Peter Abelard and Heloise: The Problem of Universals, the Rise of Scholasticism, the School of Nominalism, and One Horrific Castration

Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was a Scholastic philosopher and theologian, originally from Palet in Brittany, known primarily for his controversial views regarding the concept of universals, his instrumental role in the formation of the Scholastic method and the school of nominalism, his secret love affair with his female student Héloise, and the punishment of castration which followed. He is regarded by many scholars as the greatest logician of the Middle Ages and, in that role, as an essential founder of the technique of medieval philosophy known as Scholasticism, in which the primary raison d'etre became the reconciliation of Greco-Roman philosophy (primarily Aristotle) with Christian theology.

Abelard is given credit for the creation of the school of thought known as nominalism, a proposed solution to the problem of universals, which replaced the school of realism then in vogue in European universities. The school of realism, as opposed to the modern definition of the term, asserted that ideal concepts such as "love" or "virtue" referred to "forms" in the Platonic sense and that these terms were independent of the physical world, existing only as ideals. These ideals were known in medieval times as universals, which, according to one succinct scholar of medieval philosophy, is "a functional word expressing the combined image of a word's common association within the mind," or, perhaps even more succinctly, if less descriptive, an "ideal that exists solely within the realm of ideas." In other words, a green sweater, a blade of grass, and a Green Bay Packers uniform all exhibit qualities of "green-ness" even if "green-ness" itself exists only as an ideal. Nominalists went one step further, saying that universals were not only not dependent on physical reality, but had no real existence whatsoever other than in the realm of the human mind as a way of thinking and talking about abstract concepts. This may seem a trivial difference to the modern reader, but this was vastly important to medieval Christian theologians as Christian discourse contained numerous references to abstract concepts such as Heaven, Hell, Grace, and the Trinity. If universals were real only insomuch as they were necessary for humans to linguistically express them, did this not also mean that essential Christian necessities such as the aforementioned concepts were also unreal? Abelard's controversy only begins here.

Abelard was a prolific writer during his university years and his works were, by medieval standards, among the most lively and original works of philosophy of the early 12th century. His most famous and enduring work is known as Sic et Non, or Yes and No (also sometimes translated as Thus and Otherwise or For and Against) and it was to be used as the standard scholastic textbook for much of the Middle Ages. Written around 1123, it affirmed that any dialectical or logical truth can only be regarded as true when all sides of an argument have been presented. The Scholastic method developed only a few generations before Abelard, primarily from Islamic philosophers in the East and by the Bishop Anselm of Canterbury in the West, and Abelard's work Sic et Non developed a coherent organizational procedure. Scholasticism, as mentioned earlier, was primarily concerned with the reconciliation of Christian theology with Aristotelian philosophy, and the method bequeathed to this institution by Abelard was a technique that sought specifically to use reason and logic to resolve these apparent contradictions between sources which were argued from both sides, theoretically, with an open mind. The writing consisted of essentially arguing the pros and cons (or "Yeses and Nos") of various contradictory issues of the day. Abelard is quoted in it as saying "by doubting, we come to inquiry." This ran counter to Anselm's and the Church's proclamation, fides quaerens intellectum, of first having faith and then coming to reason (see The Ontological Argument Revisited). For this, Abelard was regularly rebuked. Among Abelard's many other controversial assertions include his theory of sin, in which he argued true sin was in intention rather than action, which also ran counter to the predominant Catholic teaching of the day. Abelard also contended that one could only truly confess sins to God and no other (earning Abelard retroactive admiration by some Protestants), which would get him into entanglements with the papacy, since Catholic doctrine gave the monopoly of confession to priests, and this sidestepping of Church authority was seen as blasphemous and politically dangerous. In fact, Abelard's works were officially condemned by the Church twice: once at a council in Soissons in 1121 over his denial of a universal of the Holy Trinity and again in Sens in 1140. This latter one was conducted by Pope Innocent II himself, at the behest of the mightily influential Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian monk who had been instrumental in preaching the First Crusade, and who was viewed as resoundingly anti-rationalist and anti-skeptic. Later historians would interpret Abelard and Bernard as mortal enemies.

