• Greco-Roman Era
• Ancient World View
• 500 BCE – 500 CE
• 312 – Battle of Milvian Bridge
• 313 – Edit of Milan
• Barbarian invasions 4th to 6th
centuries.
• St. Augustine, early 5th century.
• 455 – Rome sacked by Vandals.
• 476 – Last Roman Emperor in the
West. The Fall of Rome.
THE MIDDLE AGES
Early Middle Ages, 500-1000
(Dark Ages)
Late Middle Ages, 1000-1350
•
“Faced with the fact that there already existed in the
greater Mediterranean culture a sophisticated philosophical
tradition from the Greeks, the educated class of early
Christians rapidly saw the need for integrating that
tradition with their religious faith…. Yet this was
considered no marriage of convenience, for the spiritually
resonant Platonic philosophy not only harmonized with, it
also elaborated and intellectually enhanced, the Christian
conceptions derived from the revelations of the New
Testament…. Thus as Christian culture matured during its
first several centuries, its religious thought developed into
a systematic theology, and although that theology was
Judaeo-Christian in substance, its metaphysical structure
was largely Platonic….It was Augustine’s formulation of
Christian Platonism that was to permeate virtually all of
medieval Christian thought in the West” Tarnas p.101-103.
• “Safeguarding the faith was thus the first priority
in any question of philosophical or religious
dialogue: hence that dialogue was often curtailed
altogether lest the devil of doubt or unorthodoxy
gain a foothold in the vulnerable minds of the
faithful. … And so it was that the pluralism of
classical culture, with its multiplicity of
philosophies, its diversity of polytheistic
mythologies, and its plethora of mystery religions,
gave way to an emphatically monolithic system –
one God, one Church, one Truth.” Tarnas p. 118119.
“All curiosity is at an end after
Jesus, all research after the Gospel.
Let us have Faith and wish for
nothing more.”
Tertullian, 3rd century convert and
Church leader.
• In the later Middle Ages, “Christianity’s earlier
need to distinguish and strengthen itself by a more
or less rigid exclusion of pagan culture lost some
of its urgency….. Within the womb of the
medieval Church, the world-denying philosophy
forged by Augustine and based on Plato began
giving way to a fundamentally different approach
to existence, as the Scholastics in effect
recapitulated the movement from Plato to
Aristotle….That shift was sparked in the 12th and
13th centuries with the West’s rediscovery of a
large corpus of Aristotle’s writings, preserved by
the Moslems and Byzantines and now translated
into Latin.” Tarnas p. 175-176
Anselm of Canterbury
(1033 - 1109)
“It seems to me a case of negligence if,
after becoming firm in our faith, we do
not strive to understand what we
believe.”
• “…it was the meticulous and energetic
attempt to synthesize Aristotelian science
with the indubitable tenets of Christian
revelation that was bringing forth all the
critical intelligence that would ultimately
turn against both the ancient and the
ecclesiastical authorities. In retrospect,
Aquinas’ Summa had been one of the final
steps of the medieval mind toward full
intellectual independence.” Tarnas p. 201.
THE RENAISSANCE AND
THE REFORMATION
1350 - 1600
PRECURSORS OF THE RENAISSANCE
HIGH MIDDLE AGES (~ 1000)
•
•
•
•
•
A measure of political security
Innovations in agriculture
Population increase particularly in cities
Increased literacy
Contacts with Islamic and Byzantine cultures and
the recovery of classical texts
• Founding of Universities in the West
• Changes in the Church’s attitude toward secular
learning
RENAISSANCE
• A reaction against Aristotle and a revival of Platonism (in part because
of his superior literary style).
• Ancient culture was a source not just for scientific knowledge and
rules for logical discourse, (as it was for the Scholastics) but for the
deepening and enrichment of the human spirit. Page 209.
• Forsaking the ideal of monastic poverty, Renaissance man embraced
the enrichment of life afforded by personal wealth, and Humanist
scholars and artists flourished in the new cultural climate subsidized by
the Italian commercial and aristocratic elites. Page 228.
• There was … an emphatic emergence of a new consciousness -expansive, rebellious, energetic and creative, individualistic, ambitious
and often unscrupulous, curious, self-confident, committed to this life
and this world. Page 231.
REFORMATION
FACTORS LEADING TO THE REFORMATION
• The selling of indulgences.
• The long-developing political secularism of the Church
hierarchy.
• The prevalence of both deep piety and poverty among the
Church faithful, in contrast to an often irreligious but
socially and economically privileged clergy.
• The rise of nationalism.
• An anti-Hellenic spirit that sought to purify Christianity
and return it to its pristine biblical foundation.
Martin Luther
(1483 - 1546 * Germany)
• 1507 - near-death experience and
vow to become a monk.
• 1517 - nails Ninety-five Theses
against indulgences to church
door.
• Bible is the only spiritual
authority.
• Priesthood of all believers.
• Salvation by faith alone.
Luther desperately sought for a gracious God’s
redemption in the face of so much evidence to the
contrary, evidence both of God’s damning
judgement and of Luther’s own sinfulness. He
failed to find that grace in himself or in his own
works, nor did he find it in the Church -- not in its
sacraments, not in its ecclesiastical hierarchy, and
assuredly not in its papal indulgences. It was,
finally, the faith in God’s redeeming power as
revealed through Christ in the Bible, and that
alone, which rendered Luther’s experience of
salvation, and upon that exclusive rock he built his
new church of a reformed Christianity. Page 234.
