Origin of ideas - is there a problem?

Let me propose a hypothetical situation. A professing Christian, who is a scientist, is enamored with Buddhism and immerses himself in studying it. He takes an important idea from Buddhism and develops a scientific theory based on it. Only his peers who are Buddhist scientists see any value in it because there’s no other support for the idea. Fifty years from now, another professing Christian is determined to make the theory work using information from a Hindu temple finds real empirical evidence to support the theory. Later, other scientists build a whole new system of scientific thought based on the proposed theory from Buddhism and Hinduism, and that theory begins to shape our view of reality.

Is there any problem with this? As it turns out, it actually happened in history at least once, although the idea and empirical evidence didn’t come from Buddhism or Hinduism.

Have you ever wondered where we got our current view of the Solar System? Most people would say that it came from observations, logical inferences to form hypotheses, and testing of those hypotheses until we arrived at the truth that the planets orbit around the sun. That’s not how it happened. The primary motivation was a concept from Neo-Platonic mysticism.

Neo-Platonism is the result of Plotinus’ (c. 205-270 AD) update of Plato’s (c. 427- c.347 BC) philosophy with a very mystical bent. Among other things, Neo-Platonism holds that all objects in the universe have a soul, even the rocks in your yard.[1] Neo-Platonists practiced magic with the aid of “beneficent” spirits.[2]

Most of us know that at one time people believed the Earth was at the center of the universe with the planets, the Sun and the stars orbiting the Earth. This is known as the geocentric model.

Copernicus (1473-1543) came along and proposed that the Sun was at the center of the Solar System with the planets orbiting the Sun – the heliocentric model. The idea wasn’t popular at first but eventually took hold. [More on Galileo later.]

Where did these two models of the Solar System come from? The geocentric model came from Greek philosophy.[3] The Pythagorean “cult”[4] was apparently the first to propose the idea. They proposed that the planets were attached to great spheres because spheres fit their concept of perfection in Nature. They believed these spheres made music[5] (this idea seems to have made it into the hymn “This is My Father’s World”). Plato added his strong support to this, as well.[6] Aristotle (384-322 BC) nailed it home for more than a millennium. Ptolemy (c. 90- c. 168 AD) brushed up the model to make it more accurate, but it was a very complex model.[7]

Copernicus started changing all that. But what gave him the idea? Here’s what Pearcey and Thaxton say:

But where did Copernicus’s inspiration come from? Not from any new empirical data, the records show, but from his commitment to neo-Platonism.

Copernicus came under the influence of neo-Platonism while studying in Italy. Kearney describes the encounter as ‘the equivalent of a religious conversion.’ … Neo-Platonism thus became linked to a kind of sun mysticism. Whereas Aristotle taught that the earth was the center of the universe, some neo-Platonist writers argued that the sun must be the center of the universe, as only that position was compatible with its dignity as a divine symbol.

Pearcey & Thaxton quote the following from Copernicus:

In the middle of all sits the Sun enthroned. In this most beautiful temple could we place this luminary in any better position from which he can illuminate the whole at once? He is rightly called the Lamp, the Mind, the Ruler of the Universe. ... So the sun sits upon a royal throne ruling his children the planets which circle round him.[8]

Pearcey and Thaxton go on to say that Copernicus’ geocentric model gave no one any good reason to accept it. It didn’t significantly simplify the Ptolemaic model. Due to the limitations of astronomical measurements, there was no empirical evidence for his ideas.[9] There was no reason to consider it seriously, except that it fit the Neo-Platonists philosophy, so they promoted it.[10]

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) was an astrologer and alchemist who collected a large amount of astronomical observations for prognostications, to foretell the future. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) worked with him for a while and later used his data to lend support for Copernicus’ system by introducing elliptical orbits and detecting star parallaxes.[11] The rest is history.

Now, consider this: neither the geocentric nor the heliocentric models came from a Biblical worldview. Both came from pagan philosophers and mystics. The Roman church felt there was Biblical support for the geocentric model due to two verses of scripture, [12] but the model itself was a far cry from having solid Biblical support.

You may be asking yourself, “If it bears out in the evidence, it must be true, so what’s the problem with where it came from?”

This begs the following questions:

Have there been any problems as a consequence of this scientific development? If not, is there still a problem? If so, what are they and are they important enough to raise concern?

Can rational thought take an occult idea and cleanse it of any taint so that Christians may use the results without any concern?

Does scientific evidence necessarily lead to truth?

You can probably see where I’m going with this and you may not see any practical value to the questions or the answers may seem obvious to you. All I ask is that you continue to read what I lay out before you decide.

Stay tuned!
Rob

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[1] Pearcey, Nancy R. & Charles B. Thaxton, The Soul of Science: Christian Faith and Natural Philosophy (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), p. 63.

[2] http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/theurgy

[3] For a good overview that’s easy to read, see Barry M. Casper & Richard J. Noer, Revolutions in Physics (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1972), chapters 2-4.

[4] Pythagoras lived from 582-507 BC and started a very mystical cult called the Pythagoreans that practiced sacrifice and saw all kinds of mystical qualities in Nature and number.

[5] Casper & Noer, p. 30.

[6] Pearcey & Thaxton, p. 48.

[7] For a nice presentation, see Principe, Lawrence, The History of Science: Antiquity to 1700, Parts 1-3, (Chantilly, VA: Johns-Hopkins University, Teaching Company, 2002) (lectures series), lecture 9. Casper & Noer have a more mathematical presentation in Chapter 4.

[8] Pearcey & Thaxton, pp. 63-64.

[9] The evidence uncovered for it later was the parallax of the stars.

[10] Pearcey & Thaxton, p. 65.

[11] Principe, lecture 28.

[12] The two verses are Joshua 10:12-13 where Joshua tells the sun to stand still in the sky, thus implying that it moved around the Earth, and Psalm 19:4-6 which says the sun runs a course through the heavens apparently around the Earth.