Fr. Stanley L. Jaki on Science as a Pathway to God
by John J. Mulloy
by Stanley L. Jaki
(University of Chicago Press, 1978) comprises the two series of
Gifford Lectures which Fr. Jaki delivered at the University of
Edinburgh in the years 1975 and 1976. Since the foundation of this
prestigious lecture series back in 1885, Fr. Jaki is one of only six
Americans who have been invited to give them (the others were William
James, Josiah Royce, John Dewey, Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr).
He is the first American Catholic to be so honored (European
Catholics who have delivered them include Etienne Gilson, Christopher
Dawson and Gabriel Marcel), and the first Catholic priest ever to be
invited.
The ten lectures which make up the first series deal with the history
of scientific thought from the time of the Greeks down to the end of
the 19th century; the second series of lectures deal with scientific
thought and discovery in the 20th century. The primary theme of the
entire volume, based upon an enormously wide command of the primary
sources of scientific thought, and showing a remarkable understanding
of developments in the history of science, is this principle: that a
rational belief in the existence of a Creator, and of an ordered
universe which He has created and governs, played a crucial role in
the rise of science in Western culture and in all of its great
creative advances.
Moreover, Fr. Jaki claims that, whenever in the history of Western
philosophy the classic proofs for the existence of God have been
radically criticized, and the epistemology which is implied in these
proofs has been set aside, the results have been at least potentially
disastrous for the cultivation of science. This he shows by an
examination of the consequences for scientific thought of the ideas
of Francis Bacon and of Descartes in the 17th century; of Hume and
Kant in the 18th century; of Mill and Mach in the 19th century; and
of the attempts by 20th-century positivists and operationists to
legislate for scientific endeavor. This is a part of the book which,
for reasons of space, we have been unable to discuss in this review.
In fact, in a volume so rich as this in ideas and perspectives on the
history of science, it is impossible to do more than to select
certain significant developments as illustration of Fr. Jaki's
evidence in support of his primary thesis.
First, then, concerning Aristotle's achievement, and why it fell
short of what was needed to give the Greeks the proper foundation for
empirical investigation of a contingent universe, Fr. Jaki writes:
"Aristotle's way to the pure act ..., Aristotle could not keep
consistently pure, that is, transcendent to anything sensory, be it
the most perfect sphere of stars. Thus the way to the pure act also
empowered the mind to ascertain why the world had to be what it was
and why it possessed the structure, laws, and principal features it
apparently did. This meant that the mind could acquire basic truths
about the physical world without undertaking an extensive program of
observations and experimentation. A cosmic intelligibility which
could be conquered so easily could hardly be illuminating. The
Aristotelian universe was necessary, and so was its form of
intelligibility" (p. 25).
And again, summing up in the final chapter, Jaki writes:
"More than any other ancient people, the Greeks were profoundly aware
of the rationality of nature... They were the first to construct
formal ways to the ultimate in being, and Aristotle even perceived
something of that aspect of the contingency of things which was
implied in the fact that not all that was possible did in fact exist.
But he was unable to extend that contingency to the heavenly regions.
As a result, Aristotle could only give a cosmology,. always the
fundamental form of science, which was an a priori discourse about
the universe. Thus the problem of the failure of ancient Greek
science is largely the failure of the Greeks of old to go resolutely
one step beyond the prime heavens to a prime mover absolutely
superior to it" (p. 320).
A NEAR MISS
Here is Jaki's judgment on the later development of Greek science,
which was linked to the dominant Stoic philosophy of the Hellenistic
and Roman periods. He suggests why it was that Greek science,
despite its achievement, did not bring about the creation of a
durable scientific enterprise...
"The rise of Stoicism ('for the Stoics the one God was nothing but
the one world ...') marks the burning out of that flame of scientific
creativity that was alive only for a few generations. Its short
duration was possibly the most tantalizing event in intellectual
history. The ancient Greeks came far closer than any other culture
to formulating a viable science. Without achieving it, they provided
some justification for saying that 'thinking about the world in the
Greek way' is an 'adequate description of science.' Their glimpse of
a viable science was as momentary as their glimpse of the one,
eternal, infinite absolute Act. No sooner had the human mind risen
to such heights than it slumped back upon itself.''
And then, by an implied contrast with what the Christian centuries
possessed and the Greeks did not, Fr. Jaki adds: "Yet, as it turned
out, the rise of science needed the broad and persistent sharing by
the whole population, that is, an entire culture, of a very specific
body of doctrines relating the universe to a universal and absolute
intelligibility embodied in the tenet about a personal God, the
Creator of all" (p. 33).
THE CONTRIBUTION OF AQUINAS
Coming to the Middle Ages, Jaki speaks of the significance of the
rational proofs for God's existence found in Aquinas. Although St.
