around the science/religion interface.

The central point made by Cunningham is that science as a secular subject simply did not exist until about 1800. Prior to that, natural philosophy was not the study of the world as it is but the world as created by God. This is the essential link I've been missing. Someone like Newton, Descartes or Copernicus was not investigating the natural world as a thing in itself. God came first as the initial link in the chain. As we see in Descartes we do not use the world to study the work of God, but look at the world as the creation of God. In the meditations, Descartes proposes God before he is able to accept the existance of objective reality as the creator is the properly basic belief.

Hence, when Familyman was suspicious of Copernicus's religious motivation he was looking back through the lens where reality comes first and can be used to reach metaphysical conclusions. This is what happened with natural theology in the 18th century when William Paley and his ilk argued from nature to God. To his predecessors this would be nonsense as they would insist we need God before we can say anything about reality. The idea of a secular science that could stand on its own two feet and then offer support to theology only came about after Newton when his natural philosophy proved itself to be so successful that it gained an authority that previously only revelation had enjoyed.

This was not what Newton had in mind when he set out to replace Cartesianism. He felt this was not religious enough and proposed a natural philosophy that gave God a much bigger role in holding the whole show together - not just the famous need to rejig the planets but to actually keep gravity, which had no known cause at the time, going at all. Reinventing Newton as a 'rational' scientist was one of the central tasks of 19th century positivists.

We are left with a connection between science and religion even more profound than my initial suggestion that science was caused in part by Christian metaphysics. Instead, we find that until very late on, science was part of Christian metaphysics and simply hand no standing on its own. Science earned that standing by its success but that should never blind us to realising where it came from.

Steve Shapin denies the scientific revolution happened at all. I don't fully agree but accept that the really big change happened in the nineteenth century when, with Laplace leading the way, science cut its ties with Christianity and became a secular subject with a new name for its practioners - "scientists". Only then did the myth-makers like Huxley and Whewell retell the story of where it had come from to make it seem that it had always been that way.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Vorkosigan

You mean...to his successors???

Family Man

No, my suspicions of Copernicus's religious motivations is exactly the opposite. To Copernicus, religion came first and he naturally assumed that his scientific researches would not be incompatible with his religious beliefs. I'm simply saying that he had a rationalization that he was comfortable with, not that he was abnormally conflicted between his beliefs and his work.

I also am not saying that Copernicus's didn't find motivations in his religious beliefs; I'm saying that finding a correlation between the religious beliefs of early European scientists and the results is not the same as saying that that there is a cause/effect relationship going on here.

Try this thought experiment. Imagine that those Europeans were completely satisfied with the scientific explanations of Aristotle. Would there have been the same scientific advances in the 17th Century? Almost certainly not. Imagine that there was no perceived material advantages to studying science. Again, doubtful much scientific activity would have happened.

Now, hold all the conditions the same but assume they were all of a different religion (or no religion at all). Can we assume that science would have been greatly curtailed? I can't see how you could make such an argument. It doesn't follow like the two examples I gave above.

Finally, Shapin was not saying that there wasn't a great difference in thought from the beginning of the 17th century and the end of it. He dislikes the Revolution metaphor because it implies a very sudden change (sort of like those old Monty Python animations of night falling). Personally, I think he's overly anal about it, but that's just me. Otherwise, I thought his book excellent.

Vorkosigan

Hey, Bede, next lecture, why don't you ask Cunningham to explain why if Xtianity was so wonderful, Orthodox Christianity and all other non-western Christianities failed to come up with science? I'd like to get the answer to that one. Christianity is Christianity, the key is all the other things that were going on -- capitalism, colonial expansion, technology imports from China and India, rising nationalism, etc etc etc. In this morass, Christianity was just one more factor, and often more important for negative rather than positive reasons.

Vorkosigan

Bede

Familyman,

Copernicus's religon and his science cannot be separated. Even cause and effect understates the intimacy of the relationship. I am longer saying that he took his religious beliefs and turned them to a seperate scientific enterprise, but rather that his science was part of his religious activity.

True.

Untrue. We see natural philosophy thriving through the Middle Ages despite the almost complete lack of useful practical application. While this grows it never becomes quite dominant. Individual scientists did not need to make money - they were looked after by the church or rich patrons who kept them as pets -Galileo does try to interest patrons by saying that his new science will enable them to kill people more effectively (and its true too) but we have to wait for the eighteenth century before this becomes a major factor. The Royal Society was founded by the king but received no state aid and was a gentlemens' club for those with intellectual pretentions.