Protestantism and the Scientific Revolution
• At first glance, the spirit of Protestantism would seem to
have very little to do with that of the New Science, since in
matters religious Protestantism placed all the weight of its
emphasis upon the irrational datum of faith, as against the
imposing rational structures of medieval theology. In
secular matters, however – and particularly in its relation
toward nature – Protestantism fitted in very well with the
New Science. By stripping away the wealth of images and
symbols from medieval Christianity, Protestantism
unveiled nature as a realm of objects hostile to the spirit
and to be conquered by puritan zeal and industry. Thus,
Protestantism, like science, helped carry forward that
immense project of modern man; the de-spiritualization of
nature. William Barrett, Irrational Man, p. 24.
THE SCIENTIFIC
REVOLUTION
1600 - 1700
SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
• Both the final expression of the Renaissance and
its definitive contribution to the modern world
view.
• Acute metaphysical turmoil due to irresolvable
religious conflicts produced a need for a clarifying
and unifying vision.
• Neoplatonic/Pythagorean conviction that nature is
ultimately comprehensible in simple and
harmonious mathematical terms.
Nicolaus Copernicus
(1473-1543 * Poland)
Reintroduced the heliocentric model
• Simplified explanation of: retrograde
motion, variable brightness of planets,
Mercury and Venus always appearing
near Sun
Opposed because:
• It contradicted the Bible
• Geocentric universe had been
incorporated into the very theology of
Christianity (heaven, hell, the centrality
of humanity)
Copernicus’ dissatisfaction with the Ptolemaic
theory did not stem from a preconceived notion
that the Sun, not the Earth was the center of the
Universe. He felt that a satisfactory representation
of the solar system should be coherent and
physically plausible, not requiring a different
construction for each phenomenon, as Ptolemy’s
system did. To him, Ptolemy’s system was ugly
and therefore could not represent the work of the
Creator (neoplatonism).
Tycho Brahe
(1546-1601 * Denmark)
• Accumulated decades of very accurate
data on the locations of celestial objects
• Developed geocentric model based on
observational evidence that the earth did
not move
• Hired Kepler in 1600 to mathematically
analyze his data with the aim of proving
his model correct
Johannes Kepler
(1571-1630 * Germany)
• Believed for aesthetic reasons in
heliocentric model
• Determined laws of planetary motion
by trial and error, checking
calculations against Brahe’s data
• Like Copernicus, believed in the
physical reality of the model
Galileo Galilei
(1564-1642 * Italy)
First to use telescope to study heavens
•
•
•
•
•
Mountains and craters on the moon
Rotation of the sun
Phases of Venus
Moons of Jupiter
Stars in the Milky Way
Revealed heavens in their gross
materiality
1633 - condemned by Inquisition
Isaac Newton
(1642 - 1727 * England)
• Copernican system destroyed
Aristotle’s explanation of motion
and offered nothing to take its
place.
• 1687 - Principia. Laws of motion
and the law of gravity.
• Established physical basis for
Kepler’s laws as well as the
trajectory motion of cannonballs.
• Basis for later mechanisticdeterministic world view.
• It was not accidental to Newton’s
accomplishment that he had systematically
employed a practical synthesis of Bacon’s
inductive empiricism and Descartes’
deductive mathematical rationalism, thereby
bring to fruition the scientific method first
forged by Galileo.
Modern Worldview
• Science emerged as the West’s new faith. 282
• Autonomous human reason had fully displaced traditional
sources of knowledge about the universe and in turn had
defined its own limits as those constituted by the
boundaries and methods of empirical science. 284
• … no multiplicity of cognitive modes; rational and
empirical faculties alone. 287
• The universe was impersonal not personal; nature’s laws
were natural not supernatural. The physical world
possessed no intrinsic deeper meaning. 288
• The Christian sense of Original Sin, the Fall, and collective
human guilt now receded in favor of an optimistic
affirmation of human self-development and the eventual
triumph of rationality and science over human ignorance,
suffering and social evils. 290
• Elements of the modern world view are evident today just
as elements of earlier views were evident in 18th and 19th
century, but it is not today’s view.
• Many feel reliance on reason characterizes modern
worldview. However empirical evidence is much more
important.
• 18th and 19th century scientists were, in general, believers
though many were Deists.
The Mechanistic-Deterministic Worldview
Given the classical physicist’s world view, it is reasonable to
believe that everything that happens in the universe is no more
than a manifestation of the motion and interaction of the
constituent atoms of matter. This motion is governed by
perfectly deterministic laws; the mathematical physicist Laplace
speculated that if one could only observe at some instant every
atom in the universe and record its motion, both the future and
the past would hold no secrets. Put another way, all of history
was determined, down to the last detail, when the universe was
set in motion. The rise and fall of empires, indeed, the heart
break of every forgotten love affair, represent no more than the
inevitable workings of the laws of physics; the universe marches
on like a gigantic clockwork. Robert March, Physics for Poets.
Charles Darwin
(1809 - 1882 * England)
1831 - 1836 Darwin served as naturalist
aboard the H.M.S. Beagle.
Beagle
1859 ‘Origin of the Species’
I have called this principle, by which each
slight variation, if useful, is preserved,
by the term Natural Selection. From
Origin of the Species.