Colson on Christianity and science

Any thoughts on this piece?

Jay

BreakPoint with Charles Colson
Commentary #031204 - 12/04/2003

We've Been Lied To
Christianity and the Rise of Science

To paraphrase the opening of a popular ESPN show, these four things everyone
knows are true: Before Columbus's first voyage, people thought the world was
flat. When Copernicus wrote that the Earth revolved around the Sun, his
conclusions came out of nowhere. The "scientific revolution" of the
seventeenth century invented science as we know it. And the false beliefs
and impediments to science are Christianity's fault.

There's just one problem: All four statements are false.

As Rodney Stark writes in his new book, For the Glory of God, "every
educated person" of Columbus's time, especially Christian clergy, "knew the
earth was round." More than 800 years before Columbus's voyage, Bede, the
church historian, taught this, as did Hildegard of Bingen and Thomas
Aquinas. The title of the most popular medieval text on astronomy was
Sphere, not exactly what you would call a book that said the earth was flat.

As for Copernicus's sudden flash of insight, Stark quotes the eminent
historian L. Bernard Cohen who called that idea "an invention of later
historians." Copernicus "was taught the essential fundamentals leading to
his model by his Scholastic professors"-that is, Christian scholars.

That model was "developed gradually by a succession of . Scholastic
scientists over the previous two centuries." Building upon their work on
orbital mechanics, Copernicus added the "implicit next step."

Thus, the idea that science was invented in the seventeenth century, "when a
weakened Christianity could no longer prevent it," as it is said, is false.
Long before the famed physicist Isaac Newton, clergy like John of
Sacrobosco, the author of Sphere, were doing what can be only called
science. The Scholastics-Christians-not the Enlightenment, invented modern
science.

Three hundred years before Newton, a Scholastic cleric named Jean Buridan
anticipated Newton's First Law of Motion, that a body in motion will stay in
motion unless otherwise impeded. It was Buridan, not an Enlightenment
luminary, who first proposed that Earth turns on its axis.

In Stark's words, "Christian theology was necessary for the rise of
science." Science only happened in areas whose worldview was shaped by
Christianity, that is, Europe. Many civilizations had alchemy; only Europe
developed chemistry. Likewise, astrology was practiced everywhere, but only
in Europe did it become astronomy.

That's because Christianity depicted God as a "rational, responsive,
dependable, and omnipotent being" who created a universe with a "rational,
lawful, stable" structure. These beliefs uniquely led to "faith in the
possibility of science."

So why the Columbus myth? Because, as Stark writes, "the claim of an
inevitable and bitter warfare between religion and science has, for more
than three centuries, been the primary polemical device used in the atheist
attack of faith." Opponents of Christianity have used bogus accounts like
the ones I've mentioned not only to discredit Christianity, but also to
position themselves as "liberators" of the human mind and spirit.

It's up to us to set the record straight, and Stark's book is a great place
to start. I think it's time to tell our neighbors that what everyone knows
about Christianity and science is just plain wrong.
Received on Mon Dec 8 13:11:26 2003