A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE

Observations on the history of the physical sciences

1. Greek science faded out because of its religious and philosophical background. Greek science was late in arising in the Alexandrian school when the influence of Greek philosophy was waning. (The Alexandrian school existed from about 400 B.C. to about 400 A.D.) After reaching its peaks with Archimedes (287-212 B.C.) and Ptolemy (c.100-178 A.D.) it began to decline. With its decline Greek science faded out. Why did Greek science fade out?
   1. Because of its view of the physical world.
      1. The pagan view of the physical world. Various forces and aspects of the physical world were worshiped as gods. The physical world in one aspect or another was divine or the province of the gods. Man was not permitted audaciously to pry too deeply into these divine secrets.
      2. The Greek view of the physical world.
         1. Because of the deification of the rational aspect of reality and treating the world apprehended by the senses as inferior, the physical world was ignored and sometimes actually considered evil as in Neoplatonism.
         2. Because the rational aspect of reality was viewed as static and unchanging, ultimate reality has no freedom. For example, Plato's demiurge has no freedom; he has to order the physical world in accordance with the eternal Ideas and he cannot accomplish this, as matter resists full regimentation by the ideal form or the eternal Ideas. Change and freedom are despised. Since man's mind is part of this rational aspect of reality, man already knows what is possible in the physical world. Study of the physical world is incidental and unnecessary.
   2. Because of its view of the scientific method and science.
      1. Since the Greek view of reality assumed that the distinction between reason and sensation was fundamental, the scientific method according to the Greek view as expressed by Aristotle has two phases: inductive and deductive. Because of its despisal of the world of sense, the inductive phase and observation were undervalued. Plato, for example, laughs at the astronomers who expect to find truth from the observation of the ceiling of the heavens. But their despisal of manual labor (see below) led to their neglect of experiments. According to Aristotle the inductive method does not involve experimentation. Again, Plato, for example, mocks the Pythagoreans for the use of torturing instruments in order to obtain knowledge.
      2. Since the orthodox stream of Greek thought assumed that the rational was ultimate reality, mathematics with its ideal and unchangeable objects was considered the type of true knowledge and the highest science. Astronomy was slightly inferior, and the terrestrial sciences, where so much change occurs, were still less worthwhile. In all the sciences, the Greeks dealt only with the unchanging rational aspect. Those sciences which dealt with change were ignored.
   3. Because of its view of work. Manual labor was for slaves. It was beneath the dignity of the philosopher-scientist to dirty his hands with slave's work; contemplation and, for a very few, sometimes observation were his main tasks. This contempt for manual labor led to the neglect of experimentation and the applied sciences. Aristotle thought that all useful things had already been invented; the Roman philosopher Seneca deemed the invention of instruments and tools good for slaves and artisans, but below the dignity of the philosopher; Archimedes and Euclid are reported to have been of same opinion. Plato exhorted his followers not to prostitute Mathematical Principles to common Apprehension and Practice.
   Conclusion: Greek science faded out because of this religious and philosophical background.

2. Because of the attempted synthesis of the Greek-Roman and the Hebrew-Christian views of reality in the Middle Ages, the rise of modern physcal sciences was delayed. In the theology and philosophy of Augustine the Platonic-Neoplatonic expressions of the Greek world view and the Hebrew-Christian world view were combined, and in the theology and philosophy of Thomas Aquinas the Augustinian synthesis was further combined with the Aristotelian expression of the Greek view of reality. In these syntheses the Greek view of the physical world, of the scientific method, of science, and of work hindered the influence and obscured the implications of the Hebrew-Christian world view for the physical sciences. Medieval Christianity had too much of the Greek world view in it to do justice to the Hebrew-Christian world view. Medieval science was hampered in its development by its Greek heritage. The tendency toward pantheism in such theologians as John Scotus Erigena (810-877) reveals how much unconscious nature-worship was present in the Augustinian conception of the physical world. By interpreting God's unchangeableness in a Greek fashion the medievals shared with the Greeks such assumptions as that
   1. no new stars could arise,
   2. no more than one planetary system could exist,
   3. only circular motion could take place in the heavens,
   4. the earth could not move,
   5. no new species could arise,
   6. natural compounds could not be made by art.
   Thomas Aquinas accepted the rationalistic Greek interpretation of the physical world: he admitted that nature normally behaved according to the scheme of Aristotle, but he modified this scheme by holding that deviations from it could take place in a supernatural way, thus allowing for miraculous divine intervention.

   Only as this Greek view of the physical world was discarded did the rise of modern physical sciences begin. This happened as the implications and nature of the Hebrew-Christian view of the physical world became clear. This came about first on a personal level, then only gradually on a cultural and intellectual level in the Reformation.

