Science and the Church Fathers PDF

SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH FATHERS The science with which early Christians had to deal with was a branch of philosophy built on the so-called natural books of Aristotle. Unlike modern science, Aristotle's work was highly speculative and had almost no practical applications. Furthermore, we now know that...

SCIENCE AND THE CHURCH FATHERS The science with which early Christians had to deal with was a branch of philosophy built on the so-called natural books of Aristotle. Unlike modern science, Aristotle's work was highly speculative and had almost no practical applications. Furthermore, we now know that the majority of its conclusions were wrong. The Early church Fathers and Science – However, his (Tertullian) concern was with pagan ethics rather than natural philosophy. He simply was not interested in science. Where it could be useful was in biblical interpretation. Origen thought that mathematical disciplines like astronomy and geometry were useful tools for exegesis (interpretation of Scripture). He compared pagan learning to the gold of the Egyptians that the Hebrews had taken with them at the exodus. Christians should simply take those parts of Greek science that were useful and ignore the rest. Basil makes much of the fact that Greek thinkers frequently disagreed about fundamental questions. As a mere spectator to their arguments, he quickly deduced he could not rely on any of them. The Latin Fathers – In the Western Empire, where Latin rather than Greek was the common language, only the most educated had direct access to the works of philosophers and mathematicians like Aristotle and Ptolemy. This means that relatively few of the Latin fathers interacted closely with Greek science. Augustine recognized the achievements of ancient astronomers – for instance, their ability to predict eclipses – while rejecting their ability as astrologers to predict the future. He used his scientific knowledge to add nuance to his biblical interpretation and was also concerned that Christians might be exposed to ridicule if they lacked sufficient education in science. Unfortunately, Augustine's work is therefore somewhat compromised by the inaccuracies of the pagan thinkers he is using in order to understand Holy Scripture. For example, he interpreted the reference to the water above the firmament in Genesis 1”6-7 through the medium of Aristotle's theory of the elements. The waters above the firmament led Christian thinkers to postulate that there were three heavens the outermost empyrean where God and his angels dwell; the crystalline watery heaven; and below that the firmament containing the visible stars. Thus biblical interpreting base on whatever happened to be the latest science of the time are always vulnerable to the science later being proven wrong. Late Antiquity – John Philoponus is the first writer to note that heavy objects fall at much the same speed as light objects. This is contrary to one of Aristotle's axioms, and yet the converse is easily demonstrated. Opposition to Christianity – Also during the 3rd century, Christianity became influential enough to provoke a hostile response. Neoplatonism, a blend of the philosophy of Plato with magical and theological thinking, became the dominant school of pagan thought. Some of its major figures, such as Porphyry (whose polemical works were banned by the Christian Roman Empire), were actively antagonistic toward Christianity. However, Neoplatonism was a mystical creed that was far removed from the natural science of Aristotle. The philosophy that the later church fathers found themselves opposing looked nothing like what we think of as science today. Neoplatonic opposition to Christianity provoked a reaction from the authorities once the Roman Empire became officially Christian in the 4 th century. Pagan philosophers had set up shop in Athens, then something of a backwater city, to reestablish the ancient academy of Plato, which had been closed down by the Romans in 86 BC. This new school was eventually shut on the orders of the emperor Justinian in AD 529 as part of this campaign to Christianize the empire.