Science Was Born of Christianity Read online

  As Athens and Rome lost cultural significance around the early seventh century A.D., there was less communication between the two. Greek scholars moved toward the East and organized at Jundishapur in Southwest Persia. In 641 A.D., when Persia was conquered by the Muslims, the Middle East and North Africa came under one rule.[204] By 711 A.D., the Arabs took Spain and twenty-one years later they stormed France. One hundred years after Muhammed’s death, a political unification of land that spanned three continents emerged. As the new religion codified in the Koran was imposed, a giant empire formed “steeped in the conviction that everything in life and in the cosmos depended on the sovereign will of a personal God, the Creator and Lord of all.”[205]

  The continual study of the Koran inspired intellectual curiosity among faithful Muslims, as did the meticulous scholarship of the Greek philosophical and scientific body of knowledge.[206] So serious was the promotion of knowledge that “Houses of Wisdom” were erected, notably in Baghdad (813–833), Cairo (966), and Cordova (961–976).[207] Cordova amassed over 300,000 volumes for the library and immediately attracted scholars from the Christian West, who were welcomed with hospitality.[208]

  A paper mill, learned from the Chinese art of paper-making, was constructed in Baghdad in 794, and extensive translation and reproduction of Greek literature flourished. The works of Galen, who was considered second only to Hippocrates in the medical hagiography of the Western World, were translated, some 130 of them, and dominated medical practice in the medieval East and the West well into the Renaissance.[209] The greatest figure of Arab medicine was produced from this school, al Razi (865–925), the author of A Treatise on the Small-Pox and Measles. His work has been reprinted more than forty times in the last four hundred years.[210] Islamic medicine in general was outstanding, a field in which Islamic science demonstrated its most sustained vitality. The Muslims had a realistic sense for facts of observation.

  The Islamic ophthalmologist, Ibn-Rushd (1126–1198), otherwise known as Averroes, provides a “priceless insight” into the ultimate failure of Islamic science.[211] He was a resolute advocate and student of Aristotle’s philosophy and science, and as such broke new grounds with ophthalmology. The practice of medicine could flourish under Aristotelian teaching because it did not require any questioning of Aristotle’s view of the physics.

  Likewise Ibn-Sina (980–1037), also known as Avicenna, the famed philosopher provides the same insight.[212] His textbook served as the standard in Arab medical teaching, a fine collection of observation and systematic pathology. Muslim science made notable contributions in areas that had nothing to do with physical laws. When it came to a study of physical laws of the world, there was a certain inertia owed to the unwillingness to question the Aristotelian animistic worldview, which is why the study of biology advanced but without an underlying increase in the understanding of the physical world.[213]

  This lack of understanding of physics is evidenced by Arab alchemy, which came to stand for the study of materials and compounds. This field of investigation was a combination of “mystical and astrological proclivities,” fundamentally the result of mixing the organismic, eternal cycles of pantheism with the belief that a Creator created the universe.[214] It was an attempt to reconcile the conflicting views of Aristotelian philosophy and Muslim theology.

  The same paradox occurred in astrology. The astrologers, working with assumptions in conflict with their religion, gave credence to the pagan doctrine of the Great Year, even to the point of believing it could predict the succession of rulers, religions, reigns, and physical catastrophes.[215] Yet devout Muslims could not accept these ideas that were in conflict with Muslim orthodoxy, which revealed that the universe had an absolute beginning with creation.[216] As attempts were made to reconcile these beliefs, something ambiguous resulted, as evidenced in the writing of al-Biruni, a Muslim who refuted the contradictions among scholars and religious men in his famous work The Chronology of Ancient Nations:

  It is quite possible that the (celestial) bodies were scattered, not united at the time when the Creator designed and created them, they having these motions, by which–as calculation shows–they must meet each other in one point in such a time (as above mentioned). It would be the same, as if we, e.g. supposed a circle, in different separate places of which we put living beings, of whom some move fast, others slowly, each of them, however, being carried on in equal motions–of its peculiar sort of motion–in equal times; further, suppose that we knew their distances and places at a certain time, and the measure of the distance over which each of them travels in one Nychthemoreon.[217]

  He goes on in the work to give credit to the mathematical computations of the cycles to explain the appearances, an incongruity between mathematics and reality and a failure to go beyond the Aristotelian and Neoplatonian positions regarding the physical world.[218] As far as the Muslim scholars advanced, they still did not provide the psychology that could give birth to modern science because they did not effectively refute the pantheism of the Greek scientific corpus (body).

