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 \u201cscientific revolution\u201d of the seventeenth century invented science as we know it. And the false beliefs and impediments to science are Christianity’s fault.<\/p>\n
There’s just one problem: All four statements are false.<\/p>\n
As Rodney Stark writes in his new book, FOR THE GLORY OF GOD, \u201cevery educated person\u201d of Columbus’s time, especially Christian clergy, \u201cknew the earth was round.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
As for Copernicus’s sudden flash of insight, Stark quotes the eminent historian L. Bernard Cohen who called that idea \u201can invention of later historians.\u201d Copernicus \u201cwas taught the essential fundamentals leading to his model by his Scholastic professors\u201d \u2014 that is, Christian scholars.<\/p>\n
That model was \u201cdeveloped gradually by a succession of … Scholastic scientists over the previous two centuries.\u201d Building upon their work on orbital mechanics, Copernicus added the \u201cIMPLICIT next step.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thus, the idea that science was invented in the seventeenth century, \u201cwhen a weakened Christianity could no longer prevent it,\u201d 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 \u2014 Christians \u2014 not the Enlightenment, invented modern science.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In Stark’s words, \u201cChristian theology was necessary for the rise of science.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
That’s because Christianity depicted God as a \u201crational, responsive, dependable, and omnipotent being\u201d who created a universe with a \u201crational, lawful, stable\u201d structure. These beliefs uniquely led to \u201cfaith in the possibility of science.\u201d<\/p>\n
So why the Columbus myth? Because, as Stark writes, \u201cthe 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.\u201d Opponents of Christianity have used bogus accounts like the ones I’ve mentioned not only to discredit Christianity, but also to position themselves as \u201cliberators\u201d of the human mind and spirit.<\/p>\n
It’s up to us to set the record straight. I think it’s time to tell our neighbors that what everyone knows about Christianity and science is just plain wrong.<\/p>\n
FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts and the End of Slavery (Princeton University Press, 2003).<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u201cThe Myth of the Flat Earth,\u201d Bede’s Library.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Learn more about John of Sacrobosco and Sphere.<\/p>\n
\u2022 J. Kennedy, O.P., \u201cSt. Thomas Aquinas and Medieval Philosophy,\u201d 1919.<\/p>\n
\u2022 See BreakPoint commentaries \u201cOf Science and Religion,\u201d \u201cWagging the Dog,\u201d \u201cAn Old Urban Legend: Confused by the Copernican Clich\u00e9,\u201d and \u201cTwo Heavenly Subjects.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Vincent Carroll and David Shiflett, Christianity on Trial: Arguments against Anti-Religious Bigotry (Encounter, 2000).<\/p>\n
__________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint with Chuck Colson” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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