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Lecture 2: Medieval Synthesis
Traditionally, the Medieval period is characterized as the "Dark Ages" when
men were superstitious and the advances of Greek and Rome had disappeared.
Thus it was not until science had broken free of superstitious religion that
the renaissance of knowlege could begin. It is certainly true that city
building, hygiene, engineering, luxury goods, trade, finance had all
suffered a blow with the fall of the Roman Empire. It would be from 500AD
until about 1400 AD before the standard of living regained the high point of
the Empire. Only this year, 2002, is Europe again under a single currency
since the fall of Rome!
However this did not mean that science died, or that technology vanished. On
the contrary, many of these above feats were merely dormant, awaiting a
period when trade and wealth could revive them anew. In fact, as Stanley
Jaki is at pains to show, many great advances of science were accomplished
during the Medieval period that set the seeds and plowed the intellectual
earth for the Renaissance. Newton's laws, for example, were not first
formulated by Newton, but by medieval scholars. One might even make the
argument that Newton's contribution was Calculus, not really founding
Physics, which had been accomplished in the 1300's, many centuries earlier.
As Brook is at pains to show, science did not so much separate from
religion, as it differentiated, the way the limb of a tree splits into
branches.
Therefore it is worth re-examining this period to see what sort of
super-structure, what sort of environment made the Medieval scholars capable
of such innovation and progress. Perhaps we can learn from them in our
present age of intellectual ferment.
Fourth Century: Augustine
- Neo-Platonism (reality a reflection of divine existence)
- Ex-nihilo instead of eternal matter
- Time NOT a universal, but created with matter
- Deductive, rational approach to truth
- Knowlege enhances our faith, faith enables our knowlege
From even before Augustine, there had been debates about how to interpret
Scripture. McGrath talks about 4 approaches: the literal, the allegorical,
the ethical, and the eschatological. (Okay, he didn't use that word, but
that's the sort of jargon you get in seminary.) The point McGrath is making
is that there was a great deal of flexibility in understanding language and
"the Book of God", flexibility that paradoxically is missing in many
"science vs religion" debates today. In exactly the same way, the Medieval
scholars understood "the Book of Nature" as subject to the same hypothetical
treatment, which both Brook and Jaki argue, was the beginning of modern
science. Thus, modern expositions of "conflict" between the two neglect this
long heritage of hermeneutics, of understanding the essential ambiguity of
language and of nature, an understanding that made modern science what it is
today.
If this essential ambiguity is NOT appreciated, one gets into dogmatism,
which is as fatal to theology as it is to science. It is entirely
inappropriate to say that theology is by nature dogmatic and science is not.
They both can be, or they both can avoid dogmatism, depending on the
practitioner. In fact, those that use that argument are often the most
dogmatic themselves! (We invariably accuse people of the sins that we are
most familiar with, our own.) So it pays to look at the Medieval period as a
fertile time for science that could escape from dogmatism, and it this
effort pays off when we look at the impact of Aristotle on Medieval
scholars.
Twelfth Century: Aquinas/Aristotle
- Reintroduction of Aristotle
- Matter eternal
- Absence of vacuum
- Inductive, scientific approach to truth
- Church bans Aristotelian "absolutes" as pagan, in 1277, but
incorporates science. e.g. "Sentences" by
Peter Abelard as hypothetical.
Quote from God & Nature, p. 69
Ironically, rather than inhibiting scientific discussion, theologians may
have inadvertently produced the opposite effect... Theological restrictions
embodied in the Condemnation of 1277 may have actually prompted
consideration of plausible and implausible alternatives and prohibitions far
beyond what Aristotelian natural philosophers might otherwise have
considered... That medieval theologians combined extensive and intensive
training in both natural philosophy and theology and possessed exclusive
rights to interrelate the two, may provide a key to explain the
absence of a science-theology conflict in the extensive commentary
literature on the Sentences and Scripture. For the host of issues
they regularly confronted, the medieval theologian - natural philosophers
knew how to subordinate the one dscipline to the other and to avoid conflict
and confrontation. Indeed, they were in an excellent positioin to harmonize
the two disciplines while simultaneously pursuing all manner of hypothetical
and contrary-to-fact conditions and possibilities.