  The Biblical Womb

  The Biblical Womb

  “Who was it measured out the waters in his open hand, heaven balanced on his palm, earth’s mass poised on three of his fingers?”[219]

  In Science and Creation, Jaki included the ancient Hebrews in this history of the development of science, people who are not usually considered since their culture centered on religious law. Jaki highlighted that in this culture there was a literary codification of the concept of a Creator and of a creation out of nothing, the point of the book of Genesis. This concept was a radical break from Egyptian, Babylonian, and Greek thought, but it was the same codification as the Koran. There are also detailed references in the books of the prophets and the psalms to the faithfulness of the regular and permanent structure and function of nature, offered repeatedly as the basis for believing in the trustworthiness of God. It may seem trivial to note that the cultures of the Old Testament viewed the universe as created and ordered since most scholars focus exegesis on the study of salvation history in the Old Testament, but Jaki highlighted a significant pre-scientific historical message, too.[220]

  The Prophets

  When the Israelites in Babylian captivity hoped for the restoration of Jerusalem, the Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah to remind the people that it is God who orders the day and night and God who promised heirs to David’s throne with a posterity “countless as the stars of the heaven, measureless as the sea-sand.”[221] The Israelites knew they must trust the faithfulness of God because they knew that the humans are not the ones who order the day and night.

  A message from the Lord, from him, the God of hosts, the same who brightens day with the sun’s rays, night with the ordered service of moon and star, who can stir up the sea and set its waves a-roaring. All these laws of mine will fail me, he says, before the line of Israel fails me; a people it must remain until the end of time. You have the Lord’s word for it; When you can measure heaven above, he tells you, and search the foundations of earth below, then I will cast away the whole line of Israel, for all its ill deserving.[222]

  This is an established prophetic tradition in the Old Testament cultures. The law of God extends to all things moral, societal, and natural. The nations are told to submit to God’s will and obey His commands. God’s unchallenged power is often mentioned in Isaiah. Consider the drastic difference in the naturalistic mindset of Isaiah compared to the writings of ancient Egypt, India, China, Babylon, and Greece. God is the Creator, not the universe. Isaiah points to the order and measure of physical objects, i.e. what Jaki defined as “exact science,” as contributing proof of God’s omniscience, literally translated to mean “having all knowledge.”

  Who was it measured out the waters in his open hand, heaven balanced on his palm, earth’s mass poised on three of his fingers? Who tried yonder mountains in the scale, weighed out the hills?

  No aid, then, had the spirit of the Lord to help him, no counsellor
stood by to admonish him. None other was there to lend his skill; guide to point out the way, pilot to warn him of danger. What are the nations to him but a drop of water in a bucket, a make-weight on the scales? What are the islands but a handful of dust? His altar-hearth Lebanon itself could not feed, victims could not yield enough for his burnt-sacrifice. All the nations of the world shrink, in his presence, to nothing, emptiness, a very void, beside him. And will you find a likeness for God, set up a form to resemble him? What avails image the metal-worker casts, for goldsmith to line with gold, silversmith plate with silver? What avails yonder wood, hard of fibre, proof against decay; the craftsman’s care, that his statue should stand immovable?

  What ignorance is this? Has no rumour reached you, no tradition from the beginning of time, that you should not understand earth’s origin? There is One sits so high above its orb, those who live on it seem tiny as locusts; One who has spread out the heavens like gossamer, as he were pitching a tent to dwell in. The men who can read mysteries, how he confounds them, the men who judge on earth, what empty things he makes of them! Saplings never truly planted, or laid out, or grounded in the soil, see how they wither at his sudden blast, how the storm-wind carries them away like stubble! What likeness, then, can you find to match me with? asks the Holy One. Lift up your eyes, and look at the heavens; who was it that made them? Who is it that marshals the full muster of their starry host, calling each by its name, not one of them missing from the ranks? Such strength, such vigour, such spirit is his.[223]

  The naturalness of the universe, the predictability and order, the power of God as Creator and Lawmaker are all emphasized, indicating a view of the cosmos that was sustained leading up to and during the birth of modern science. The absolute certainty of the faithfulness of God is invoked to give credibility to the belief that Jerusalem will be rebuilt: “It was I framed the earth, and created man to dwell in it; it was my hands that spread out the heavens, my voice that marshaled the starry host.”[224] The Old Testament people saw nothing that happened in nature as vain; even the rain that falls from the sky makes the land fruitful.[225] Yahweh alone, who created nature, can bring nature to an end and final judgment of all.[226] Genesis 1 is much more rational than the Enuma elish creation myth of Babylon in which personified forces engaged in bloody battles dismembering the mother goddess, Tiamat, to form the sky, earth, waters, and air.

  This mindset, this view of the universe in Genesis 1, permeated the thought of the Israelites, the Jews, and the early Church. The formulations about the universe in the Old Testament would act as the “mind’s saving grace” in the birth of science in the European Middle Ages because it implied nothing that could have been perceived by reason, experiment, or observation alone; it is a revelation, and a necessary one for the birth of science.[227]

  The Psalms

  In the psalms is found a poetic conviction regarding the work of Creation and its relevance to everything man thinks or does.[228] The monotheistic outlook on the world is unmistakable and uncompromising, enthusiastic even. This striking confidence is abundantly evident, and shows the belief in Creation of the entire cosmos out of nothing as well as a belief in the miraculous Creator who could accomplish the former obviously could produce the latter. Even in the earliest psalms, there is a most confident vision of nature, a precursor of the science to come. This familiar psalm is not usually taken as an indicator of pre-scientific attitudes, but compared to the creation myths of other ancient cultures and the pantheistic worldview they held, this view of a caring Creator of nature stands out.

