Episode 35 - The Sacred Roots of Science: Tracing the Christian Influence on the Birth of Modern Knowledge

Explore the untold story of how the Christian faith profoundly influenced the birth of modern science. With a narrative that travels from the echoes of divine truth perfected in Jesus Christ to the secularization that reshaped our approach to the natural world, we promise a captivating journey. 

This episode peels back the layers of history to reveal the medieval roots of knowledge and the profound transformation during the scientific revolution, guided by seminal figures like Francis Bacon. You'll see how the pursuit of truth, once intertwined with moral and spiritual values, has evolved into a more ambiguous realm, where ethics and science don't always align as they once did.

Witness the Royal Society's rise from its pious beginnings to a beacon of empirical evidence and innovation. We pay homage to devout Christians such as John Willis, whose faith in empirical observation led to groundbreaking advancements in medicine and atomic theory. Their legacy, captured in the society's motto "Nothing by mere authority," serves as a testament to the enduring power of observation and evidence over mere tradition. This episode is not just a history lesson; it's an invitation to reflect on the relationship between religion and science and how faith once shaped the quest for understanding our world — an intellectual tapestry that continues to influence science and society to this day.

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:31

Welcome to episode 35 of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization and we are pushing into look at the rise of science on the foundation of Christ. Science began with the deep confidence that true knowledge of the world is not just a dream but is already a perfect reality in Jesus Christ. That is the foundation on which well, not just science, but all knowing in all modes rests on this that in God, the Son, the eternal Son, all knowledge, all truth and truth, correctly understood, interpreted, expressed, all of that is already a perfect reality in him, schiandia. Knowledge is not an illusion, but it already exists in Christ. He is born out of the Father and filled with the eternal spirit without limit, and because he is this eternal, visible expression of all that is within the Father he is, he has already comprehended all truth and given it its proper form and expression and life by the power of the spirit. That is an eternal reality. Knowledge does not need to be invented, but rather discovered. In the ultimate sense, knowledge already exists above and beyond us in a full, comprehensive form, so that we are not having to create knowledge but discover it, or really, we might want to say, receive it from Christ, the Divine Emperor. The truth is already out there before any human minds were there to know it. Now, building on this foundation, cultures have flourished all over the world and the modern scientific project began. People like Francis Bacon in the 16th century and the founders of the Royal Society in the 17th century explicitly and self-consciously built the work on the firm foundation of the mind of God in Christ.

Speaker 1: 3:42

The transition to the modern scientific worldview is one of the great revolutions of world history. This revolution is complex In many ways. The secularization of the scientific project led to a preoccupation with the way we see it. The exterior world was increasingly seen, the physical world, in secular terms, non-theological terms. In the medieval world the universe is seen as these kind of levels of reality that are centered upon the divine throne room. So all of reality is seen in completely theological terms, very ordered, hierarchical, rational, knowable. The human mind and soul is all part of that divine empire.

Speaker 1: 5:01

But then the division between the external world of fact and the internal world of opinion or fantasy or fiction, or just the human mind and what it believes is considered to be kind of disconnected to the external world. The idea is that the soul doesn't really perceive truly the external world like the physical world, but rather there's like phenomena the soul receives phenomena and doesn't actually perceive reality. So that's division between the internal human world and the external world. That is a big feature of the secularized, because the earlier, more robust and rational view sees that the human mind is created by the same logos that created the heavens and the earth, and so the human mind had this great confidence in knowing the world, the heavens and the earth, whereas there is this kind of deep skepticism, almost, or uncertainty, because of this division between the human mind, or soul is not, is considered to not be completely connected to the world of facts and truth. And that's part, that's all part of this secularization of the modern that the modern world operates in, so humans use. In that, in that, in that older view, human beings knew they lived within this kind of total cosmic reality.

Speaker 1: 7:15

But the revolution, the scientific revolution that begins in the 17th century and goes right through into the 19th century, it changed that so that human beings, instead of standing on earth and looking out into this vast cosmic divine empire that's all held together by reason, rationality, the logos that is, that also is written into the human mind and everything like that, and it in a way meaning, deep meaning was no longer believed to be out there, but rather inside. So out there is a kind of mechanical, meaningless machine of nature, but no meaning, no profundity, no true beauty and so on. Goodness, no truth, beauty and goodness and that Rather, the deep, deep meaning, if you are on a quest for profound reality. Since certainly the 19th century, there's this tendency to look within, to go on a journey inside, into the human soul. The human soul is considered to be this rich vein of meaning and profundity, whereas the external, physical world is. It excludes that and is just this kind of meaningless, mechanical thing. All that is because of the secularization of the cosmic vision. So instead of stirring out, it's more nowadays it's more common to stir within, to look for deep, for depths inside the human heart and mind, instead of, like theological wonders used to be cosmic now that are so often psychological. Now we'll come back to that in the future podcast.

