What provoked my thinking

First, let me ask all who comment to use the "comment" link at the bottom of each posting. That way, others can benefit from your comments and our discussion. Thanks!

Before I go any further, I thought I'd share what started me down this path. In high school and since, I've had a keen interest and aptitude for math and physics. For practical reasons, however, I decided to pursue a BS in Computer Science from Purdue, which I completed in 1979. Anything technical has been of great interest to me.

In 2001, I'd come across a book about optics, but I quickly saw that I couldn't understand the advanced mathematics, despite my advance calculus and differential equations at Purdue. So, I decided to enroll in math courses at the local university. I took courses from that time through this past semester. People were amazed that I found high-level math courses so interesting. I even commented to some friends that I marveled at the beauty of mathematics almost as a form of worship of God.

In 2004, however, I'd become very bored with a job that paid well but gave me very little challenge and didn't come close to filling my days with fruitful labor. I decided to see a career counselor because I really saw nothing that interested me. He said that I fit the profile of a research physicist more than anyone he'd even counseled in 25 years. So, I decided to quit my job to have more time to pursue courses. My wife and I also wanted to put ourselves in a position to trust the Lord a little more, i.e. not have every angle covered so carefully that there was little left to trust God for. I have done a little consulting to help cover the bills and the Lord has provided nicely.

I plowed into courses and decided to help a professor with his research. I needed some books at the library and stumbled across a video series by a professor of physics. It looked interesting and gave a little taste of history with each presentation.

One statement he made struck me hard. He was talking about one physicist - which one escapes me right now - who cast horoscopes to make ends meet while he did his research. What's more, he said almost all "scientists" of the Renaissance period did the same.

Why were "scientists" messing with astrology? This concerned me deeply, and I wanted to see what this was about. At the same time, the Galatians 5:20 witchcraft/pharmekeia issue bothered me, too. I decided it was time to do some research on my own.

What I didn't realize was that I had only found a thread, but as I started to pull on it everything began to unravel. Astrology was just a small though very important part of the picture, and it wasn't just to make a little money on the side. Other practices once considered occult to some degree or another were also very much a part of the picture.

Then, another major element struck me hard: ancient Greek philosophy had also played a major role in the development of science. The Church - Thomas Aquinas most notably - welcomed their worldview with open arms. But Greek philosophy had a major role in the Church as early as the second century.

1 Corinthians 1:17-2:16 says much about the wisdom of the world which is foolishness to God. And Colossians 2:8 "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ." What had the church done?

Now, before you write me off as coming up with a bunch of crazy facts from some fringe lunatics, let me say that none of the facts I've presented above are in dispute. Even Pearcey and Thaxton, professing Christians, in their book The Soul of Science, which is very pro-science, do not dispute these facts. In fact, they boldly proclaim them and accept them as part of the rich heritage of our forefathers to science. Consider this quote from their book, p. 126:

Toward the end of the medieval period, Western culture uncovered the great well of wisdom from the classical age. Christians struggled valiantly to adapt and assimilate the new-found philosophies to a Biblical view of the world. [bold mine]

The classical age is ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. Pearcey and Thaxton uncritically accept the wisdom of ancient Greece and it's incorporation into the Church, the same wisdom Paul warned us of. I find this unsettling and my reading has been oriented to first verifying the facts and then trying, prayerfully, to determine what legacy this syncretism has given the modern Western Church. The more I read and the more I wrestle with it, the more concerned I become.

Over the next few weeks and maybe months, I'll try to present the facts with references, but I'll only be scratching the surface. Keep in mind that, until a little over a year ago, I was going full tilt into the study of advanced math and physics. I'm not coming from a background that denigrated science flatly, nor have I read any material where it has been the author's intent to do so.

I have wondered if my growing criticism of the late Medieval and Renaissance Church is rather hypocritical. I'm criticizing them for delving into pagan sources, and I'm doing the same. What makes my research any better than theirs?

First, they did it to come to a knowledge of "truth" about nature and reality in general. I'm doing it to see if there is sufficient evidence for my concerns.