Out of all this controversy, however, it is likely his relationship with his most famous student Héloise that earned him the most infamy at the time and the most fame in later centuries. Though Héloise is mostly famous due to her association with Abelard, she was a great scholar in her own right, being proficient in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. She came from lower nobility in France and her uncle Fulbert managed to secure Abelard as a private tutor for the precocious young academic. If the contemporary sources are to be believed, they instantly and passionately fell in love. Due to the circumstances of his place in their household and the impropriety of the tutor/student relationship, their love was kept a secret, though it seems that it was secret from no one except Héloise's naive uncle. Unfortunately for them, a furious Fulbert eventually did find out and the two were forced to flee. Abelard, who still hoped for advancement within the Church, urged a secret marriage, but Héloise turned down his proposals, claiming that it would do too much to destroy Abelard's reputation should word reach his superiors. Soon thereafter, Héloise became pregnant with their child (whom they would name Astrolabe, after the recent astronomical invention) and she conceded to the marriage. Fulbert could not be kept in the dark forever, and when Héloise flatly denied their involvement, Fulbert took this under the assumption that he had deserted her, infuriating him even more. Eventually, he dispatched a group of knights to Abelard's bedchamber where he was tied down and slowly castrated as punishment for his licentious behavior. This effectively put an end to their relationship, and Abelard retired to St. Denis monastery until poverty forced him to resume teaching, at Paraclete, under the rank of abbot, while Héloise continued her life as a private scholar in a convent in Paris. Abelard would never again enjoy the fame and eminence he once held, and would spend much of the rest of his life moving from monastery to monastery. The two would never see each other again, though they would maintain a correspondence through letters for the rest of their lives, which many have regarded as among the most romantic love letters in the Western canon.

Abelard's legacy is one of controversy from beginning to end--from his tumultuous academic life to the tragic end of his affair with Héloise. But it is also a legacy of the advancement of human knowledge and the stirrings of free thought emerging out of a fairly intolerant and traditionalist society. Abelard's career can be seen as philosophically paradigmatic in that he believed in the essential unity of thought, reason, skepticism, individual intellectual interpretation, and emotion and intuition as a way of understanding and having faith. Abelard came to represent the excitement and aggressiveness with which Scholasticism would tackle the philosophical problems of the Middle Ages, and he sowed an optimism in the human spirit and intellectual faculties. For this, and for his undying affection for his beloved Héloise, he is one of the most romanticized figure from the period. Indeed, in later centuries, is life and love would be fodder for numerous poets:

"How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot!/ The world forgetting by the world
forgot./ Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!/ Each pray'r accepted and each wish resigned."
--Alexander Pope, from "Eloisa to Abelard" (1717)

Medieval Islamic Science: Appropriation or Marginalization?

The Appropriation and Marginalization Theories of Islamic science are competing theories regarding the extent to which Islamic science contributed to Greco-Roman learning during the European Middle Ages. The Appropriation Theory contends that the Islamic scholarly society purposefully sought out ancient Greek and Latin science and used it as the principal cornerstone for its own unique science, while the Marginalization Theory states that in Islamic society, translation of works from Greek and Latin into Arabic was the only real effort and that there was little creative achievement and little or no pursuit of original knowledge.

The so-called Islamic Golden Age, a period of scientific, philosophical, and cultural growth from the 8th to 13th centuries, coincided with the latter part of the major Western decline in learning culture. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 5th century, the West entered a period of drastic decline in almost all scholarly areas, produced almost no major engineering or architectural works, little philosophical or literary works, and experienced an unprecedented decline in trade and commerce. The term Dark Ages, which was once applied to the entirety of the European Middle Ages, is still sometimes used to describe this half a millennium from 500-1000 CE. In the Middle East, however, much of this period was marked by the dramatic revival of scholarship based primarily on the works of the major Greek and Latin philosophers such as Aristotle, Archimedes, Hippocrates, Euclid, Galen, Ptolemy, and others. This occurred primarily in major urban centers such as the Bait al-Hikma ("House of Wisdom") in Baghdad as well as in Cordoba and Toledo in al-Andalus (modern-day Spain), which would later provide the primary entry point as this science and learning filtered back into Europe starting in the 12th century. The only places of comparable developments in Christendom included the Byzantine Empire and the Irish monasteries. However, the former was under almost constant siege from the Islamic East and the latter from Viking marauders, to contribute anything much in the way of major scholarship. The later Western European revival of learning in 12th century universities and then again during the Italian Renaissance, in many ways, owes their existence to the works of Islamic scholars such as Avicenna and Averroes.