Speaker 1: 9:39

But it's just flagging up that the scientific revolution that has happened is a complex thing, that it could begin because it was founded on Christian truth and it begins way back in the medieval period, the scientific revolution but that the revolution as a whole has kind of run off the rails from many, from some aspects of the Christian foundation, and has ended up being something that is complex and science has led to incredibly great evils and catastrophes as well, because, instead of it being part of an act of worship and truth, beauty and goodness, it's something that is perceived to have no morality, no meaning, no goodness, something that you could like, the idea that a scientist could commit terrible atrocities and produce great things that are terribly destructive and perform experiments that are evil, but do it with a kind of dispassionate, in inverted commas, logic. Anyway, we may come back to that, but there's some. I just wanted to flag up that, yes, the modern scientific worldview is one of the great revolutions of world history, but it is a complex thing that as it's become more and more, as it became more and more disconnected from the foundation of Christ, so it became less powerful and more ambiguous and dangerous as a project, but also weaker. Anyway, let's go to Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon has this great quotation where he says science is an image of the truth. Science is an image of the truth. He also said and this is another one I quite like Francis Bacon, he lived from 1561 to 1626. Brilliant, brilliant mind, francis Bacon. He also said small amounts of philosophy lead to atheism but large amounts bring us back to God. And I like that, that idea that you get somebody who when they first study a bit of philosophy and then they kind of go, oh I'm an atheist. And then when you meet someone who thinks of themselves as a philosopher but they're still at the atheist phase of it, I suppose he's trying to say try to be patient with them, because if they persist in genuine, profound philosophy they'll find their way back to reality sooner or later. It's a good one, francis Bacon, anyway.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Francis Bacon, 1561 to 1626. He had argued for a new philosophy, an experimental philosophy that would seek to understand the physical world by more rigorous observation, more careful analysis. So the older methods that were handed down by Aristotle and then refined by medieval philosophers, really those methods were all too often not based on proper physical observation and physical experiments. That rather, aristotle kind of believed that what you needed to do was get the correct philosophy in your head and then make sure you looked at the world in conformity to what you knew philosophically. So it was working from philosophical principles and then conforming observations to these philosophical principles.

Speaker 1: 14:23

But, francis Bacon, he could see that our minds are too easily confused and deceived by preconceived ideas and just by our own human weakness and the confusion of language. Just the way we use words and language can trick our minds and inadequately communicate ideas to one another. And academic dogma, where there are things that have just been taught for a long time but they are just not correct or the way they're understood has changed over time so that whatever truth this tradition contained no longer has it. So Francis Bacon is good at like. He was very concerned at how our minds are so susceptible to error and confusion, even deception. So his point was if our minds are settled on the deep theological truths of God, then that sets us free to study the works of God, not by mere logic or not by mere philosophy in the confused human mind, but rather we should be led by the works of God themselves in the physical world around us. So in other words, like Bacon is saying, instead of in effect being controlled by our inward world, the world of our thinking inside, we should be led by what's out there, the physical world outside of us, and then our mind should be going out into the works of God around us, and then our minds will discover the works of God by looking out into the works of God with great care and observation. So let me give some words from Tom Torrance in his book. I can't just find where this quotation comes from. I'll read it anyway.

Speaker 1: 17:14

Far from leading to a neglect of nature, the distinction between grace and nature directed Bacon to the pursuit of natural science as a religious duty, for he understood it to mean that God has kept the godward side of nature hidden, that is, he's kept the final causes of the ultimate law of nature within his own realm. But whatever is not God is laid open by God for human investigation and comprehension. So the point there is like, yes, god's government of the universe that belongs to him, but everything that is not God that you know, the things, his works, his creation, all of that is laid open Because the grace of God enables us to know him. But Nature is everything that God has laid open for us to investigate and comprehend. It is therefore I'm going on now with Turren's quote it's therefore by keeping within the limits and ends of knowledge which God himself has set in the creation of humanity which faith makes clear to him that man can fulfill his function as an interpreter of nature and build up his kingdom on science, and that's man's right by creation and by the grace of God. It remains his right even if he's fallen from God, although the fall means that that kingdom can be acquired only by the sweat of his brow and the laborious discovery in the actual investigation of nature itself. So, more than mere passive observation of the natural world, bacon could see the value in setting up situations where specific things could be observed, and in this way he was reaching towards the idea of experimental work. So what we're getting, then, with Francis Bacon is this confidence that God, even in a fallen world, god graciously, even from creation itself, the living God, created the universe for human beings to know and observe and handle and interact with and so on, and that even when we're fallen from God, he still graciously maintains that relationship we have with the universe and that we are to actively engage with it. And so Bacon would say don't just sit and think about the world, go out and create situations that will enable you to see the world closely, test it, observe it, what we would call experiment with it.