Second, if I were to state flatly that we should shun science and turn back to God and a Biblical worldview, you wouldn't give me the time of day. Even presenting the facts, few will likely give it a fair hearing as it is. Additionally, I can't jump to that conclusion myself and feel that I'm acting on a sound basis. I have to see if the prompting I feel in my spirit has any foundation in fact, and to do that requires lots of reading.

You may not agree with my conclusions, but I appeal to you to at least consider the facts. If you want to read only one book on the subject, I suggest Pearcey and Thaxton's The Soul of Science. If you do read it, however, throughout the book, ask yourself one question, "Are these sources of knowledge that Jesus and Paul would encourage us to go to?"

I hope you'll read what I share and consider everything prayerfully. I draw opinions from a wide variety of sources and I try to consider contrary arguments. I welcome thoughtful and respectful contrary arguments to help sharpen me and make me think from angles I would never consider on my own.

Beware, however! The Bible is the final authority for me and I will hold you to that standard as I hope you will me. I will also challenge you if your opinion is based on many assumptions that I consider unfounded, but I will certainly try to do so respectfully.

I am seeking His full glory in the Church today. Will you join me?
Rob

A Brief History of Science

I discussed in my last posting that the foundation of ancient Greek philosophy is the crux of the problem in the West today – in terms of our way of thinking. The root is sin, but we haven’t a hope of dealing properly with sin if our thinking is amiss.[1] Most of the Western Church sees the problems in the world outside the walls of the Church as being due to secular man's rejection of the obvious truth that the Church holds out for them. Yet, the Church herself does not see the falsehood she is holding onto nor the effects of it on her relationship with her Husband, Christ.

I want to show - or at least suggest - that the "discoveries" of science have shaped our thinking about reality and, thus, has affected our relationship to our Lord. First, a brief history.

When I started getting into this research, I thought science was science whether today or 1000 years ago. The term science only meant “knowledge about a subject” until the mid to late 19th century.[2] Until that time, the kind of pursuit we now call science was called natural philosophy. Why? Because it dealt with the nature of reality – what is the nature of this universe we live in? There is a technical side to science today, most definitely, but especially theoretical science is an attempt to form a view of reality. You might say it is worldview formation.

Something else I didn't know was many other aspects of what we call science today were once called magic, as well – most notably natural magic and alchemy. Wizards – another word for wise men and wise women – were, like today, people who had much knowledge (science) and could put it to use. Another term is magus, the plural of which is magi as in the wise men who came to visit Jesus soon after His birth. The word translated “wise men” in the Gospel account[3] is the Greek word magos (sing.) which is translated sorcerer in some other places. Strong's defines it as an oritental scientist or magician. See also Acts 13:6,8 where the translation of sorcerer seems to be more clear. I'll use the term magus and magi hence forth for all these people as a group.[4]

These magi weren't necessarily overt occultists as we’d think of them today. I'm not saying they weren’t, but the line between yesterday’s wizards and today’s scientists isn’t so clear. Philosophers of science for the last century or so have been having a hard time distinguishing science from non-science.[5]

Nancy Pearcey and Charles Thaxton are professing Christians who wrote The Soul of Science, a book which discusses modern science from a Christian perspective. In this book, they discuss positivism and the new view of the history of science.[6] Briefly, positivism is a view that man has moved from ignorance to enlightenment over history and that the advances of natural philosophy and, now, science have led man to this greater enlightenment. It also casts off all religion and superstition as having no place in bringing man to this enlightenment. Religion is all well and good in its place, but its place is not in science or enlightenment into Nature.

The new thinking – in the last 40 years or so – in the philosophy of science is that this is not true. So-called superstition – viz. astrology, alchemy, magic and religion – has had a very formative role in getting to where we are today. I took a philosophy of science course last spring where this new view was discussed. On the one hand, it accords more respect to that which the positivists used to shun. Lawrence Principe, a professor of chemistry and the history of science said that we tend to make characters of the past fit modern images we have of scientists, taking the features which fit modern ideas and jettisoning the rest. In so doing, we miss out on the true character of the figures we study and fail to truly appreciate their contributions.[7] In closing his last lecture of the series, he says:

We encountered Babylonians, Greeks and Arabs and Latins. We encountered pagans, Muslims and Christians; Platonists and Aristotelians; Franciscans, Dominicans and Jesuits; Mechanists and Vitalists; Astrologers and Alchemists; mathematicians and magicians. All of them put their stamp upon the developing notions and content of what we call science. And many of those marks are still there today, if only we can learn to recognize them by a doctrine of historical signatures.