The Marginalization Theory was given its modern form by the 19th century French philosopher of science Pierre Duhem, who claimed that it was primarily the Roman Catholic Church that fostered the development of Western science and was among the first to claim that the Later Middle Ages was a period of vast growth in scientific, especially mathematical and statistical, knowledge. Duhem essentially ignored the major contributions of Islamic science, claiming that they were not of any use in the study of the history of science as they were mere passive receptors of Greek science, incubating them for later discovery by the West. The theory was not combated for a number of years until the publication in the mid-20th century of A.I. Sabra's influential work, "The Appropriation and Subsequent Naturalization of Greek Science in Medieval Islam" in which he argued that Islam was a creative force in science and that not only did it influence Western science but was the primary influence from the 12th century until at least the Italian Renaissance. Among the many original Islamic contributions to science include: the most extensive and accurate star catalog since the time of Ptolemy in the 2nd century and until Tycho Brahe's of the 16th century, the creation of modern numerical and mathematical notation (adapted and enhanced from an Indian system, and introducing for the first time decimal notation, non-Euclidean geometry, and frequency analysis), rudimentary refrigeration and indoor plumbing, the first recorded concept of communicability of disease and possibly the first conception of vaccines, the creation of algebra (from the Arabic al-jabr, meaning "calculation"), several works on the nature of light and optics, and the first use of something resembling the modern experimental scientific method and peer review systems. Some more daring scholars have even suggested that they may have even, in slightly more primitive fashion, contemplated the heliocentric model of the solar system, the laws of gravitation, and calculus several centuries before Newton and Copernicus.

The Appropriation Theory of A.I. Sabra became mainstream and accepted amongst most historians of science in the last few decades thanks in large part to the works of David C. Lindbergh and Ronald Numbers, who have argued in favor of the work, not only of Islamic science in preserving and adding to Greco-Roman knowledge in the West, but also of religious institutions in general, including the Catholic Church, for laying the groundwork for later scientific advances. During the first half of the 20th century, the study of the relationship between science and religion, especially before the Age of Enlightenment, generally took a dim view of the latter, stating that it was the medieval dominance of the Church that set back the Western advancement of knowledge for nearly 1000 years. And, while most scholars did not outright deny the Church's trenchant dogmatism and blatant censorship of heretical ideas, the indebtedness to the Church in the West as the only stable institution from the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of national monarchies is the 15th and 16th centuries is a fact too important to overlook. Perhaps not entirely coincidentally, the Islamic Golden Age came to an end in these same centuries as their European territories in Spain and Portugal asserted their independence and Arab territories across the Middle East shrank from the onslaught of Turks from the north and Mongols from the East.

It is a testament to the impartiality of academia that, in our modern political climate and culture of "Islamaphobia," the greatness of the history of Islamic learning is acknowledged. Very few modern scholars outright deny the augmentations made to science by the Islamic Golden Age, though the degree and nature of this contribution is constantly questioned and debated. Some notable exceptions include the popular (populist?) historian Thomas Cahill, who, while not truly denying the role Muslims have played, relegates them to the sidelines and claims almost propogandistically that the major contributions were made by medieval Irish monks working at the fringes of early medieval Europe, and even more so, the eminent Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis, who simply argues against using the term "Islamic science" (any more than we would describe the Scientific Revolution as "Christian science") to describe what were essentially universal achievements. The use of the Appropriation and Marginalization theories of science have more recently been applied to our own modern era, with the general consensus that our "technologically-laden" society certainly falls into the realm of Appropriation, as more and more academic knowledge is applied towards technology, but it has also been described as Marginalized in the sense that science has become so specialized, that not everyone has access to this knowledge.

The Ontological Argument Revisited

The Ontological Argument, first proposed by the Islamic scholar Avicenna, but made popular by the archbishop of Canterbury Anselm of Bec (c. 1033-1109) in the late 11th century in his philosophical tracts the Monologion and Proslogion, is the metaphysical premise that purports to prove the existence of God through rational means. At its core, the argument states that God is "that than which nothing greater can be conceived" or, put another way, that God is a necessary assumption in the nature of the universe and that as a necessary being, God is something that can not be thought not to exist. Anselm begins with the premise that "that than which nothing greater can be thought can be thought" and that "if that than which nothing greater can be thought can be thought, then it exists in reality", therefore, "that than which nothing greater can be conceived exists in reality." This convoluted language oftentimes obscures the true nature of the argument and foundation on which Anslem's belief rested, and it is perhaps easier to begin with the man Anselm and his beliefs before attempting to understand the argument.

