The Subtle Influence of Secular Ideas – Part 3 – The Erosion of Biblical Authority

In my efforts to explain the effects of modern science on Christians today, I need first to lay a historical background. Toward the end of this post, I will elaborate one way in which this thinking has affected Christians today: the elevation of the authority of science over that of the Scriptures.

The starting point of my discussion is quite appropriately also the launching pad of the scientific revolution – physics and astronomy. What could be more harmless than that? If physics and astronomy can be found to have committed a grave travesty against the Western mind and heart, how much more other aspects of modern science?

Before Copernicus (1473-1543), almost anyone who was at all aware of astronomy believed the earth was at the absolute center of the universe. A few Greek philosophers had proposed otherwise, but their ideas didn’t catch on. Aristotle (384-322 BC) was the most authoritative of them, at least for the period that most concerns us – from the late Middle Ages through much of the Renaissance. Copernicus, however, proposed a system that placed the sun at the center, for reasons I briefly touched on in another post.[1] Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) picked up on his ideas and were quite successful with them to the point that they haven’t been seriously questioned since then. Their work was vital to initiating the Scientific Revolution.

That’s just the Reader’s Digest version of the story that hides a much greater revolution that was taking place due to and throughout all the scientific upheaval. Two systems of thought – two primary worldviews – were doing battle: the worldview of Aristotle and the combined worldviews of Plato, in neo-Platonism, and the Pythagoreans. Let’s look more closely at the two combatants in this battle for primacy in the minds of Western man – Aristotle in this post and neo-Platonism and Pythagoreanism in the next.

For all intents and purposes, the works of Aristotle had been lost to the Western world, and most of his works have never been recovered. Still, significant portions of his works were preserved by the Arabs, most translated from Greek into Arabic. During the invasion of the Muslims from North Africa through Spain, Aristotle and the works of many other philosophers were introduced to Western Europe.[2] As we saw in my last post:

…when Greek science which accompanied the works of Aristotle came into the Christian West at the end of the Middle Ages, the Occident saw with wonder and shock what tremendous accomplishments the human mind was able to bring about ‘without the light of divine revelation’.[3]

Augustine’s (354-430) reconciliation of neo-Platonism with Christianity ruled in the West for many centuries, until

Aristotelianism had won out in the long preceding period of human thought because it seemed to make intelligible and rational the world of common-sense experience.[4]

Add to the lure of making rational sense of the world the belief that Aristotle’s thinking seemed to align with Christianity, despite strong reservations by some in the Church, and you have a potent mixture of ideas taking hold. Casper and Noer state the following in this regard.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) interpreted the writings of the Greek philosophers, particularly Aristotle. His sympathetic views brought the works of Aristotle to the attention of educated men, and gradually Aristotle came to occupy a place in Christian teaching next to that of Saint Augustine and the Bible.[5]

In fact, Aristotle and other Greek philosophers find their place carved in stone in some cathedrals of Europe from the period.[6] This merger – or syncretism – of Aristotelian thought and Christian theology was known as the medieval synthesis or Thomistic synthesis.[7] It provided Christians a kind of comfort in making some sense of the seemingly chaotic world in which they lived – after all, that’s what our worldview does for us. Add in the amazing wonders of the mind, as we see in Burtt’s comment above, apparently in agreement and support of Christianity, and you have an alluring elixir. Butterfield, however, states that this synthesis is rather lopsided:

In this whole picture of the universe there is more of Aristotle than of Christianity.[8]

Nebelsick adds emphasis to this dominance of Aristotelian thought over Christianity.

… the Thomistic synthesis … forced theological thought into Aristotelian categories with such felicity and thoroughness that it was soon to replace the then dominant Neoplatonically-influenced Augustinianism as the basis of theology and of philosophy and science as well. So strong did the Aristotelian influence become that in spite of formal bans against certain of the Aristotelian claims, the last as late as 1277 (three years after Thomas’ [Aquinas] death), Aristotelianism was to be the dominant force in the shaping of the late mediaeval and early Renaissance mind until the sixteenth century.[9]

In short, Christianity was seduced into a significant change in thinking or change of worldview. Instead of bringing elements of Aristotle into Christianity, quite the reverse took place – Christians took elements of Christianity into Aristotelian thought. They no longer viewed the world as Christians had for centuries but allowed Aristotle to dictate their worldview.

