The issue I raised was the one of the antipodes. Medieval Christians did not
believe that anyone lived at the antipodes because Col 1:16 says, "All over
the world this gospel is growing and bearing fruit." Augustine knew that no
one had gone to the opposite side of the earth, therefore since the the Bible
said all over the world, it must mean all over the INHABITED world and thus
no one could live on the other side. Augustine's belief, unfortunately had
nothing to do with the science of the 4th century but had everything to do
with their interpretation of the Scripture.
Stephen wrote:
>> I can
imagine that if Darwinian evolution is eventually disproved, then
future scholars will draw a parallel between the medieval Church
scholars accepting Aristotelian philosophy uncritically and 20th
century scholars accepting Darwinian evolutionary philosophy
uncritically! :-)<<
I fail to see how this same charge of accepting Darwinian evolution
uncritically keeps being advanced. I didn't start as an evolutionist. I
most certainly did not easily or uncritically accept evolution. But the data
IS overwhelming.
Stephen wrote:
>>1. Acts 1:8 actually says there is someone at "the uttermost part of
the earth". If he got this simple thing wrong, one wonders about the
accuracy of the rest of White's scholarship?<<
Stephen, it would be best to read the book before critiquing it because one
might wonder about your scholarship. Here is what White said.
"To all of them this idea seemed dangerous; to most of them
it seemed damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose were tolerant
enough to allow that a man might be saved who thought the earth
inhabited on its opposite sides; but the great majority of the
fathers doubted the possibility of salvation to such
misbelievers.
"The great champion of the orthodox view was St. Augustine.
Though he seemed inclined to yield a little in regard to the
sphericity of the earth, he fought the idea that men exist on the
other side of it saying that 'Scripture speaks of no such
descendants of Adam.' He insists that men could not be allowed
by the almighty to live there, since if they did they could not
see Christ at his second coming descending through the air. But
his most cogent appeal, one which we find echoed from theologian
to theologian during a thousand years afterward, is to the
nineteenth Psalm, and to its confirmation in the Epistle to the
Romans; to the words, 'Their line is gone out through all the
earth, and their words to the end of the world.' He dwells with
great force on the fact that St. Paul based one of his most
powerful arguments upon his declaration regarding the preachers
of the gospel, and that he declared even more explicitly that
'Verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words to
the ends of the world.' Thenceforth we find it constantly
declared that, as those preachers did not go to the antipodes, no
antipodes can exist; and hence that the supporters of this
geographical doctrine 'give the lie direct to King David and to
St. Paul, and therefore to the Holy Ghost.' Thus the great
Bishop of Hippo taught the whole world for over a thousand years
that, as there was no preaching the gospel on the opposite side
of the earth, there could be no human beings there."~Andrew D.
White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
Christendom,1, (New York: George Braziller, 1955), p.103-104
Stephen wrote:
>>3. If the medieval Church believed that there was no-one at the
antipodies, where is the evidence of a great crisis in the Church when
it found out that there was?<<
If you would read the book you would learn a few things. White states,
"This decision seems to have been regarded as final, and five centuries alter
the great encyclopedist of the Middle Ages, Vincent of Beauvais, though he
accepts the sphericity of the earth, treats the doctrine of the antipodes as
disproved, because contrary to Scripture. Yet the doctrine still lived.
Just as it had been previously revived by William of Conches and then laid
to rest, so now it is somewhat timidly brought out in the thriteenth century
by no less a personage thatn Albert the Great, the most noted man of science
in that time. But his utterances are perhaps purposely obscure. Again it
disappears beneath the thological wave, and a hundred years later Nicolas
d'Oresme, geographer of the King of France, a light of science, is forced to
yield to the clear teaching of the Scripture as cited by S. Augustine.
"Nor was this the worst. In Italy, at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, the Chrurch thought it necessary to deal with questions of this sort
by rack and fagot. In 1316 Peter of Abano, famous as a physician, having
promulgated this with other obnoxious doctrines in science, only escaped the
Inquisition by death; and in 1327 Cecco d'Ascoli, noted as an astronomer, was
for this and other results of thought, which brought him under suspicion of
sorcery, driven from his professorship at Bologna and burned alive at
Florence." p. 106-107
"Stilll, the docrine of the antipodes lived and moved: so much so that the
eminent Spanish theologican Tostatus, even as late as the age of Columbus,
felt called upon to protest against it as 'unsafe.' He had shaped the old
missile of St. Augustine into the following syllogism: 'The apostles were
commanded to go into all the world and to preach the gospel to every
creature; they did not go to any such part of the world as the antipodes;
they did not preach to any creatures there: ergo, no antipodes exist.'" p.
108
In short, Stephen, there was a crisis; you are just unaware of it as I was
until recently. We don't do a good job of teaching that part of Church
history. We should learn not only the good from the saints of the past but
also what they did wrong so we can avoid making similar mistakes.
glenn