Anslem is often considered the father of Scholasticism, a medieval technique in which logic and reason were used in service of Christian theology, and the formulation of the Ontological Argument is considered the primary early example of this modus operandi in action. Obviously, the Middle Ages was a time in which the Christian institution dominated thought, and at the time the theory was somewhat controversial, primarily because many of the more conservative churchmen of the day considered it a type of blasphemy to attempt any "proof" whatsoever as to the existence of God, claiming faith alone was sufficient. This argument also helped to lead Anselm to perhaps his most famous statement of faith and one which had a considerable amount of influence on medieval Christian philosophy and still exerts influence to this day: "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. Nam et hoc credo, quia, nisi credidero, non intelligam"--"Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this too I believe, that unless I first believe, I shall not understand." Building from Augustine, Anslem contended that no true understanding of any philosophical topic was possible without faith in God, for faith was not the end of understanding but the beginning, and without this foundational grounding, one could never be intellectually fulfilled. Anselm's motto, fides quaerens intellectum ("faith seeking understanding"), implies a priority on faith and that a love of God will, out of necessity, lead to a greater wisdom of Him and of the universe. This has remained, in Catholicism, a particularly important point, that belief should come first and foremost and that, given orthodox consideration, metaphysical and ontological understanding will follow.

The theory is, of course, not without its critics and almost immediately after it inception, it was attacked vociferously by the the famous Gaunilo de Montmourtiers. Anslem, in his formulation of the argument, had quoted the first verses of Psalms 14 and 53, which state that "the fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" and Gaunilo poignantly titled his rebuttal In Behalf of the Fool. In it, he argued that, simply because he could envision the most perfect island in existence, this did not mean it did exist. Simply imagining an existence did not make it so, and this entire premise ran counter to Anslem's, and many others', prevailing notions of faith. Nevertheless, the Ontological Argument remained an edifice of Christian philosophy relatively unscathed by Gaunilo's criticisms for two centuries until is was rejected by the even more influential Christian Scholastic Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas rejected the argument on the grounds that God is never specifically defined in the argument and thus only those who have already conceived of God in the same way may be convinced by Anselmm's argument. The argument, and the rebuttals, have since then undergone heavy criticism, especially in the early modern era by Rene Descartes, Gottfreid Leibnitz, and most fervently by Immanuel Kant, the originator of the phrase "ontological argument" (the medievals simply called it argumenta Anselmi, or "Anselm's argument"). Descartes, faintly echoing the Platonic concept of forms, reaffirmed the argument on the basis of certain ideas inherent in the structure of the universe. For example, we cannot envision a triangle whose interior angles do not add up to a sum of 180 degrees, just as the existence of the cosmos cannot exist without some originator, who may be defined as God. Leibnitz attacked this view by claiming that perfection was not analyzable and, much like Aquinas, claimed that the inconsistency of the definition of God, or perfection, rendered this argument meaningless. It is Kant, however, who is considered by many philosophers to have laid the argument to rest for good with his rebuttal of the idea of "existence" as a property to begin with. In short, Kant cries foul on the basis of circular logic: since Anselm has already endowed God with the property of existence, his argument proves nothing and he merely repeats himself by presuming to prove existence through the faculty of existence itself. And, in defining existence as a predicate, Kant takes to task the moral and subjective claims that existence is somehow more perfect than nonexistence.

Modern philosophers have added to the debate, but it has been less in the purely metaphysical realm and more in the validity of the argument itself. The Ontological Argument is regarded by its critics, especially those in the scientific fields, as the penultimate a priori argument, or argument based on rationalization independent of empirical experience. In short, logic can be, and has been, employed to prove anything, but without evidence, these arguments amount to nothing more than suppositions and word games. Perhaps this is why so many scientists have a natural disdain for philosophers, who often arrive at truth simply "by thinking about it." In any case, the Ontological Argument was highly influential in the Central Middle Ages and was essential in creating the ontological branch of metaphysics, dominant for nearly a thousand years, which remains among the most studied fields in philosophy.

