Augustus
…
Link: Science, Religion and Modernity
This is a fascinating series of lectures delivered as part of the prestigious Gifford Lectures series Edinburgh University by the academic historian of science Peter Harrison (formerly of Oxford University and now of the University of Queensland: just to clarify it is not 'religious apologetics').
It focuses on the relationship between religion and science in the Western tradition and is a comprehensive refutation of the 'conflict thesis' that exists in popular discourse (although long since discredited among historians).
It's not really presented as a refutation as such, more a comprehensive history of the development of both the concepts of religion and science throughout history.
More than simply making the point that the narrative of conflict between the disciplines is wrong, it really makes the point that it is nonsensical as neither religion or science in the modern usages of the term really existed prior to the 18th C.
Starting from the ancient Greeks, it argues that natural philosophy, which is often seen as proto-science bears little resemblance to modern conceptions of science. As the name suggests, natural philosophy was a branch of philosophy and had different aims to modern science rather than simply being the same thing under a different name.
For the Greeks philosophy was a method of cultivating virtue and the good life and science was a means to an end in this regard. 'Science' was thus an internal virtue rather than a reified discipline.
Moreover, the idea that science was a 'handmaiden of theology' was not a Christian formulation, but was Aristotelean in origin. Theology was thus intrinsic to Greek science.
With the rise of Christianity, the theological component of Greek knowledge was ignored due to being superseded by Christian theology, but natural philosophy always remained a discipline in which God played a significant role.
Due to certain theological beliefs such as the Fall of Man, Christian scientists like Boyle, Newton and Bacon rejected the Greek belief that reason alone was sufficient in order to practice natural philosophy. This gave rise to the experimental approach prevalent in modern science. At first this approach was widely mocked as being useless, and mainly gained social legitimacy (and thus funding and longevity) due to its perceived benefit to theology.
In the early modern period, science and religion transformed from being internal virtues to become externalised, reified concepts that developed into the modern terms as we would recognise today. This resulted in the modern idea that science, and society in general, progress on a gradually upward arc, and the contrasting belief that religion was regressive and held back progress. Prior to this, presenting such a view would have made little conceptual sense.
While I appreciate most people will have no intention of listening to 6 hours worth of lectures, the odd person might. I would especially recommend it to anyone who believes in the Conflict Thesis as it explains very clearly the massive flaws in such beliefs with recourse to numerous primary texts and analysis of historical data.
If you only watch/listen to one of them then I'd recommend 5 science and progress.
LECTURE ABSTRACTS:
1. The Territories of Science and Religion
So familiar are the concepts ‘science’ and ‘religion’, and so central to Western culture have been the activities and achievements that are usually labelled ‘religious’ and ‘scientific’, that it is natural to assume that they have been enduring features of the cultural landscape of the West. However, this view is misleading.
Only in the past few hundred years have religious beliefs and activities been bounded by a common notion ‘religion’ and set apart from the ‘non-religious’ or secular domains of human existence. The idea of natural sciences as discrete activities conducted in isolation from religious and moral concerns is even more recent, dating from the nineteenth century. Both categories, ‘religion’ and ‘science’, distort what they claim to represent.
2. The Cosmos and the Religious Quest
In antiquity and for much of the Middle Ages the formal study of nature—natural philosophy—was, as the name implies, part of the discipline of philosophy.
Philosophy itself, from its inception in ancient Greece, had been understood as a form of spiritual exercises. As a consequence, a primary goal of what we call science was, in this earlier period, moral and spiritual formation. These conceptions were to influence the identity of Western Christianity, which came to understand itself as ‘the true philosophy’. The study of nature in the Middle Ages was thus an important element of the religious life.
3. The Disenchantment of the World
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the contemplative approach to nature, along with the emphasis on religious and intellectual formation, was replaced by a more utilitarian project, and nature itself was stripped of much of its symbolic religious significance.
