In a recent issue of the e-newsletter of cbeinternational a comment was made about the church opposing Copernicus' ideas about the solar system.
I sent this note in reply:
It is easy to think that because the church opposed some scientific advances in the early modern period that it did so as 'the church'; that is, informed by the Bible. In fact the opposition was purely cultural. People like Copernicus did not so much 'rub the Bible up the wrong way' as they challenged the prevailing aristotelian philosphy that had been taken into the church (and is still within it). The irony is that the rise of modern science relied upon Christian believers who took the Bible at face value; today they would be called 'fundamentalists'. But perjoratives aside, it is the realism of the scriptures and the realist ontology they promote that has lead to modern science, rather than the pagan aristotelianism with its ontology that steps outside any revelation and is based on pure speculation.
Then the editor wrote back and asked that I simplify the language!!
And thus:
"The church is often misunderstood as opposing science in the early days of modern science. But this is not totally true. What happened is that the church followed the beliefs of the day which were based on ancient Greek (pagan) views of the natural world: we know today that these pagan views were wrong.
When original thinkers, with their views based on the Bible, looked at the world with fresh eyes, they often ended up in disagreement with the pagan based common beliefs. So, while they looked like they opposed the church, they were really opposing paganism, which the church authorities had swallowed too.
The irony is that modern science arose because of thinkers who took the Bible at face value and were able to look at the material world without the blinkers of paganism. This is because the Bible introduces us to a world that is created by God and is given to us to examine and understand. Some would argue that Adam naming the animals is the first record of us examining and understanding the world.
The notion that women and men have different 'roles' in the church is, I think a similar example of the church having absorbed the world and not reading the Bible for its radical confrontation with human pretences.
BTW, check the news of next year's conference.