Boethius and the Consolation of Philosophy

The Consolation of Philosophy, a philosophical treatise written in 524 by the former Roman consul Boethius while awaiting execution in prison, is often viewed as the most influential non-religious work of the entire Middle Ages. Boethius, a Roman of noble birth, served the the remnants of the Roman state for a time following the Ostrogothic takeover of the kingdom of Odoacer, who had deposed the final Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus in 476, effectively dissolving the imperial system of government. Boethius and his family, which was of ancient Roman patrician stock, held great distinction in the early 6th century and the Ostrogothic king Theodoric employed Boethius to be the magister officiorum, or master of government and court services. However, in 523, Boethius was accused by Theodoric of conspiring with the Byzantine emperor Justin I to overthrow his regime and reinstate a Roman to the throne in the West. It is also possible that Boethius was being punished, not for treason, but for religious reasons. Theodoric, who was an Arian Christian, as were most Ostrogoths, grew alarmed at the eastern power because Justin I was a Catholic, as many of the Roman aristocracy were. Boethius, who may have been a pagan or a Catholic, could have been a casuality of this relgious strife. The source evidence is scant and the guilt or innocence of Boethius can likely never be settled; nevertheless, Boethius was imprisoned for one year and was executed following excruciating torture. During his year of imprisonment, Boethius wrote what is considered his capstone achievement, The Consolation of Philosophy.

The Consolation of Philosophy follows the Greek example of a dialogue, much as Aristotle and Plato had written, and the work takes the form of five books--part lyrical, part prose (the Menippean satire)--in which Boethius engages in a philosophical discussion with the Lady Philosophy. They discuss, among other things, fate vs. free will and the the idea of predestination, the nature of justice and virtue, and the question of why bad men prosper and go unpunished while good men suffer (an issue obviously close to Boethius' heart). Among the more notable and influential moments of the piece, is the concept of the "Wheel of Fate" which generally depicted a wheel with many spokes, with a king sitting atop the wheel and progressively lower ranks of people populating the spokes, until we reach the poor beggars, prisoners, and those of destitute fate at the bottom. Boethius reminds us that at any time the wheel may turn, sinking those of high birth into the pit of woeful fate (as had happened to himself) while the lowly rise to the top. While this notion had its roots in earlier Greco-Roman philosophy (particularly that of Cicero) and had seen cruder representation in various Germanic mythologies, the eloquence and depth with which Boethius elucidated the concept proved extremely appealing to early medieval philosophy and the parallels between it and the Christian concept of the "meek inheriting the earth" are easy to surmise. Indeed, Boethius, though he is usually studied in the medieval context, is generally seen as the last of the great classical authors, and his coupling of essential classical and Christian concepts, mirrors the cultural shift from Greco-Roman to medieval occurring during his lifetime. The Consolation of Philosophy ends with Boethius fittingly consoled by the Lady Philosophy with the idea, not of divine judgment, as this desire for retribution would not be virtuous, but with the image that all things that happen happen out of necessity, and that "no man can ever be truly secure unless he has been forsaken by Fortune."

The posterity of Boethius lies not just in this work, but in the long-lasting contributions he made to Latin scholarship. While The Consolation of Philosophy took shape only in his final year of life, his life's work was the translation of most of the major works by Aristotle and Plato from Greek into Latin, and in many places, his were the only translations available until the 12th century, nearly 600 years later. And, in the medieval university, which would not emerge until the late 11th century (500 years after his death), the basic curriculum of the "seven liberal arts" was drawn directly from his works: the trivium of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic or logic included the essential techniques medieval students were required to conquer in order to graduate and, for the more advanced students, the quadrivium of music, astronomy, geometry, and arithmetic followed. Boethius' works, and especially The Consolation of Philosophy, were among the most translated works of the Middle Ages and the early modern period, undergoing translations in English in different periods by such luminaries as King Alfred the Great (Old English), Geoffrey Chaucer (Middle English) and even Queen Elizabeth I (modern English) who counted it among her favorite works. Due to the extraordinary circumstances of its composition, the masterful bridging of pagan and Christian concepts, and the honest humanity in Boethius' reconciliation with his reality and his fate, The Consolation of Philosophy remains a philosophical work of the ages.

Update and a Quick Preview

I haven't posted anything for a month and really don't have an excuse. Summer would have been the perfect time for me to sit down at the computer and write blog after blog but it didn't happen. I think it's partially because I have had virtually no routine all summer long and blogging has been one of those things that's gotten lost in the shuffle. So, even though I think everyone who reads this blog already knows the stuff I'm about to type, here's a quick synopsis of the last month and introduction to the next six or so posts I intend to write.