Speaker 1: 20:57

And near the beginning of his great work, which is called the New Organum, or True Directions concerning the interpretation of nature. He wrote this this was from 1620, the New Organum. Listen to this. This is from near the beginning. He says my method, though hard to practice, is easy to explain, and it is this I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty, the evidence of the sense helped and guarded by a certain process of correction. I retain that. But the mental operation which follows the act of sense, I for the most part reject and instead of it I open and lay out a new and certain path for the mind to proceed in, starting directly from the simple sensuous perception. So he's really saying I want to have a pathway to knowledge that is constantly corrected by sensory data. So I'm always wanting to make observations and then my thinking about that to be constantly corrected by additional sensory perception.

Speaker 1: 22:50

It's what we would call. We just go oh well, that's how you know the scientific method, obviously, but this is how it began. This is how we, this confidence that a serious engagement with the physical world and observing it and continuing to observe it and correcting the you know, thinking about it, but your mind being corrected by observation of the physical world, rather than having this kind of oh and I, just this confidence in your mind. It's allowing your mind to be shaped, challenged and changed by the physical world. And it's kind of based on this idea then, that there was such confidence that the works of God in the physical world that's right. It's right for our minds to be corrected by the works of God around us.

Speaker 1: 23:53

So on November the 28th 1660, so this is 40 years after Bacon publishes the New Organum, so it's November the 28th 1660, after listening to Christopher Wren's lecture at Gresham College in London, a group of thinkers decided to form a society dedicated to quote improving natural knowledge. And that idea of natural knowledge that's, can you see, that's Bacon's kind of desire, knowledge that is founded in observation of the natural world and thinking that is constantly corrected by that. Well, on July the 15th 1662, so that's like 18 months, no, a bit more than 20 months later, july the 15th 1662. Charles II chartered the first scientific society.

Speaker 1: 25:05

The majority of those who formed this well, now it's a royal society the majority of them in that first generation of the royal society were Puritan Christians who were eager to challenge the ancient Greek ideas of the universe and their motto was quote nothing by mere authority, nothing by mere authority, meaning that they refused to hold on to this superstition and confusion of past ages. Its Bacon's point allow the world itself to correct you, the works of God around us, observe them and allow your mind to be changed by them, rather than just clinging on to things that are hearsay or tradition or superstition, confusion, philosophy from a pagan era Forget that. Have all that corrected by the works of God that are around us in nature. So the royal society they wanted to examine and observe, to think and analyze, and thinking to be corrected by examination and observation, to allow God's creation to speak for itself. They wanted to observe and analyze the work of the living God in creation rather than maintain traditions passed down from the ancient Greeks. The secretary of the royal society after the restoration was John Wilkins, who he ended up being a bishop and wrote works in defense of the Bible, and he was that first secretary.

Speaker 1: 27:01

The great chemist Robert Boyle was vital in the foundation of the royal society and he invested money, effort in Bible translation work. He's often called the father of modern chemistry because of his formulation of Boyle's law of gases and also his rejection of alchemy. That's something we'll need to look at in future, this concept of the relationship between chemistry and alchemy. We'll come back to that in a lot of detail in a future podcast. But this guy, robert Boyle, he assisted Welsh church leaders who were being persecuted and he helped them. But also Christopher Wren we mentioned. Christopher Wren gave this lecture back in November 28, 1660, when the concept of a royal society was developed, and Christopher Wren of course built St Paul's Cathedral and did a lot of work with John Willis in developing anatomical work and producing a book on that. I mean, christopher Wren's capacity was just immense.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Let me perhaps end this podcast with this little quotation from Robert Boyle and then in our next episode we'll perhaps come back to think a little bit more about this royal society and what, how that developed. Robert Boyle said this the book of nature is a fine and large piece of tapestry rolled up which we are not able to see all at once, but we must be content to wait for the discovery of its beauty and symmetry, little by little, as it gradually comes to be more and more unfolded or displayed. And brilliant that that sense of a patient accumulation of knowledge of the physical world, little by little, as it is slowly unfolded. I'll maybe just say one more thing. There was something, because this led to something of a golden age of culture. In so many directions in literature, science, technology and theology in the 17th century too, it was quite a golden age.

Speaker 1: 29:55

The Royal Society was the first scientific society in history and almost every great scientist in certainly British history has been a member.

Speaker 1: 30:06

Dan Graves' comments and I will end with this quotation from Dan Graves not bound by tradition, puritan schools fostered science. Theodore Hark, a professor at the largely Puritan-Greece College, initiated meetings of the quote Invisibles, and then other Protestant schools revolutionized medicine about the same time, and it was a Protestant school which later trained John Dalton. He and he was the author of Modern Atomic Theory. John Willis, as we thought, helped to inaugurate the society, considered to be one of the best doctors of his generation. He was so strong in his attachment to church and among his charities he funded a clergyman to conduct worship services at hours when average working men could attend. The motto adopted by the organization was Nothing by mere authority, and those who think faith must be blind should look again at the history of the formation of the Royal Society. Okay, we'll end with that. This idea, then, that the Royal Society was founded by very strong Christians who had a very strong Christian sense of what they were doing. In our next episode we're going to see why and how that changed as