3. The modern physical sciences in their beginnings were a revolt against Greek science and by implication a revolt against the Greek world view. Because of the incompatible nature of the Greek world view and the Hebrew-Christian world view, the Augustinian and Thomistic synthesis began to disintegrate. One aspect of this disintegration was the revolution in the physical sciences called the scientific revolution. In astronomy Copernicus and Kepler revolted against the Ptolemaic system; in physics Galileo revolted against the Aristotelian physics; Newton continued the revolt in physics, and in mathematics he revolted against the static geometrical mathematics of the Pythagoreans and Euclid with the invention of the calculus to deal with change.

   Although delayed a century or more by the phlogiston theory of combusion, the revolution in chemistry was accomplished by Lavoisier who with the oxygen theory overthrew the phlogiston theory (phlogiston was nothing more than the ancient Aristotelian element of fire in a sophisticated form) and by Dalton who with the atomic theory overthrew the dominant Greek view of matter as continuous. Modern chemistry revolted against alchemy which had its beginnings in the Greek Alexandrian school and its theoretical basis in the Aristotelian view of the elements. The Copernican-Keplerian astronomy which discarded the circular motion of the heavens implied the rejection of the rationalistic approach to the study of the physical world with its apriori assumptions. The invention of the calculus to deal with change implied that change was not irrational and thus inferior to the unchanging and static. These are a few of the ways that the modern physical sciences revolted against Greek science and the Greek world view.

4. The Hebrew-Christian view of reality provided the unconscious motivation for the revolt against the Greek point of view in the physical sciences and the necessary background for the rise of the modern physical sciences. As the implications and nature of the Hebrew-Christian view of reality became clear, a transformation took place in man's view of the physical world, scientific method, science and work.
   1. The Hebrew-Christian world view produced a change of view concerning the physical world.
      1. Since the physical world is the free creation of God, it is not God nor a part of God - the various forces and aspects of the physical creation, such as the sun and moon, are not gods. Man is not subject to these gods, but rather the physical world is put under the dominion of man. That means, in principle, that there is no part of the physical world which is a sancturary into which he cannot go. Experiment with the physical world is now permissable.
      2. Since God created the physical world according to his free will and not according to reason, man cannot say beforehand that such and such a thing is impossible because it is not rational. God created things as it pleased Him, for He is not bound to any would-be objective reason (an "objective reason" which is in reality the subjective reason of man). God has ordered the physical world in certain ways according to his sovereign will and man will have to study it humbly to find if and to what extent it is according to reason. Reason is subject to experimentation and not experimentation to reason. Since the rational aspect of reality is not deified, the changing world of the senses is not inferior to the unchanging and static world of reason. Also when God created the physical world, He called it good and showed it is not evil by His Sons incarnation.
   2. The Hebrew-Christian view produced a change of view concerning the scientific method and science. Although the Bible contains no teaching concerning the scientific method or science, the Hebrew-Christian world view contained in it implications for science and the scientific method. Because of the dominion that God has given man over the physical world, man has the freedom, right and obligation to study and investigate the physical world. This investigation involves not only the observation of the physical world but also experimentation; i.e., putting questions to it and extracting answers to these questions. Also, since one part of the physical world is not more divine than another, one science is not more ideal or perfect than another; all the physical sciences are important and worthy of our participation and each has its own distinctive subject matter and method of investigation.
   3. The Hebrew-Christian world view produced a change of view concerning the nature of work. Not only did God give man work to do after He created him (Gen. 2:15) but He Himself sent His Son to become the son of a carpenter and no doubt followed in the footsteps of the carpenter-father until He began His ministry. Thus God Himself instituted and dignified work. Manual and technical labor is not inferior. The thinking of the scholar and philosopher is in no wise superior to the activity of the manual laborer and technician. This approval and dignity that has been given to manual and technical work led to the development of experimentation and applied science as we know them today.
   Conclusion: By producing these three changes of point of view concerning the physical world, scientific method, science and work, the Hebrew-Christian world view produced the unconscious and in some cases conscious motivation for the revolt against the Greek view of the physical world which we call the scientific revolution. Without these changes there would not exist the necessary background for the rise of the modern physical sciences.