July was in some ways a really busy month and in some ways a really boring one. I spent most of the month working at the one part-time job I was able to get--grading the fifth grade social studies portion of the standardized test for the state of Kentucky. Suffice to say that it was simultaneously hilarious and depressing. The job was filled primarily with educators making some extra cash during their summer recesses, employees of the temp agency Kelly Services who had recently finished up other assignments, and people like myself, who had enough college credits to qualify for the job, and needed something to do for a month or two. I signed a "confidentiality agreement" stating that I wouldn't reveal any student responses (despite the fact that all of the responses were anonymous), and even though I've passed some of them along in private conversation, I feel it's probably not appropriate to post them here. But, for a taste, let me just say that around 15% of Kentucky fifth graders seem to think that Martin Luther King, Jr., freed the slaves, spoke at Abraham Lincoln's funeral, and single-handedly ended the Civil War between North and South America.

The only other major thing that happened in July was that Kirsten and I took a trip down to South Carolina to visit Clemson, look for an apartment, and for Kirsten to look for a speech-language pathologist position. We have, in fact, secured an apartment in Central, South Carolina, which is about a 12 minute drive form campus. The Upstate, or Upcountry, region of South Carolina is quite beautiful. It is essential the far southern tip of the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge chain is only about 25 minutes north of where we'll be living. We already went hiking once and it was gorgeous. Plus, though the area is sparsely populated by most standards, we are less than 30 miles from Greenville, SC, which has over 100,000 people and around 20 miles north of Anderson, which is about half of that. Clemson is extremely beautiful as well, and a bit different from what I'm used to. Indiana University and Michigan State are both very large state schools of nearly 40,000 students, and Clemson's student body is only around 17,000, but it was the size of the campus, which one could walk across in maybe 20 minutes (as opposed to nearly an hour at the others), that really amazed me. It is small but exactly what I want a college campus to look like: quaint, idyllic, and quintessentially Southern in style. Magnolia trees line the streets, and the buildings are largely an old Southern colonial style (from what I can tell, I'm not that great with architecture) with deep red brick walls, and columns on the larger buildings. I got to meet some of the staff in the history department as well as a very helpful graduate student. All in all, it was a pleasant experience and I look forward to beginning my scholarly journey in just a few more weeks.

Finally, I want to briefly preview the next few blogs I'm post. Those of you who are Facebook friends may remember a little over a year ago when I posted a six part series of notes on medieval philosophy (or, likely, that you don't). In any case, I am planning on reposting them here over the next few days, not so much so that people will read them again, but more for my benefit, because I was rather proud of my work on them and there are some edits I would like to make, some extra research I'd like to do, some hyperlinks I'd like to insert, and some intellectual avenues I wouldn't mind strolling down again. If you've read them before, feel free to ignore them, but I'd like to move them to my blog, since it's obviously a far more appropriate place for the content than in Facebook notes. After that, my next blog should be coming to you from the Palmetto State! Hope you had a great summer!

Science/Angels and Religion/Demons and Vice Versa, Part 2

The first problem in interpreting the relationship between science and religion as a war is that it simply ignores the history. Most people are familiar with the most infamous instances of religious persecution of scientific thinkers: Copernicus did not publish his heliocentric theory until he was on his deathbed for fear of the backlash, Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for asserting that the earth moves, Scopes was banned from teaching evolution in Tennessee in 1925, and so on. What is often not told about these stories is that, for the most part, they are the exception rather than the rule. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the rise of humanist Renaissance Italy and the later Scientific Revolution, most scholars involved in anything resembling natural philosophy were also members of the clergy. This is to some degree logistical, as only clerics in the Middle Ages had anything remotely resembling an education to give them the ability to pursue these topics, but nevertheless, the sole harborers of learning in the West during this thousand year time period were religious. Some anti-religious thinkers, such as Richard Dawkins , have suggested that this is simply because they had no other choice in their day, but I think the argument works better in reverse: that because they were religious, and clerical, their choice was to pursue knowledge. The greatest polymaths of the Middle Ages were not just theologians, but also natural philosophers, the closest cognate to "scientist" that existed before the Scientific Revolution (indeed, many scientists were still called natural philosophers as late as the 19th century). A great many supposedly "modern" innovations were rooted in the era when religion allegedly suppressed free thought with an iron fist: the experimental method employing empiricism and rationalism, differential calculus, tools precursory to those still used in modern surgery, the creation of the modern university and peer editing systems, and numerous practical implementations of contemporary technology like the compass, gunpowder, astrolabe, and sextant. This is not to say that the Medieval and pre -Scientific Revolution era was just like ours; it was obviously very different. The Christian religion--in its institutional, cultural, political, and folk varieties--permeated every aspect of medieval life. But it is just as equally erroneous to imagine that religious authorities actively sought to impede scientific progress anymore than they are attempting, or should attempt, to do now. The relationship has been muddied and is more complicated now, but there is no massive religious conspiracy (at least not one with any real power) currently vying to destroy the institution of science.