Of course we can. We need look only at Ottoman Turkey or pagan Greece to see that even disagreeing with Aristotle and having the odd practicial spin off isn't nearly enough.

I agree about Shapin, but he does accept that science came later than the so called scientific relvolution.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Family Man

Of course they can be separated. Copernicus's scientific conclusions can and are taught without reference to his religious convictions all the time, which is one of the reasons why the causal connection is dubious. That Copernicus understood his scientific activity to be inseparable from his religious beliefs is irrelevant. For all we know, had he been an religious skeptic he still would have come to the same scientific conclusions. His intertwining of his religion and his science indicates the depth of his religious views; it doesn't suggest that it caused his scientific views.


Natural Philosophy (I'd hardly call it science) in the Middle Ages was a sterile enterprise primarily aimed at the glorification of God. I've never seen anyone describe it as thriving, though I'll grant you that there were plenty of people wasting their time practicing it. The goal was quite different, and had it continued we'd still be plowing the fields with our mules. It is the belief that there were practical benefits that allowed modern science to develop. It is doubtful we'd have our scientific establishment today without it.

And as you read Shapin, you should know that this was one of the changes that occured during the 17th century. It was the material expectations espoused during the 17th century that allowed scientists to free themselves from your "pet" status in the 18th. It was the improved status of scientists that made modern science possible. Remember Shapin's point that the scientific revolution occured with fits and starts, not with a sudden complete reversal of thought.


No, you can't. You're assuming that these are the only three relevant factors. But there were political, cultural, knowledge, and economic factors in addition. Vork is completely right in his last post. You can't just assume that religion was the only factor in play here.

You're also assuming that pagan Greece and Ottoman Turkey had the same view of the practical benefits of science that Francis Bacon had. Perhaps they did, but I'd want to see evidence of that.

Bede

Familyman,

Not sure we can go much further as you nare insisting on completely ahistorical criteria. You say that because we can separate heliocentricism from Copernicus's religious views they are not related. From a historical point of view this is wrong - you cannot study Copernicanism by only looking at the bits that make it through the scientific truth test. That is the mistake of the positivists and roundly condemned by all working historians.

You state against Cop's own words, the mileau of his time and everything that we know about mid renaissance natural philosophy that his religious views were not causal. I'm afraid that this is simply an unsubstantiated denial of facts on your part. You need to explain why on earth Cop comes up with the whacky idea of heliocentricism when their is no visible reason for it beyond his own stated case. You have failed to this and I get the impression you just cannot bring yourself to accept that your great scientific hero's were positively influenced by stuff you don't like.

Frankly, like Vork, you seem willing to credit anything other than religion. You echo what I say on technology and admit that this, as Shapin agrees, came to fruition only in the eigthteenth century. Hence, as I said, it does not help your case.

I ask again, why did modern science not happen in those other cultures? Which factors that were unique to Europe can you demonstrate had an causal effect on modern science. Remember, those practical inventions came from elsewhere and were well known before Europeans used them. I accept the existence of many factors but Christianity was a necessary, rather than sufficient condition.

Finally, what could convince you that Christianity did lead to modern science? What sort of evidence do you require as you have stated you are willing to be convinced (though I have my doubts)?

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Family Man

First, I have not nor will I ever claim to be a anything more than a interested amateur. But I don't think that your problem here is my supposed insistence on "ahistorical methods" so much as your own biases are forcing you to put me in a pigeonhole that I don't fit in so that you don't have to listen to what I have to say.

Consider, for example, your claim that I follow the "questionable" philosophy of positivism. Actually, I would consider myself a critical realist, which can be defined thusly:

I hope you see how the above shows the flaw in your own approach. Notice the emphasis on biases. We are all effected by our biases. I am. You are. And, guess what, so was Copernicus!

That's what I've been trying to tell you. I have never said that there is no relationship between Copernicus's religious views and scientific ones. What I've been saying is that you can't assume that, because Copernicus saw his religious views as a motivation for his scientific ones, or that his religious views were a necessary requirement for his scientific one. How in the world are you going to do that when Copernicus was obviously attached to his religion and his bias would have compelled him to find a way to reconcile the two? You can't. It's not possible.