How could Christians have bought into Aristotle’s thought to such a degree as this, even to give it authority equivalent to that of the Bible, as Casper and Noer state? Part of the answer is that Aristotle’s thinking was based significantly upon purpose – “nature does nothing in vain”[10] – and the search for why things are – teleology – and behave as they do in terms of purpose.[11] This seemed to fit nicely with a Christian view of Creation, and Aristotle’s thinking was accepted wholesale and merged together with theology so tightly as to make the two indistinguishable.[12] Thus, to undermine Aristotle was to undermine Christian theology. The success of the new heliocentric or sun-centered view of the universe and several astronomical observations by Galileo that directly contradicted Aristotle spelled the beginning of the end for Aristotle’s authority and, because Christian theology was so invested in Aristotelianism, the Church’s authority was directly assaulted, as well.

But consider also that Aristotle was a pagan – a polytheist. His thinking, though it seemed to line up with Christian thinking, was in no way Christian or Jewish in origin or in reality. It was the product of a pagan and intertwined in his pagan worldview. When Christians finally bought into it after some centuries of resistance,[13] they bit into seemingly good fruit with a barb in it. His science seemed to support Christianity and lend it a powerful rational basis. When Aristotle fell, the Christianity’s authority suffered significantly with it. Christians had been led along a line of thinking that was a trap set for them. When Galileo opposed the Catholic church, he was more opposing Aristotle than true Biblical theology, but, as I’ve already said, the two had become so intertwined that it seemed he opposed Biblical authority and certainly church authority.[14] The egg on Aristotle’s face was all over the face of the Church, and, in my opinion, the Church has never recovered from it. In fact, Christians are loathe to be seen contradicting science very much at all.[15]

There is another little bit of fallout from all this. Galileo was adamant that the “Scriptures tell us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.”[16] As a result, he believed, as did Augustine (354-430 AD), a fellow neo-Platonist,[17] that Scripture must be interpreted in light of current scientific knowledge. Burtt gives this explanation of it, in part from Galileo himself:

It was this religious basis of his philosophy that made Galileo bold to declare that doubtful passages of scripture should be interpreted in the light of scientific discovery rather than the reverse. … ‘I conceive that, concerning natural effects, that which either sensible experience sets before our eyes, or necessary demonstrations do prove unto us, ought not, upon any account, to be called into question, much less condemned upon the testimony of texts of scripture …’[18]

So, Galileo saw the authority of his science as trumping the authority of the Scriptures – at least man’s interpretation of Scripture. I think, if pressed on the issue, Galileo would have said Scripture was the authority, but that science was needed to properly interpret the Scriptures. Yet, the problem is that science has gone through numerous revolutionary changes over the ages. How can we be sure that today’s science will properly interpret the Scriptures for us any better than the old, now-discarded science did then? That’s a problem I want to come back to later. Even given his stand on the Scriptures, I think Galileo could easily come down on the side of Evolution if he agreed with the science behind it.

This thinking, however, creates a problem: how are men to determine truth? Revelation has been subjugated to science, since science is believed to be more reliable due to being based on seemingly objective verification, whereas revelation is not testable and its interpretation seems subject to the whims of men’s moods and politics. Francis Schaeffer expresses well the quandary that even he found himself in with this regard while trying to assert the absolute authority of the Scriptures.

There is a tendency among many today to consider that the scientific truth will always be more true. This we must reject. We must take ample time, and sometimes this will mean a long time, to consider whether the apparent clash between science and revelation means that the theory set forth by science is wrong or whether we must reconsider what we thought the Bible says.[19]

What are we to do when science makes a very compelling argument contrary to what we think the Scriptures say, if we are to hold both the authority of the Scriptures and science at the same time? As he states above, our tendency is to go with science to resolve the conflict, just as Galileo did – and science often makes compelling arguments. At the same time, there is the problem of an incorrect interpretation of the Scriptures which got the Church in trouble in the first place.[20]

Schaeffer is forced to teeter on this point, as are we. The Catholic church challenged Galileo and ended up with egg on its corporate face, and Christians ever since have been loathe to question science mainly due to its amazing successes and wonders. The Theory of Evolution is an exception because it has produced no practical success as did Galileo’s astronomy and physics – it is more philosophical than practical.