This process of disenchantment was partly driven by religious factors. At the same time, related developments saw the transformation of both philosophy and religion. The former became less concerned with the pursuit of the philosophical life, while a new conception of religion emphasised explicit belief and observable religious practice, and distinguished various ‘religions’ according to these criteria.
4. Fallen Knowledge
One factor in the disenchantment of nature was the doctrine of the Fall, which had risen to prominence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
On this view, because the world had fallen from its original integrity it could not be an impeccable source of theological or moral truths. The human mind, in its fallen condition, was also now thought to lack the capacity to discern the true natures of things. These ideas promoted the emergence of experimental science, which is premised on the assumption that knowledge of nature is difficult to acquire.
The new emphasis on the obscurity of nature, the fallibility of knowledge, and the moral corruption of human agents also challenged a medieval synthesis which held that Christianity and classical philosophy had a common goal. The efforts of students of nature will henceforth be directed away from a self-mastery to a literal and progressive mastery of the physical world.
5. Science and Progress
The Fall-Redemption narrative not only informed the goals and methods of the new sciences, but also placed the scientific revolution within the larger context of Christian history.
The great efflorescence of scientific activity that characterised the seventeenth century was regarded variously as a prelude to the millennium, as one facet of a general reformation of religion and learning, or as a means of helping to restore to the human race a mastery of nature that had been lost as a consequence of the Fall.
The idea of scientific progress thus initially derived its legitimacy from a providential understanding of history. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the emergence of a number of ‘scientific eschatologies’, which, in their secularised forms in the nineteenth century, were ironically to consign religion to a primitive stage of historical development. On this view of history, religion was destined to be displaced by science.
6. Religion and the Future of Science
The last few decades have witnessed a growing public disillusionment with a scientific enterprise that for much of the twentieth century had enjoyed unparalleled prestige.
The narrative of progress without limit now also looks a little threadbare. This final lecture considers whether the new ‘flight from science’ represents a regrettable defection from reason and ‘Enlightenment values’, or whether it presents an opportunity to reconnect the study of nature with the kinds of moral and religious values that once played a prominent role in its genesis and development.
This is a fascinating series of lectures delivered as part of the prestigious Gifford Lectures series Edinburgh University by the academic historian of science Peter Harrison (formerly of Oxford University and now of the University of Queensland: just to clarify it is not 'religious apologetics').
It focuses on the relationship between religion and science in the Western tradition and is a comprehensive refutation of the 'conflict thesis' that exists in popular discourse (although long since discredited among historians).
It's not really presented as a refutation as such, more a comprehensive history of the development of both the concepts of religion and science throughout history.
More than simply making the point that the narrative of conflict between the disciplines is wrong, it really makes the point that it is nonsensical as neither religion or science in the modern usages of the term really existed prior to the 18th C.
Starting from the ancient Greeks, it argues that natural philosophy, which is often seen as proto-science bears little resemblance to modern conceptions of science. As the name suggests, natural philosophy was a branch of philosophy and had different aims to modern science rather than simply being the same thing under a different name.
For the Greeks philosophy was a method of cultivating virtue and the good life and science was a means to an end in this regard. 'Science' was thus an internal virtue rather than a reified discipline.
Moreover, the idea that science was a 'handmaiden of theology' was not a Christian formulation, but was Aristotelean in origin. Theology was thus intrinsic to Greek science.
With the rise of Christianity, the theological component of Greek knowledge was ignored due to being superseded by Christian theology, but natural philosophy always remained a discipline in which God played a significant role.
Due to certain theological beliefs such as the Fall of Man, Christian scientists like Boyle, Newton and Bacon rejected the Greek belief that reason alone was sufficient in order to practice natural philosophy. This gave rise to the experimental approach prevalent in modern science. At first this approach was widely mocked as being useless, and mainly gained social legitimacy (and thus funding and longevity) due to its perceived benefit to theology.
In the early modern period, science and religion transformed from being internal virtues to become externalised, reified concepts that developed into the modern terms as we would recognise today. This resulted in the modern idea that science, and society in general, progress on a gradually upward arc, and the contrasting belief that religion was regressive and held back progress. Prior to this, presenting such a view would have made little conceptual sense.