Thomas, unlike his mentor Albertus Magnus, was not a scientist,
nevertheless, by his rational demonstration of the existence of God,
he laid the foundations for the attitude of mind toward nature which
made continuing scientific achievement possible. Fr. Jaki writes:
"The important point for the historian of science is that Aquinas
gave to a broadly shared rational conviction a concise formulation
which had symbolic power. More specifically, the historian of
science should keep in mind that the proofs embodied a stance in
epistemology which, as further events were to show, contained a
directive instinctively obeyed by the scientific movement. About
that stance the first main point to be noted is that for Aquinas it
is natural for man to be in a cognitive unity with nature" (p. 37).
At this point we might consider an issue which comes up repeatedly in
Fr. Jaki's account of the history of science -- that is, the way in
which positivist preconceptions condition historians of science to
ignore facts which tell against their own worldview, and against
science's alleged support for that view. In other words, one of the
chief problems in getting scientific evidence considered fairly is
the reluctance of positivists to let it be examined, or to allow it
to be seen in a context which faithfully reflects the historical
situation in which it occurred.
Thus, for example, George Sarton, a professor at Harvard and one of
the best known historians of science in America in the first half of
the 20th century, is cited by Jaki for ignoring the creative
breakthrough represented by Pierre Duhem's discoveries in the history
of science. These would seem to have run counter to the particular
views Sarton himself held of the Middle Ages. Fr. Jaki speaks of
Sarton's dislike of metaphysics and of the fact that he "was
unenthusiastic about the Christian cultural heritage." He points out
that Sarton "never probed into the causes of the sudden rise of
interest in experimentation during the late Middle Ages, although he
extolled the fact itself.
"Nor did he ask why in this case the genius failed to burn out at an
early stage. A curious neglect because Sarton seized the opportunity
to review the first volume of Pierre Duhem's , a
work that represented a Copernican turn in the historiography of
science, but which, like the original Copernican turn, was for long
received with silence and unbelief in professional circles, although
Duhem did no more than exploit to the full the discovery of
Leonardo's notebooks. But Sarton ... was, for the rest of his life,
silent on Duhem.
"Clearly Sarton was reluctant to accept Duhem's conclusion that the
failure of Greek science was due to the influence of such theological
doctrines as the divinity of the heavens and the eternal recurrence
of all, an influence which as Duhem intimated, was operative in other
ancient cultures as well. Nor could Sarton have been pleased by
Duhem's overwhelming documentation of a solid interest in science
from the twelfth century onward, and of the support given that
interest by the Christian theism of the medievals" (p.13).
A CREATED UNIVERSE
To the layman, one of the most interesting parts of Jaki's book lies
in its description of how the great creative scientific discoveries
of Planck and Einstein in the 20th century, point toward a universe
which is best understood as the creation of a personal God. He
writes: "That juggernaut [of agnosticism in contemporary philosophy
of science] is of no use against those two gigantic figures, Planck
and Einstein, who mark the transition from the inland sea of
classical physics to the wide ocean of modern physics. Through their
achievement, the world appeared more singular and more coherent than
ever. The unfolding of ever deeper layers of the microcosmos and the
grasp of ever farther reaches of the macrocosmos continue to be based
on the quantum of action and on general relativity respectively.
Although both of these theories are often presented as supports of
positivism, the physical reality they bear witness to calls for an
epistomology irreconcilable with positivist legislation on reality as
well as on science.... The coherence displayed by singularity
throughout the cosmos witnesses that although that singularity
pervades the entire cosmos, it comes to the cosmos from without, from
the creative choice of an intellect necessarily acting for a purpose
which can, in its specifics, at most be surmised by human intellect"
(pp. 322-23).
Nevertheless, neither Planck nor Einstein was willing to go so far as
to admit the existence of a creative personal mind responsible for
the universe whose objectivity they were discovering. Rather, they
took a stand somewhere in between the positivism from which they had
come in their youth and the natural theology toward which their
discoveries urged them. Their stance was made even more difficult by
the fact that the great majority of the historians and philosophers
of science were aware of the way in which the discoveries by Planck
and Einstein were cracking the foundations of the positivism to which
these philosophers were committed. They therefore tried time and
again to get Einstein to say that his and Planck's discoveries were
not opposed to a positivist view of the universe -- but without
success. Fr. Jaki's portrays this conflict and its result.
"For all his myopia about the baffling emergence of personal beings
with absolute moral values in a radically amoral and apersonal cosmic
existence, for all his espousal of the 'religious' tied to his
dismissal of religion, ...Einstein the scientist-philosopher is an
invaluable witness on behalf of natural theology. A Carnap, a
Neurath, a Russell, a Reichenbach, a Bridgman, in sum all the
positivists and operationists who have set the tone of philosophy and
of philosophy of science for the last half century, were fully aware
of the unabashedly metaphysical character of Einstein's science.