Once one digs a bit deeper into the hallowed lore of the history of science, particularly the episodes of individual persecution, one finds figures who have been more often than not castigated for theological and political transgressions rather than scientific ones or ones related to freedom of thought. Numerous astrologers in the Middle Ages were punished not because their practices were deemed anti-Christian or as some form of black magic; usually, they were punished because they foretold a future that was unpleasing to the ears and sensibilities of the nobles, kings or popes upon whom they commented. Astrologers often found themselves in the precarious position of interpreting a certain stellar portent to mean that the king would die near the end of the year. Despite being certain of their observations and mathematics, they were often reticent about releasing such information, since, even if it were true (from the medieval point of view), the ruler would not wish this information be made public as it could foment a rebellion or announce to his enemies that the time to attack his kingdom was now. Similarly, alchemists were often persecuted, not because of some religious admonition, but because if the alchemist succeeded in transmuting lead into gold it would ruin his sovereign's gold standard and create rampant inflation or debasement of the currency. These were practical political and economic issues, rather than the fear that Christian leaders would lose their grip on moral authority.

This was not confined to the proto-sciences either. An early and famous instance of the so-called religious persecution of science, came in the 13th century with the imprisoning of Roger Bacon, an English Franciscan friar and natural philosopher famous for, among other things, his works on optics and the refraction of light, detailed astronomical observation, and the anticipation of uses for gunpowder, microscopes, telescopes, and other inventions centuries away. He is also considered as one of the first Europeans to assert the primacy of something resembling the experimental method of science, derived from the likes of Plato and Aristotle, and filtered through Avicenna and other Arab commentators. The history of the man, intertwined with his advocacy of this modern-seeming notion, often contributes to the misunderstanding that he was imprisoned for experimentation in an age when true knowledge was thought to come from contemplation and revelation. This is, essentially, incorrect. The details of his crime and imprisonment are extraordinarily hazy, even by medieval standards. It seems that he was imprisoned at least for a short time, but some sources claim that it may have been up to ten years (based on the fact that he was away from University for that amount of time). But many modern scholars do not even believe he was imprisoned at all: Lindbergh says of Bacon that "his imprisonment, if it occurred at all (which I doubt) probably resulted with his sympathies for the radical 'poverty' wing of the Franciscan (a wholly theological matter) rather than from any scientific novelties which he may have proposed." The point is that, whether he was imprisoned or not, this simply cannot be construed as evidence of religion combating science. Giordano Bruno offers us another striking example. Often considered by less discerning scholars as the "first martyr for free thought," Bruno was burned at the stake, not by religious officials, but by the secular Roman inquisition in 1600. Though he is often known for his early championing of the heliocentric theory as well as for the infinity of the cosmos (which he, it should be noted, arrived at through philosophical rather than scientific reasoning), perhaps his best contribution to science was his work on spatial geometry. But why was he burned at the stake? For the heliocentrism? The geometry? Biographer Luigi Firpo lists his legal infringements as such: holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the Trinity, Christ's divinity, the Incarnation, Transubstantiation, and Mass; believing in the plurality of worlds and the infinity and eternity of the universe; and believing in metempsychosis [reincarnation] and the transmigration of souls into other animals. Nowhere was the Copernican theory mentioned, and in fact, the Catholic Church had not even formed a coherent doctrinal opinion on the matter at the time of Bruno's trial. The plurality of worlds is the closest thing approximating a persecution of scientific ideas, but again, this was more a philosophical assertion than a scientific one, for both Bruno and his persecutors, in that a finite world with a definitive beginning (the Creation) and end (the Apocalypse) was doctrinal, and the eternity of the world (meaning universe) was considered erroneous. (This, by the way, had precedent, and was banned by the Bishop Ettiene Tempiers in the famous Aristotelian Prohibition of 1277, which forbade several teachings of Aristotle, including the eternity of the universe - for almost purely theological reasons.)