  The Lord is my shepherd; how can I lack anything?

  He gives me a resting-place where there is green pasture,

  leads me out to the cool water’s brink, refreshed and content.

  As in honour pledged, by sure paths he leads me;

  dark be the valley about my path,

  hurt I fear none while he is with me;

  thy rod, thy crook are my comfort.

  Envious my foes watch, while thou dost spread a banquet for me;

  richly thou dost anoint my head with oil, well filled my cup.

  All my life thy loving favour pursues me;

  through the long years the Lord’s house shall be my dwelling-place.[229]

  The universe of the Old Testament is good, complete, and ordered. The universe is not a creature of unpredictable volition, but the creation of a personal and loving Creator. There is no conflict between reason and revelation, and the order, stability, and predictability of the cycles of the cosmos testify to the faithfulness of God.

  Give thanks to the Lord for his goodness, his mercy is eternal; give thanks to the God of gods, his mercy is eternal; give thanks to the Lord of lords, his mercy is eternal. Eternal his mercy, who does great deeds as none else can; eternal his mercy, whose wisdom made the heavens; eternal his mercy, who poised earth upon the floods. Eternal his mercy, who made the great luminaries; made the sun to rule by day, his mercy is eternal; made the moon and the stars to rule by night, his mercy is eternal.

  Eternal his mercy, who smote the Egyptians by smiting their first-born; eternal his mercy, who delivered Israel from their midst, with constraining power, with his arm raised on high, his mercy is eternal. Eternal the mercy that divided the Red Sea in two, eternal the mercy that led Israel through its waters, eternal the mercy that drowned in the Red Sea Pharaoh and Pharaoh’s men. And so he led his people through the wilderness, his mercy is eternal.

  Eternal the mercy that smote great kings, eternal the mercy that slew the kings in their pride, Sehon king of the Amorrhites, his mercy is eternal, and Og the king of Basan, his mercy is eternal. Eternal the mercy that marked down their land to be a dwelling-place; a dwelling-place for his servant Israel, his mercy is eternal. Eternal the mercy that remembers us in our affliction, eternal the mercy that rescues us from our enemies, eternal the mercy that gives all living things their food. Give thanks to the God of heaven, his mercy is eternal.[230]

  The reason for quoting such a long passage is to show the richness and unity of the outlook of the world and humanity that derived from Genesis 1. There are many other passages that describe the same. God is not just a dispassionate creator; He is eternally merciful and faithful to His people, and that faithfulness is evidenced in the stability of creation. There is an abundance of such praises in Psalms 35, 80, and 120 of the stability of nature as a work of the Creator. Psalm 73, for example, praises God’s hold on creation: “Thine is the day, thine the night; moon and sun are of thy appointment; thou hast fixed all the bounds of earth, madest the summer, madest the cool of the year.”[231] Psalms 118 praises God for the stability of the moral law as well as nature: “Lord, the word thou hast spoken stands ever unchanged as heaven. Loyal to his promise, age after age, is he who made the enduring earth.”[232] Passages such as these demonstrate the naturalness of order and stability in creation. The enduring process of nature also was taken as proof of the certainty of God’s enduring rule: “Ageless as sun or moon he shall endure; kindly as the rain that drops on the meadow grass, as the showers that water the earth. Justice in his days shall thrive, and the blessings of peace; and may those days last till the moon shines no more.”[233]

  There are many more, and Jaki lists them in both Science and Creation and The Savior of Science; they all provide evidence that the Bible is the backdrop for the worldview that God created a physical realm that is stable and that this stability gives testimony to the stability of God’s moral law and to His faithfulness. It was not just an explanation for nature, but an explanation for all creation.

  Wisdom Literature

  The Wisdom literature is especially substantial evidence of this Old Testament worldview. In the first three chapters of the Book of Proverbs there are three series of instructions about wise behavior, and the starting point is a reference to God’s wisdom in the created world, its stability, and the firmness of the heavens and the earth. The praise of wisdom goes for five more chapters and ends with a personifica
tion of God’s wisdom:

  The Lord made me his when first he went about his work, at the birth of time, before his creation began. Long, long ago, before earth was fashioned, I held my course.

  Already I lay in the womb, when the depths were not yet in being, when no springs of water had yet broken; when I was born, the mountains had not yet sunk on their firm foundations, and there were no hills; not yet had he made the earth, or the rivers, or the solid framework of the world.

  I was there when he built the heavens, when he fenced in the waters with a vault inviolable, when he fixed the sky overhead, and levelled the fountain-springs of the deep.

  I was there when he enclosed the sea within its confines, forbidding the waters to transgress their assigned limits, when he poised the foundations of the world.

  I was at his side, a master-workman, my delight increasing with each day, as I made play before him all the while; made play in this world of dust, with the sons of Adam for my play-fellows.