One last comment about magi – for now. In A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain portrays a 19^th-century man who suddenly finds himself in Medieval England. Because of his knowledge of scientific advancements in the intervening centuries, he is able to wow the people and they think him a magician, rivaling even Merlin.

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that “one man’s magic is another man’s science.” This statement is meant to pooh-pooh any belief in magic where some results are really effected. Aside from charlatans whose magic was/is a con game, this statement is more true than I ever realized before.

In summary, science is philosophical in nature and is a worldview-forming enterprise because it forms our view of reality. Modern science was greatly influenced by practices that were once considered occult to some degree or another. This muddies the waters for us because that boundary line has been blurred to a great extent. Perhaps it’s better to say that it’s been moved to another place.

I was surprised that Pearcey and Thaxton accept these facts uncritically, as have many other Christians to date. I can understand why because I once did myself.

To be continued…
Rob

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[1] Romans 12:2

[2] Principe, Lawrence, History of Science: Antiquity to 1700, video lecture series, (Chantilly, VA: Teaching Company, 2002), lecture 1. In 1834, William Whewell (pronounced Hu-ell) coined the term scientist with tongue in cheek. Aldus Huxley said in 1894 that, “The word scientist is about as pleasing as the word electrocution.”

[3] Matthew 2:1,7,16

[4] I’ll grant that some wise men and wise women were more learned than others, not so much scholastically as truly serious about uncovering useful knowledge.

[5] McMullin, Ernan, The Inference that Makes Science (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1995), p. 3. “…the attempt to define ‘the inference that makes science’ is not intended to furnish a criterion of demarcation between science and non-science. The issue of demarcation has been actively debated ever since [Karl] Popper made it central to his philosophy of science.”

[6] Pearcey, Nancy R. & Charles B. Thaxton, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), pp. 47-49.

[7] Principe, lecture 1.

The Crux of the Problem

W. T. Stace wrote an essay entitled Man Against Darkness. He makes clear his position from the outset by saying, “For my part I believe in no religion at all.” Yet he goes on to make a very significant observation that seem to have escaped most of the Western church. In recent history, there has been a change in the way Western man views the world, in particular due to scientific advances.

With the disappearance of God from the sky all this has changed. Since the world is not ruled by a spiritual being, but rather by blind forces, there cannot be any ideals, moral or otherwise, in the universe outside us. Our ideals, therefore, must proceed only from our own minds; they are our own inventions. Thus the world which surrounds us is nothing but an immense spiritual emptiness. It is a dead universe. We do not live in a universe which is on the side of our values. It is completely indifferent to them.[1]

He goes on to quote Bertrand Russell’s essay A Free Man’s Worship.

Such in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere; our ideals henceforward must find a home. ... Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; ... to worship at the shrine his own hands have built; ... to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.[2]

Stace goes on as follows:

Mr. Russell notes that it is science which has produced this situation. There is no doubt that this is correct. But the way in which it has come about is not generally understood. There is a popular belief that some particular scientific discoveries or theories, such as the Darwinian theory of evolution, or the views of geologists about the age of the earth, or a series of such discoveries, have done the damage. It would be foolish to deny that these discoveries have had a great effect in undermining religious dogmas. But this account does not at all go to the root of the matter. Religion can probably outlive any scientific discoveries which could be made. It can accommodate itself to them.[3]

This we have seen over the centuries. But his point here is quite remarkable. Modern Christians seem to view individual discoveries of science as the main threat – the Theory of Evolution most notably. Yet, Stace believes rightly so that individual discoveries are not the issue – they are only the fruit. He continues:

The root cause of the decay of faith has not been any particular discovery of science, but rather the general spirit of science and certain basic assumptions upon which modern science, from the seventeenth century onwards, has proceeded.[4]