And in fact, I have never seen a historian claim a causal relationship based a single statement that involved the cultural bias of the historical figure. Is Copernicus's statement an indication that he didn't see a conflict between his religion and faith? Yes. Is it a demonstration that his religion caused his scientific views? No.

So, no, Bede, my approach to this problem is not ahistorical.

You want to know what it would take to convince me that Christianity was a necessary requirement for science?

1. Demonstrate (don't just assert) that Christianity is the only relevant difference between Western Europe and the other societies that didn't develop modern science.

2. Explain why there was considerable resistance by the church and the religious to certain conclusions reached by early scientists (you can reference my earlier essay for material).

3. Explain the Church's indifference to Copernicanism. Then explain why the authors in Numbers/Lindberg claimed that science was dead in Italy/Spain by the 18th century due to church repression.

4. Explain why, when Christianity first developed intellectual traditions in the Middle Ages, it was non-scientific philosophies like scholasticism that led nowhere.

5. Explain why I've never seen, despite extensive reading on the subject, a historian claim that Christianity was a "necessary precondition" for science.

6. Consider the consequences of the Reformation. Explain why science grew in areas where church control was weaker.

7. Demonstrate that science was reacting to the religious doctrines and not the other way around.

Finally, Bede, you know very well that I'm not a dogmatist. I don't claim that the Inquisition was one long, bloody persecution (it was a relatively bloodless persecution). I don't claim that science and religion is incompatible. If you asked me if the rise of Christianity was due in part to their moral practices, I'd agree with you. You have every right to disagree with my position here, but you have no right to dismiss it simply because you don't like it. If you want to know where the communication failure is occuring on this thread, I suggest you consult a mirror. And I hope any response will be have more substansive arguments and less speculation about my personal philosophy.

lpetrich

I agree with Family Man on this one. As to Copernicus's metaphysical/religious beliefs, it could well have been that he had regarded the Sun as a divine or sort-of-divine object; but such covert Sun worship was not exactly orthodox.

And Bede seems unaware that the Church was everywhere in medieval and early-modern society. It was something like Islam in some present-day Islamic societies. It would have been hard to get anywhere without professing belief in the Church and its teachings. The Protestant Reformation was the beginning of the end for this, because it divided up the Church in western and central Europe. Steve Bruce has a good discussion of this in his book "God is Dead: Secularization in the West".

So claiming a theological pretext was a good way to justify one's actions, as was professing piety. Such deference is also apparent from the common practice of presenting controversial ideas as purely hypothetical, from Buridan about a vacuum to Copernicus about heliocentrism. Galileo got in trouble because he had given that boat a big rocking.

Covering one's rear end about religion was sometimes rather glaringly apparent.

Sir Francis Bacon claimed that "a little thought leads to atheism", while more leads to religion, but that did not stop charges of atheism.

Sir Thomas Hobbes had commented that pagan deities were created by human fear, yet our god is the prime mover. And also that happiness is prospering, not having prospered, making it dynamic and not static -- except for the joys of heaven. But he was nevertheless suspected of having composed "atheistic writings".

Compare with the case of Hippocrates, author of that famous Oath. While that oath itself features swearing by Hellenic-pagan deities, Hippocrates himself believed that epilepsy was called the disease of the Gods because nobody really knows what causes it. In effect, "goddidit" is a weak hypothesis. And he and his followers got away with it, as Plato had when he suggested banning his society's sacred books from his Republic on the ground that they are full of bad examples like heroes lamenting and gods laughing.

Also, science used to be called "natural philosophy", suggesting something separate from theology. Galileo, a famous figure in the science-religion war, had indeed considered himself a good Catholic, but he was a believer in an early form of Non-Overlapping Magisteria, in which the Holy Ghost tells us how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go. Which implies some separation between science and theology. Likewise, Boyle, despite his piety, considered natural science an autonomous enterprise.

As to Bede's comparison of Ottoman and classical-Greek achievements, that's like the comparing a lit match and a bonfire. Modern science was simply taking up where ancient Greco-Roman "philosophers" had left off; Copernicus's system was essentially a heliocentric version of Ptolemy's.

Bede

Familyman,

Thanks for your reply and setting out the areas that I need to cover. I'll treat the seven points you make as a mini research program and try and produce an article that covers them all. It is very helpful to have a list of points that a third party thinks are pertinent as one can easily, as you say, assume that what's obvious to me is obvious per se.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason