Week 2
Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
Can you imagine doubting part of your fundamental
understanding of the world? What would it take to make
you question something you had always assumed as
true? How would you respond?
Challenge of Definitions
Surprisingly, the term “Science” is a very difficult term
to define. Why?
• Science (and Religion) has meant many different
things throughout the ages
• Modern definitions tend to be too restrictive or too
broad depending on the kind of scientist one is.
What is Science?
Let’s use our Collins’ textbook to help us here:
Some people read a book in
order to discover God. But there
is a greater book - the actual
appearance of created things.
Look above and below you, and
note and read. The God that you
want to discover did not write in
letters of ink, but put in front of
your eyes the very things that he
made. Can you ask for a louder
voice than that?
Augustine, 4th-Century
“A science is a discipline in which one studies features
of the world around us, and tries to describe his [or her]
observations systematically and critically.” C. John
Collins
How Does Science Work?
1. The observation of some ‘surprising’ or ‘astonishing phenomena’ which represent anomalies
within existing ways of thinking. This ‘astonishment’ may arise because the observations are
in conflict with existing theoretical accounts.
2. The realization that these phenomena would not seem to be astonishing if a certain
hypothesis (or set of hypotheses) H pertained. These observations would be expected on
the basis of H, which would act as an explanation for them.
3. There is therefore good reason for proposing that H be considered to be correct.1
What is Faith?
“When biblical writers (and responsible Christians) use the word ‘faith,’ they are usually
speaking in one of two ways. The first sense of ‘Christian faith’ is trust toward God because you
are persuaded that he is trustworthy. The second sense is ‘the faith,’ that is, the set of truths that
Christians believe.” C. John Collins
Norwood R. Hanson, “Is There a Logic of Scientific Discovery” cited in Alistair McGrath, Science and
Religion: A New Introduction, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwood, 2010), 52.
1
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
This was the case in the Graeco-Roman world, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the
Enlightenment, and right up into our modern world.
Cosmology
Theology
Anthropology
Politics - How we live together
Science in the Graeco-Roman Worldview
The preeminent key thinkers who shaped worldviews of
the time were Plato (427-348 BC) and his student
Aristotle (384-322 BC). For both thinkers, what was
paramount was discovering unchanging, eternal truths
which describe the universe.
“Faith, the the sense in which I
am here using the word, is the
art of holding on to things your
reason has once accepted, in
spite of your changing moods.
For moods will change,
whatever view your reason
takes.”
C.S. Lewis
Plato: Universals
How do you know truth?
The world was comprised of two realms (dualism) - the visible (material) and the invisible (or
spiritual).
And so the cosmos - the stuff of the world - was created by “God”, and in God’s mind, it was
perfect, but in taking shape physically in the world, it was inferior, like a physical shadow of the
original Reality. Now, using our senses, there is much that we can learn about this physical
reality (and that created some space for science), and yet because it was always inferior to the
Ultimate Reality, all that science would explain would be the shadow, not the really Real.
Reason
Aristotle: Particularities
How do you know truth?
One only discovers what is unchanging truth not by looking towards universals, but rather by
looking at the particularities of this world. The human mind had the rational capacity to look at
the world and understand it.
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When it came to cosmology, Aristotle’s influence is huge. Here is how it played out: below the
moon, imperfections in the world; above the moon, perfection and perfect, closed, partitioned,
spheres in circular motion.
Aristotle & Change
• Teleology (destiny or purpose)
• Every thing in the world contains within it, for the lack of a better word, a desire to return to its
source.
• In terms of our world, the source is found deep within the world - its very centre. Everything
has within it energy which impels it towards its final purpose as it were.
Two kinds of movement - violent and natural.
Science in the Middle Ages
Two key figures who really shaped things - Augustine and Aquinas, Augustine drew from Plato
and Aquinas from Aristotle.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) and Plato’s Influence
Augustine argued that the goal of human life was actually to ascend from the earthly realm into
the heavenly.
“Escape from this world to the next, from self to God, from flesh to spirit, constituted the deepest
purpose and direction of human life….In Augustine’s vision…the transcendent spiritual realm
was the only realm that genuinely mattered.” Richard Tarnas
Ultimate value and meaning are found not here but in heaven.
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 AD) and Aristotle’s Influence
Onto the scene stepped another intellectual heavy weight - Thomas Aquinas. What Aquinas
attempted was to synthesize Aristotle’s philosophy (along with a hangover of Platonist thinking)
with Christianity.
In so doing, he sought to combine the other-worldly direction of life (going to heaven - Plato’s
influence) with the concerns of the here and the now (Aristotle’s influence). For Aquinas, he
knew that creation was good, it was God-created, beautiful and orderly (Christianity’s influence)
and his desire was to synthesize everything together into a grand system of all reality.
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
Two Storeys of Thomas Aquinas2
Spiritual realm
Eternal
Grace
Supernatural
Superior
Soul Church
Christian Life
Faith
Revelation
Theology
Material Realm
Temporal
Nature
Natural
Inferior
Body Society
Cultural Life
Empirical reason
Natural Law
Science
Science and the Renaissance (13th-15th-Centuries)
Two words associated with the Modern world, namely renaissance and Enlightenment are
loaded terms. The first implies rebirth and rebirth implies that something was dead!
Enlightenment implies that something earlier was dark and obscure, but now things are brought
into focus and into the light. And yet, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, or the Medieval Period
was not as dark as it has been labelled.
However, somewhere between the 14th and 17th Centuries, something shifted in Europe,
something which in hindsight we call the Birth of the Modern or the Renaissance. For our
purposes, we are going to primarily focus on how the religious foundations changed and how
this affected the practice of science in the period.
The Spirit of the Renaissance
Life is short; let’s prepare for eternity
– Motto of the Middle Ages
Life is short; let’s enjoy it as much as we can.
- Motto of the Renaissance
Printing Press
In 1445 Johann Gutenberg invented movable type printing in Mainz. The first book he printed
was the Bible in 1456. The technology spread across Europe in 1462 when the city was
plundered and the printing press stolen. It hit Rome in 1467, Paris in 1470, Cracow in 1474, and
Westminster in 1476. By 1483, the year Martin Luther was born, printing was well established in
Europe. The changes this brought about were enormous. Until this time, very few people
owned books. No one had any kind of library of their own. If you wanted to study, you had to go
to a public institution, most often a monastery. Suddenly, books and tracts could be mass
produced and easily acquired, creating a new audience in the public and a ready made stage
for new ideas and criticisms.
2
B & G, 79.
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
How did the Renaissance affect Science?
In four particular ways:
1. Shift from heaven to earth, from the past to the present.
2. Shift from finding our meaning in God to finding meaning in Nature
• William of Ockham (d. 1349) began to argue that the meaning of the created order was
immanent within it and could be understood through human observation and experience.
3. Nature’s autonomy
• Nature then becomes “nature” and is theologically "silent" and "inert" in this new paradigm
4. Humanity as master over nature
Once “destiny” (telos) was removed from nature, things were disconnected from their inherent
purpose. When things were disconnected, that opened the door to look at nature as simply
something that could be affected, manipulated, and essentially torn out from its purpose.
The Reformation and Science
Some Key Dates in the story
1536: Calvin’s Institutes
1540: Society of Jesus (founding of the Jesuits)
1543: Copernicus De Revolutionibus
Index of Prohibited Books
1545: Establishment of Council of Trent
1576: Digges, Prognostication Everlastinge
1588: Tychonic System
1605: Bacon’s Advancement of Learning
1609: Kepler’s Astronomia Nova
1610: Galileo’s Siderial Messenger
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
1611: King James Bible
1615: Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess
1616: Admonition of Galileo
1620: Bacon’s Novum Organum
1632: Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning Two World Systems
1633: Condemnation of Galileo
1642: Death of Galileo
1687: Newton’s Pincipia Mathematica
In many ways, Christianity offered a theological justification for scientific enquiry because
Christianity taught that the natural world is both orderly and knowable (with human beings
endowed with the divine gift of being capable to know and understand nature).
With Martin Luther’s discovery of the doctrine of grace, the Reformation affected Christian
doctrine by moving away from inherited authorities towards trusting in one’s personal
“discoveries.” In some ways scientists like Bacon, Galileo, and Descartes applied to the area of
the natural world what Luther had done with regards to the Bible.
So, how did the principles of the Reformation affect early modern science?
1. The doctrine of justification of faith alone recognized that the key force in salvation was
God.
2. The priesthood of all believers essentially democratized the Christian faith arguing that
ordinary, non-ordained people have access to all they need to know things. Ordinary
people could fully participate in direct relationship with God Himself. This may have
influenced the idea that an ordinary person (even… gasp… a scientist or even a
mathematician) could understand the material world on his/her own without the
dependence on “expert” theologians.
3. The authority of Scripture. The Reformation argued for a plain, straightforward,
accessible reading of God’s Word. The Word was to be available for all and translated
into a language that ordinary people could understand. What’s more, the Reformation
argued for a simple, direct interpretation of God’s Word. Ordinary people can understand
Scripture in an ordinary way. Applied to the natural world, people were emboldened to
investigate and explore the material world trusting that what they would see would be
understandable.
a. Calvin’s reading of Scripture – need to read it well and understand its plain
meaning.
b. God’s willingness to accommodate language to the human situation.
4. The ending of superstition (the disenchantment of everyday life). Nature was
increasingly viewed as separate from God and therefore orderly (“gods” didn’t live in the
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
trees), organized and open to investigation (you can discover patterns or laws to the way
things worked).
5. The rise of technology especially the Guttenberg Printing Press made books available
and affordable to ordinary people. All of a sudden, lay people could study on their own
and learn things about the way things were.
6. Growing emphasis is placed on ideas which were practical and experiential
Two Case Studies of Science and Religion from this Time Period
The Story of Copernicus
The story of Copernicus and Galileo is an oft-told story of how religion and science are
inherently incompatible. According to this story, the religious authorities opposed the scientific
endeavours made by secular heroes such as Copernicus and Galileo every step of the way. The
conclusion drawn from this story is that religion is a hindrance to free thinking and will always
serve as an obstacle to scientific development.
As with most history, the true story is always more complex…and much more interesting. So,
let’s look at the story of Copernicus and Galileo and see what they can teach us in our quest to
understand the interplay between science and Christianity.
The Copernican “Revolution” (1543-1633) [was it really a revolution?]
Science at the time of Copernicus
The scientific world in which Copernicus found himself was a world rooted in the physics and
astronomy of Aristotle and Ptolemy. This worldview divided nature into two parts: the world
beyond and moon and the world below the moon. In this view, there was a fundamental
difference in how nature operated.
Motion and movement operated in different ways
• Earth – motion moves in straight lines. There were two main forces:
• Natural motion (goes to its natural place towards the center of the earth)
• Violent motion (manipulated motion- give example of violent motion – throwing a book at
someone or shooting an arrow)
Celestial sphere – world of perfection.
• Motion is always in perfect circular motion (music of the spheres). The celestial objects were
always rotating around the centre of the universe which was the earth itself.
• Again, this was put forward originally by Aristotle and championed by Ptolemy
• And so, in this understanding of things, the higher you go up – the more perfect things are.
The further down you go, the closer you get to hell
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
In sum...
• The earth is at the centre of the universe;
• All heavenly bodies rotate in circular paths around the earth;
• These rotations take the form of motion in a circle, the centre of which in turn moves in
another circle.
Enter the scene...Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543).
Again, the Ptolemaic system was generally accepted in the early sixteenth-century.
However, there were major problems with the theory.
• With the naked eye, one noticed peculiar things in the heavens. It seemed that planets would
sometimes seem brighter than at other times. Further, they sometimes seemed to speed up,
stop, move forward and even backwards.
How do you reconcile the observations with the theory?
Well, you end up modifying the theory. So, to explain retrograde motion, the first theory was
angels. The more popular and accepted theory became that of introducing epicycles which is
also revolving around the earth. And then you introduce concepts like “equant” which is all very
complex stuff. And what results from all this is that what began as a simple system now
becomes extraordinarily complex.
Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
Would it be simpler if we were to assume that it is not the sun that is moving, but the earth?
What if the sun was at the centre and we were revolving around the sun in (still) perfect circles
(not the continued influence of Aristotle). And not only this, but the earth was also revolving on
its own axis at the same time.
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
Well, this is what Copernicus did and this proved to be a simpler and more accurate way for him
to do his job. And so, in 1543, Copernicus published his findings under the name, On the
Revolution of the Celestial Spheres (De revolutionibus orbium coelestium).
Now, think for a moment about what it would be like to live in such a world. A world
in which the basic and fundamental arrangement of things was in dispute, in which
multiple theories as to the setup of the universe were vying for attention.
Though describing revolution, his ideas did not turn out to be too “revolutionary” in his day. In all
of Europe, at most, only sixteen people embraced his theory. What’s more, some people simply
saw Copernicus’ theory as a return to perfect astronomy – a return to perfect circles.
However, there were perceived to be too many problems with what Copernicus was proposing:
There were four main objections to Copernicus’ theory:
1. Contradicts common sense
2. Contradicted Aristotle on motion
3. Contradicted the hierarchy of knowledge
4. Contradicted Scripture
Psalm 93:1
Ecclesiastes 1:4-5
Psalm 104:5
Tycho Brahe 1506-1601
Brahe was a Danish noblemen who was known in his lifetime as a brilliant astronomer and
brilliant alchemist (indeed… alchemy was a serious pursuit of many scientists at the time). In his
astronomical work, Brahe proved that new stars are just that, and thus Aristotle was wrong
about the heavens being unchanging. He also proved that comets were not atmospheric
phenomenon but, whatever they were, they occurred above the orbit of the moon. He was able
to do these things as he had the privilege of observing both several comets as well as a
supernova.
More importantly for our subject matter, he proposed what has come to be known as the
Tychonic system. This was geocentric, but with a twist. The sun revolves around the earth, and
each planet revolves around the sun. Brahe admired Copernicus but felt that his system
offended physics, astronomical observation, and religion.