5. Because a genuine Hebrew-Christian view was not adopted or developed concerning the sciences or scientific method (no Christian philosophy of science) modern rationalism, materialism, mechanism, determinism, evolutionism, and scientism took its place. In the attempt to put the results of modern science on a philosophical basis, 17th and 18th century philosophers and some of the scientists went back to the classical Greek point of view. Those who were Christian, both theologians and scientists, failed to protest against this return to the Greek point of view and in many cases did the same as the non-Christian philosophers. In fact, the Protestant theologians after Luther, both Lutheran and Calvinist, attempted a new synthesis of the Aristotelian expression of the Greek world view and the Christian world view that had been recovered for them by Luther. This new attempted synthesis, called Prostestant scholasticism, again obscured the distinctive nature and implications of the Christian world view and set Protestant theology in opposition to the revolt against the Greek world view taking place in the rise of the modern physical sciences. As a result of this Protestant scholasticism no genuine Christian philosophy of science was developed. The result was that the vacuum that was left was filled by modern form and developments of the classical or orthodox and unorthodox streams of Greek thought. The following are some of these:
   1. Rationalism: According to rationalism Reason is the ultimate criterion and source of knowledge. By Reason is meant that which is universal and necessary: that which must be true everywhere. Logic and mathematics are the highest embodiments of Reason. Historically there have been two forms of rationalism: ancient (Greek) and modern rationalism. Ancient rationalism is objective (in the external world) and static; modern rationalism is subjective (in the mind) and dynamic.
   2. Materialism: Matter is the ultimate reality. Everything in the universe is reducible to matter in motion and is completely explicable in terms of these two concepts. The world consists entirely of the motions and mechanical interactions of bodies. Hence mathematical laws describing these motions and mechanical interactions are the principles of all reality. Since man himself is part of the physical world, all of man also must be explained in terms of matter and motion. Thought as well as consciousness is only molecules in motion; the mind is the brain. See
      Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651;
      Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d'Holbach, System of Nature, 1770;
      Julien O. de la Mettrie, Man a Machine, 1748.
   3. Mechanism: The universe is a machine which operates according to precise mathematical laws of physics. The entire universe is a great harmonious and mathematically designed machine. The universe was often likened to a great clock. The founder of this mechanism is Descartes and it was extended to man by Julien O. de la Mettrie in his book Man a Machine (1748). Every atom in the universe, whether it is part of a lifeless substance or a living organism, moves according to the laws of mechanics. Therefore, every atom of the human body must move according to the same mechanical laws which govern the motion of the planets. Man, then, acts like a machine, a clock. Ideas, emotions, volitions are the necessary effect of matter mechanically acting on matter.
   4. Determinism: Each event is fixed by preceding events and fixes consequent events. As Laplace put it in his "Essay on the Calculus of Probabilities":

      "We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intelligence which at any given moment knew all the forces that animate nature, and the respective positions of the beings that compose it, and further possessing the scope to analyse these data, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the least atom: for such an intelligence nothing could be uncertain; and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."

      An omniscient mind, knowing the state of the universe at any instant, could, by applying the laws of mathematical physics, recreate the past and predict the furture. In such a world there are no goals or purposes; it just goes on existing. Man also follows the same blind mechanical necessity as everything else. His behavior is uniquely determined by the configuration and state of motion of all the other atoms in the universe. Thus the human will is determined by external physical and physiological causes. If this is so, there is no such thing as freedom of choice: what a man will do, the words he will utter, even how he will feel and think, all this is necessary outcome of the events preceding it. Free will is an illusion, a meaningless conjunction of words. Chance, also, is nothing but a word invented to express the known effect of an unknown cause.
   5. Evolutionism: The universe interpreted in terms of a development from lower and simpler forms of existence into higher and more complex. This view has its philosophical roots in Aristotle's philosophy. It was revived in the middle of the 19th century in order to fill the inadequacies of the cold, lifeless, impersonal mechanistic view of the world.
   6. Scientism: The scientific method if properly and consistently applied will solve all man's problems. This view amounts to a religion of the scientific method (see Horace M. Kallen, Democracy's True Religion, p. 10). Materialism, mechanism, and evolutionism are a deification of the results of science; scientism is a deification of science itself and its method.

6. There are four stages in the history of modern physical sciences:
   1. Pre-Newtonian: Revolt against the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic science during the 16th and 17th century.
   2. Newtonian: The reign of mechanism during the 18th century.
   3. Maxwellian: The decline of mechanism and the rise of field physics during the 19th century.
   4. Relativity and Quantum Mechanics: The revolt from mechanism and determinism during the 20th century.

7. The contemporary physical sciences not only continue the revolt against the Greek point of view but also against those substitutes for the Hebrew-Christian world view and for a Christian philosophy of science, i.e., materialism, mechanism, and determinism. The theories of relativity and quantum mechanics have both cut the ground from beneath these views; these views have lost their support from the physical sciences and now appear as the faiths or religious commitments they really are.

8. Conclusion: What should the Christian attitude here be?
   1. A recognition that these various views are idolatries and protest against them.
   2. The development of a genuine Christian philosophy of science (no synthesis with non-Christian philosophies) which will provide a true philosophical basis for the sciences and will make explicit the philosophical implications of the ultimate commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord for the physical sciences.
   3. To encourage and participate in the sciences. Because modern science and technology are to a great extent the fruit of Christianity, it is not necessary for us to develop a Christian physics, a Christian chemistry, etc. For to do so would be acting like a man who hunts for his glasses while they are all the time on his nose. But rather we should help to advance the sciences by our encouragement and participation in them.