He goes on to say that Galileo and Newton – and he could have gone back to Kepler and maybe even Copernicus – rejected Aristotle’s philosophical notion of “final cause” or purpose. Aristotle believed that everything we observe has some purpose that, in order to properly understand a thing, must be apprehended. Galileo and Newton clearly abandoned this idea in favor of simple, mathematical analysis of a phenomenon. For example, Newton found it sufficient to describe gravitational attraction mathematically. Even though Newton was a man of faith – of some sort – the purpose of gravity was irrelevant to him. In fact, I suspect that the reason for abandoning the notion of purpose was that man cannot know it with a certainty through reason, and God, for some reason, has chosen not to reveal it to us.

But I would take the root of the problem to go back much further. Stace seems to hold to the idea that Aristotle’s “final cause” is something that should have been retained, and that would have sustained man’s faith up to the present.

I disagree. The root of the problem is found in Christians having anything to do with Aristotle and Plato in the first place. The foundational assumptions of modern science that have created this problem go back to them, and yet their ideas alone are not to blame – but that is for another post.

Francis Schaeffer addresses this in Escape from Reason by starting with Thomas Aquinas who essentially welcomed Aristotle into the church and nearly single-handedly made his teaching revered to the level of that of Paul and Augustine of Hippo. In discussing a change in the view of nature that Aquinas put forward, mostly based on Aristotle, Schaeffer writes:

While there were good results from giving nature a better place, it also opened the way for much that was destructive. In Aquinas’s view the will of man was fallen, but the intellect was not. From this incomplete view of the biblical Fall flowed subsequent difficulties. Out of this as time passed, man’s intellect was seen as autonomous. ... From the basis of this autonomous principle, philosophy also became increasingly free, and was separated from revelation. ... Aquinas had opened the way to an autonomous humanism, an autonomous philosophy; and once the movement gained momentum, there was soon a flood.[5]

Schaeffer goes on to trace a downward train of thought in philosophy and art among Christian thinkers of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance (there were few others). This train passed through Galileo and Newton to Russell’s comment cited above, even to the present day.

Carver T. Yu, in his book Being and Relation: A Theological Critique of Western Dualism and Individualism, first expresses the problem Stace addresses, though much more broadly across the arts where it manifests itself most clearly. He then goes into a rather complex analysis of the development of the Western worldview, identifying the crux of the problem as a warped understanding of reality that “had its birth-place in ancient Greece.”[6] He goes on to show that the current Western worldview is a direct consequence of the Greek philosophical foundation upon which it was built. His thinking starts in ancient Greece before his argument merges with Schaeffer’s around the time of Descartes. Yu continues on from there essentially down the same track as Schaeffer to the present.

Yu makes a rather interesting, though, I believe, incomplete comparison between the Western worldview and the Biblical Hebrew worldview, which is also that of the New Testament Church.[7] The difference is due to a very different understanding of reality. The crux of the matter, then, is that our modern worldview is based on the false foundation of ancient Greek philosophy, resulting in a distorted view of reality.

One might ask how there could be any different view of reality than we have? Without any other view to compare to, it’s hard to imagine any other view having any relevance, and this is where the Western Christianity has fallen short. We have bought into a view of reality based on pagan philosophy that even affects dramatically our view of God and ourselves in relation to Him. This, in large part, is what has led to our view of chronic disease discussed in my previous posting. But that’s far from the whole story.

Christians may beg to differ with the above, but that is a matter for my next posting.

Rob

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[1] Stace, W. T., “Man Against Darkness” in Sheridan Baker’s The Essayist (New York: Thomas Y. Cromwell Company, 1972), p. 65.

[2] Stace, p. 65.

[3] Stace, p. 66.

[4] Stace, p. 66.

[5] Schaeffer, Francis A., Escape from Reason in Trilogy (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), p. 211-212. Escape from Reason was originally published in 1968.

[6] Yu, Carver T., Being and Relation: A Theological Critique of Western Dualism and Individualism (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1987), p. 51.

[7] Yu, chapter 6.