While I appreciate most people will have no intention of listening to 6 hours worth of lectures, the odd person might. I would especially recommend it to anyone who believes in the Conflict Thesis as it explains very clearly the massive flaws in such beliefs with recourse to numerous primary texts and analysis of historical data.
If you only watch/listen to one of them then I'd recommend 5 science and progress.
LECTURE ABSTRACTS:
1. The Territories of Science and Religion
So familiar are the concepts ‘science’ and ‘religion’, and so central to Western culture have been the activities and achievements that are usually labelled ‘religious’ and ‘scientific’, that it is natural to assume that they have been enduring features of the cultural landscape of the West. However, this view is misleading.
Only in the past few hundred years have religious beliefs and activities been bounded by a common notion ‘religion’ and set apart from the ‘non-religious’ or secular domains of human existence. The idea of natural sciences as discrete activities conducted in isolation from religious and moral concerns is even more recent, dating from the nineteenth century. Both categories, ‘religion’ and ‘science’, distort what they claim to represent.
2. The Cosmos and the Religious Quest
In antiquity and for much of the Middle Ages the formal study of nature—natural philosophy—was, as the name implies, part of the discipline of philosophy.
Philosophy itself, from its inception in ancient Greece, had been understood as a form of spiritual exercises. As a consequence, a primary goal of what we call science was, in this earlier period, moral and spiritual formation. These conceptions were to influence the identity of Western Christianity, which came to understand itself as ‘the true philosophy’. The study of nature in the Middle Ages was thus an important element of the religious life.
3. The Disenchantment of the World
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the contemplative approach to nature, along with the emphasis on religious and intellectual formation, was replaced by a more utilitarian project, and nature itself was stripped of much of its symbolic religious significance.
This process of disenchantment was partly driven by religious factors. At the same time, related developments saw the transformation of both philosophy and religion. The former became less concerned with the pursuit of the philosophical life, while a new conception of religion emphasised explicit belief and observable religious practice, and distinguished various ‘religions’ according to these criteria.
4. Fallen Knowledge
One factor in the disenchantment of nature was the doctrine of the Fall, which had risen to prominence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
On this view, because the world had fallen from its original integrity it could not be an impeccable source of theological or moral truths. The human mind, in its fallen condition, was also now thought to lack the capacity to discern the true natures of things. These ideas promoted the emergence of experimental science, which is premised on the assumption that knowledge of nature is difficult to acquire.
The new emphasis on the obscurity of nature, the fallibility of knowledge, and the moral corruption of human agents also challenged a medieval synthesis which held that Christianity and classical philosophy had a common goal. The efforts of students of nature will henceforth be directed away from a self-mastery to a literal and progressive mastery of the physical world.
5. Science and Progress
The Fall-Redemption narrative not only informed the goals and methods of the new sciences, but also placed the scientific revolution within the larger context of Christian history.
The great efflorescence of scientific activity that characterised the seventeenth century was regarded variously as a prelude to the millennium, as one facet of a general reformation of religion and learning, or as a means of helping to restore to the human race a mastery of nature that had been lost as a consequence of the Fall.
The idea of scientific progress thus initially derived its legitimacy from a providential understanding of history. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the emergence of a number of ‘scientific eschatologies’, which, in their secularised forms in the nineteenth century, were ironically to consign religion to a primitive stage of historical development. On this view of history, religion was destined to be displaced by science.
6. Religion and the Future of Science
The last few decades have witnessed a growing public disillusionment with a scientific enterprise that for much of the twentieth century had enjoyed unparalleled prestige.
The narrative of progress without limit now also looks a little threadbare. This final lecture considers whether the new ‘flight from science’ represents a regrettable defection from reason and ‘Enlightenment values’, or whether it presents an opportunity to reconnect the study of nature with the kinds of moral and religious values that once played a prominent role in its genesis and development.