Some of them begged him -- almost put words in his mouth - to state
that experimental data were the trigger of his speculations and
achievements. He refused to give them any comfort, although aware
that in return they were to charge him with what he had called 'being
guilty of the original sin of metaphysics.' ... he kept telling them
that every true theorist was a tamed metaphysician no matter how pure
a positivist he fancied himself ...
"Students and lovers of natural theology reflect with profit on the
inability of so many scientists of our times to extricate themselves
from the snares of positivism, in spite of the monumental lessons
provided by the creative science of Planck and of Einstein. These
two, whom Harnack in 1918 had called the two great philosophers of
our times, were like all genuine prophets, rejected by their own"
(pp. 194-5).
And Max Planck, who denied that he believed "in a personal God, let
alone in a Christian God," made this statement of faith to a friend
when informed of the execution of his son in late 1944: "What helps
me is that I consider it a favor of heaven that since childhood a
faith is planted deep in my innermost being, a faith in the Almighty
and All-Good not to be shattered by anything. Of course his ways are
not our ways, but trust in him helps us through the darkest trials."
To which Fr. Jaki adds this comment: "Planck did not seem to realize
that such words were logical only if God was in some mysterious way a
personal God, a notion which, even in its vaguest form, was a remnant
of Planck's heritage from Christian theism. He never perceived the
measure of his debt to that heritage. To the end he waged a
spiritual crusade on behalf of a world view distinctly metaphysical
and ethical, without seeing that it made logical sense only if the
world was the product of a rational, personal Creator, a notion
maintained by historic Christianity and from which the republic of
science received crucial benefit" (pp. 179-80).
Fr. Jaki sees the history of science as one of the chief battlefields
on which will be fought out the conflict for the soul of Western man
between Christianity and an increasingly aggressive secularism. By
means of an increasing interest in courses in the history of science
in the colleges and universities, the interpretations promoted by
that history will become more and more a matter of popular
acceptance. And the progressive subjection of human life to the
effects of technology and scientific invention will add immeasurably
to the prestige which science holds for the ordinary man. Whatever
science tells men through lessons drawn from the history of science,
will seem to many as the final word on the meaning of life and the
universe. Fr. Jaki portrays the importance of this conflict:
"Ours is, however, the age in which atheists and agnostics are often
superbly versed in the technicalities of science and they are more
than eager to bolster their countertheistic cause by scientific
expressions. They have not neglected the history of science either.
In their reliance on science and on its history, they know that in
the global battle that is waged for minds it will be of decisive
tactical importance which side can make a convincing case for having
science as a genuine ally" (p. 324).
THE SCIENCE OF A CONTINGENT UNIVERSE
It so happens, as these Gifford Lectures show in abundant and
convincing detail, that the teachings of Christianity reinforce the
view of the world needed for creative scientific achievement. The
world of the unexpected, the unpredictable, which has to be
investigated by observation and experiment, because it cannot be
known on an a priori basis, whose laws can only be discovered by
patience and humility before the facts as they are, is also the world
of singularity which proceeds from the decisions of a rational,
personal Creator. This is also the world portrayed in the Biblical
accounts of God's relationship to man in human history. In fact, the
Incarnation, the supreme example of the unexpected, is yet, when seen
in its full context, eminently congruous with the Providence of God.
As G. K. Chesterton observed concerning this note of singularity
about the physical universe, in a book written in the early 20th
century: "All those blind fancies of boyhood ... became suddenly
transparent and sane. I was right when I felt that roses were red by
some sort of choice: it was the divine choice. I was right when I
felt that I would almost rather say that grass was the wrong color
than say it must by necessity have been that color: it might verily
have been any other" ( (1908), p. 145).
It is upon this insight that the attitude required for scientific
achievement is based, as Fr. Jaki shows so well in this volume of
Gifford Lectures. Let us hear his restatement of that fact in the
final chapter of this study of the history of science:
"...unless one sits down as a little child before the facts of
science established in its history -- prepared to give up
preconceived notions about it offered by positivists, idealists,
historicists, and agnostics, and ready to retrace in full the actual
historical road of science -- one will never learn the fundamental
truth that real science is the science of a contingent universe" (p.
324).
As to Fr. Stanley L. Jaki himself, it seems that we have here a new
star rising in the firmament of outstanding Catholic thinkers and
writers of the 20th century. We have become accustomed to hear of an
Etienne Gilson in the history of philosophy, of a Christopher Dawson
in the history of culture, but most Catholics have not so far heard
of Stanley L. Jaki in the history and philosophy of science.
I can only advise that we should make ourselves thoroughly aware of
his work and its achievement, practically all of which has been
undertaken in the period since the close of Vatican II. We should
lay firm hold of the ideas and conclusions which he puts before us,
so that we can make an effective defense of the Christian world view
against the half-truths about science which the agnostic philosophers
of our age have done so much to foist upon us. From review in in 1978.
This article was taken from "The Dawson Newsletter," Spring 1995,
P.O. Box 332, Fayetteville, AR 72702, $8.00 per year.
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