The Tychonic system was, for nearly a hundred years, a preferred model of the solar system in
Europe. It received the religious stamp of approval and seemed, for a time, to line everything up
perfectly: common sense, astronomy, mathematics, and religion.
The trouble was that Brahe was correct; the original Copernican model did in fact offend
principles of physics and astronomical observation. It would be nearly a century before
advances in physics would show that the Tychonic system did the same.
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
Johannes Kepler 1571-1630
Kepler was a German mathematician, astronomer, and astrologer. His was a tempestuous life,
going from training as a Lutheran pastor to academia, going through two marriages, and several
other relationships, as well as defending his mother during her trial for witchcraft, and in the
midst of it all he came up with what have proven to be the most accurate astronomical and
physics theories from among his contemporaries.
He worked for a time with Tycho Brahe and the two held each other in respect and honour,
Brahe going so far as to support Kepler’s work out of his own pocket for a period of over a year,
despite some of their fundamental scientific disagreement.
What’s more, Kepler was a devout man who believed in the classical theory of intelligent design:
if the universe has been created by an intelligent God and we are made in His image then we
ought to be able, by use of our reason, figure out much of the workings of the universe, as there
would be embedded in them the intelligent workings of God which we are capable of grasping.
Through his study of the planetary movement of Mars, he was the first to propose elliptical
orbits, thus eliminating the need for epicycles and properly lining up math, astronomical
observations, and the (modified) Copernican model of the solar system.
He was also the first to bring physics into play when it came to astronomy.
The Story of Galileo
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
•
Do we have a conflict between faith and science or do we have a conflict between
Galileo and church authorities? Big difference
Background
Galileo saw the Copernican system as a true depiction of the universe, but wanted church
stamp of approval arguing that it was entirely compatible with the view of the Bible.
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
The Starry Messenger
“From these things it follows as a necessary consequence that, since the Holy Ghost did not
intend to teach us whether heaven moves or stands still, whether its shape is spherical or like a
discus or extended in a plane, nor whether the earth is located at its centre or off to one side,
then so much the less was it intended to settle for us any other conclusion of the same kind …
Now if the Holy Spirit has purposely neglected to teach us propositions of this sort as irrelevant
to the highest goal (that is, to our salvation), how can anyone affirm that it is obligatory to take
sides on them, that one belief is required by faith, while the other side is erroneous? Can an
opinion be heretical and yet have no concern with the salvation of souls? … I would say here
something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: ‘That the intention
of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.’”
Galileo, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, 1615
Galileo lands in hot water with the Pope
Fundamentally, the problems lay in the following:
o
o
o
o
Vindictiveness of Pope Urban VIII
Political controversies of the day - Reformation and the Counter-Reformation
Stupidity and orneriness of Galileo himself. Lacked tact and astuteness and was
overly dramatic in his rhetorical style
▪ Overly dramatic in his rhetorical style
The danger was theological, yes, but it was also political and scientific (challenge
of Greek astronomy)
Key Take-Away points from the class thus far…
1. The story of Christianity and Science being in a perennial conflict is a myth. Like
everything else, the real story is more complex.
2. The Christian understanding of Creation and humanity opens the way for science to
develop and flourish.
3. Plato and Aristotle figured significantly in the early stages of science in the West
4. The key ideas surrounding the Reformation provided the foundation for the explosion of
science we find in the Scientific Revolution (though many of the key figures were
Catholic)
5. A radical re-interpretation of the universe and our place in the universe took place
through the influence of Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo which seemed to contradict
Scripture. As it turned out (didn’t know this at the time), the new view of the universe
could be accepted as true without compromising the truth of the Word of God.
6. This re-interpretation is rooted in the approach called accommodation, that is
recognizing that revelation takes place in culturally and anthropologically conditioned
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Historical Perspective: Scientific Revolution
forms with a specific audience in mind and
therefore Scripture needs to be interpreted
accordingly. [The Bible is not written to us,
but for us]. We find this way of thinking right
through Church history, but especially so in
the 16th-Century.
How do these points affect the situation we find
ourselves in today?
Our Christian faith should serve as an impetus to
scientific enquiry and research.
Be careful about tying yourself too closely to the
science of the times.
“The person who marries the spirit of the age is likely
to be a widow in the next.” Unknown
“[W]hen the Bible is interpreted, it
must be borne in mind that God
‘adjust’ to the capacities of the
human mind and heart. God has to
come down to our level if revelation
is to take place. Revelation thus
presents a scaled-down or
‘accommodated’ version of God to
us, in order to meet our limited
abilities. Just as a human mother
stoops down to reach her child, so
God stoops down to come to our
level. Revelation is an act of divine
condescension.”
Alistair McGrath