Via Media
The major point I want to make from this Medieval synthesis, is that
natural truth (as expressed so eloquently by Aristotle) was hypothetical, it
could change, or even turn out to be wrong. However God was unchanging, and
properly discovered, truth would reflect that characteristic. Why was this
important? This leads to Jaki's thesis in "The Savior of Science",
that this desire for "unchanging truth" in the face of "changing hypotheses"
made science possible. That is, modern science is the product of a delicate
balancing act, holding Plato's conviction in the real existence of a world
"out there", while simultaneously taking Aristotle's theorizing and
generalizations as hypothetical and subject to change. The importance of
this balancing act, this via media is perhaps best appreciated by
looking at "failed" scientific endeavors.
Jaki argues that counter-examples of failed science abound.
- Chinese medicine: bad metaphysics, emphasis on appearances
- Islamic alchemy: misdirected into "magic", alchemy, philosopher's stone etc.
- Greek science: not enough money? not enough experiments?
- Egyptian magic:
What was important was that science could not claim to be absolute
truth, nor absolute falsehood. This was the via media. I believe that
this view is nearly the same as the theological view of accomodation
(which McGrath discusses in context with Calvin and Galileo), wherein a
Biblical truth was put into language that was understandable by the public,
without necessarily meaning that the truth was being distorted or
misrepresented. E.g., saying the "sun rose" did not require a moving sun,
only that it appeared to us that way in a very simple manner. Thus if
theology could read its "Book of God" as an approximation to truth, so
science could read its "Book of Nature" as an approximation to reality. This
was the liberating concept that enabled modern science.
The Curse of Harry Potter
With the release of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies, and the
antipathy of some conservative Christians to the former and not the latter,
a lot of people are confused why "magic" should have such varying
connotations. I mean, if Christians hate Harry because of magic, why do they
love Gandalf? (And what has this conundrum got to do with science?). The
answer can be found in both Brook and Jaki's presentations. (I have, perhaps
unsuccessfully, addressed the problem in a letter to my
colleagues as well.) The problem is not that magic is pseudo-science
("false" science), it is also anti-science. That is, magic supplies an
explanation for observations that posits a very different universe and
metaphysical explanation for events which cannot tolerate a scientific
explanation, and therefore attempts to supplant it. (Look, for example, at
the conflict of muggles and magicians in Harry Potter.) If you were to take
all the anger, all the arguments of the anti-religion proponents, and
substitute the word "magic" for "religion", you would capture my sentiments
exactly. It is precisely because Christianity defeated magic that science
was liberated from its straightjacket of bad metaphysics. It is precisely
because Christianity was opposed to magic that Moses defeated Egypt, that
Paul defeated Elymas the magician. It was because Charlemagne defeated the
Moors that science developed in Europe. To rebaptise magic as acceptable
belief rings the death knell for science.
Strangely enough, Lord of the Rings does not portray magic the same way as
Harry Potter. Rather one gets a sense that "magic" in Tolkien is merely
"ancient wisdom" or forgotten science. For example, even when Gandalf is
taken captive on a tower, he cannot invoke magic to transport himself the
way "flu powder" or "flying convertibles" show up in Harry Potter. The
metaphysical underpinnings of the two novels are completely different, and
it is this difference that makes one "magic" and other merely "mystery".
Science is compatible with Tolkien, but not with Rowland. Ultimately what I
hope to convey in this course are the environmental variables most conducive
to science, and that is why I find Harry Potter so objectionable. And that
is what made the Medieval Synthesis so necessary in the history of science.
Last modified, January 14, 2002, RbS