How can this tension be resolved, since we see so clearly how easy it is to err in this regard either way? While Schaeffer states that he believes theology and science will eventually agree at the point of truth, if given the right time and environment, his greatest concern expressed in his booklet, No Final Conflict, is summarized nicely in this statement.

There is the danger of evangelicalism becoming less than evangelical, of its not really holding to the Bible as being without error in all that it affirms.[21]

We’d love to think that we can hold both, yet there are already many places where we’ve conceded a Biblical perspective in favor of a scientific one and the two are not at all in agreement, which I will elaborate in future posts.

What is the foundation of this concern? Is it not found, at least in part, in the erosion of Biblical authority in the Galileo Affair when Galileo’s thinking took over for Aristotle? Yet, is there really a problem? Could it be that what Schaeffer believed would take place – agreement between corrected theology and proper science – has already taken place through the work of Galileo?

Consider that the Church got into trouble by allowing Aristotle, in essence, to interpret Scripture for them and significantly influence theology. The thinking of a polytheistic, though Christian-sounding pagan took authority over the Scriptures for the Church. Surely, Galileo set the record straight. In my next post, however, I’ll show how Galileo did exactly the same thing that Thomas Aquinas did – he brought different pagan thinking into the Church to interpret Scripture once again with disastrous results. In future posts, I’ll attempt to address my other questions above, as well, in particular how are we to get a proper interpretation of the Scriptures, especially when they seem to conflict with science, and there are a number of such conflicts of which we are ignorant today that cripple our Christian lives.

Until later,
Rob

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[1] See Origin of Ideas – Is There a Problem?

[2] Johns, Jeremy, “Christianity and Islam” in John McManners (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).

[3] Nebelsick, Harold P., Circles of God: Theology and Science from the Greeks to Copernicus (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1985), p. 82 – italics mine.

[4] Burtt, Edwin Arthur, The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1924, 1932, 1954), p. 70.

[5] Casper, Barry M. and Richard J. Noer, Revolutions in Physics (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1972), p. 69 – italics mine.

[6] Principe, Lawrence, The History of Science: Antiquity to 1700, Parts 1-3, (Chantilly, VA: Johns-Hopkins University, Teaching Company, 2002) (video lectures series), lecture 18. Principe shows one example at Chartres in France. See also Seznec, Jean, tr. by Barbara F. Sessions, The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953), translated from French La Survivance des dieux antique. He goes even further in showing the presence even of pagan deities portrayed in the same Cathedrals, a topic I’ll take up again later.

[7] Nebelsick, p. 81.

[8] Butterfield, Herbert, The Origins of Modern Science 1300-1800 (New York: The Free Press, 1957, 5^th ed. 1966), p. 35.

[9] Nebelsick, p. 149 – italics mine.

[10] Frede, Michael and Gisela Stricker (eds.), Rationality in Greek Thought (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 266.

[11] Burtt, p. 91.

[12] Nebelsick, p. xvi.

[13] Casper & Noer, p. 69.

[14] Much more could be said on this, but I’m wanting to keep this postings rather concise and tight for now.

[15] I acknowledge the Evolution debate, but I want to purposely leave that aside for now. There are many ways in which Christians have already given up ground to modern science. The Evolution debate is one of the last battles yet to be decided. The problem, as I will show later, is that Christians are trying to fight this battle and many others according to the worlds ways rather than the Lord’s ways. More to come…

[16] Principe, lecture 29.

[17] Principe, lecture 13.

[18] Burtt, p. 82. The quote is from Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess, 1615 – italics mine.

[19] Schaeffer, Francis A., No Final Conflict (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1975), p. 24 - italics mine.

[20] By the way, if Protestants are clucking at the ignorance of the Catholics, Protestants were just as taken in by Aristotle as Catholics.

[21] Schaeffer, p. 48.