Most famous of course, was the trial of Galileo, the archetype, if ever there was one, for the story of the crushing hand of religion landing on an undeserving scientific mind. Most modern interpretations of the trial have cast a far more political light on the subject, and while even the most ardent supporter of the religious position cannot deny the humiliation foisted upon Galileo by the bearers of such trenchant dogma (Galileo really did have to recant on his knees and spent the remainder of his life under house arrest, unlike Bruno, for his Copernican weltanschauung), the political calculus inherent in the move is too indispensable in understanding the trial to leave out of the story. The fall of Galileo, according to historian Mario Biagioli , resembled "the fall of the favorite" in that his guilt was seen as a double indemnity of sorts, as Galileo had been among the greatest of his patron's thinkers. In seventeenth century politics, and especially in places without strong monarchs, like the principalities and city-states of Germany and Italy, artists, writers, and scientists, performed all of their work at the behest of a political patron whose financial support ensured the continued success of the lesser person. Galileo's general patron in his early years had been Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, later to become Pope Urban VII. It is possible that with a friend in high places, Galileo believed that he may have been able to escape retribution for publishing teachings contrary to the Catholic faith, which by the 1630s had developed an official opinion on Copernicus: it was OK to discuss his theory as a mathematical abstraction, but the notion that the earth physically revolved around the sun was a heresy. And it did not help matters that Galileo, in his groundbreaking opus majus Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, put the Aristotelian/Ptolemaic system, of which Pope Urban VII availed himself, in the mouth of a character named Simplicio. While modeled after a sixth century commentator on Aristotle, the unfortunate connotations of the name did not endear Galileo to his former patron. As Biagiolo put it, it was "patronage dynamics" more than anything that did in Galileo.


The second, and I think more important, problem in interpreting the religio-scientific relationship is the simple fact that there are no monolithic entities for which the blanket terms "science" and "religion" may be applied. Obviously, there are many different religions, each of which has not only widely varying degrees of acceptance and antipathy towards the scientific enterprise, but also widely varying internal differences (just think of Christianity, ranging from papal approval of evolution to political movements designed to remove its teaching from public schools). Science, too, is dynamic. Indeed, it thrives on discord and requires constant disagreement, argumentation, and competition among scientists to arrive at truth. Facts, of course, are purely objective, but entirely different hypotheses and theories may be arrived at by different thinkers. And there are certainly more sub-fields within natural science than there are religions in the world, united primarily (perhaps solely) by methodology. Because of the emergence of impartial, objective scientific knowledge, many of the world's religious believers have had little problem with interpreting their faith's teachings symbolically, and the great scholars of comparative religion Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Mircea Eliade, and others have offered up extensive research to show this as among the deepest and most spiritually satisfying ways to worship, as opposed to crude literalism. In short, reducing science and religion to caricatures simplifies their complex relationship.

So, where does this leave us, as 21st century human being living in a world where both institutional religions and academic, practical, and technological science remain the most potent forces in our lives? I think that the one aspect of modern fundamentalist Creationism that truly baffles me is the falsification necessity of science. The historian and philosopher of science Karl Popper said science is only science when its hypotheses, experiments, and theories are falsifiable, that is, can be proved wrong rather than right. What fundamentalist Christian is willing to say with a straight-face that, should new evidence emerge disproving the existence of God, they would accept that science has disproved religion? No one. But this is precisely what a scientific hypothesis puts on the line when it is proposed: peer reviewing scientists devise experiments to test a hypotheses (prove it wrong) and if no one can, the hypothesis is formulated into a theory and tends to be accepted. I recall getting into an argument once with a friend less amenable to the truths of science about the validity of carbon dating, and one of his key arguments was "how can we accept something as fact when scientists simply take for granted that it's true?" which implies that scientists have never really tested whether carbon dating is fact. But of course, by using it in the field and getting consistent result, it's validity is not really in question. If it did not get consistent results, it would be tossed out in favor of a more accurate method. Biologist J.B.S. Haldane, accused of treating evolution as if it were a dogmatic truth, was asked what it would take for him to give up the theory, to which he famously replied, "Rabbit fossils in the Precambrian." This, in a nutshell, is how science works. The religious community does a great discredit to their own beliefs when they set them up for falsification. It is as if those who presume to speak on behalf of all religion are literally "testing their faith", and, if I were religious, I would think it cheapens my belief to subject it to the rigors of scientific testing. Isn't the point of faith that one doesn't know? And if one is not willing to admit the possibility that something is wrong, one cannot subject it to science.

One possible way to march forward has been proposed by evolutionary paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould in his book Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, which posits a middle ground that he calls NOMA, or "non-overlapping magisteria." Essentially, Gould, an agnostic, describes the relationship he envisions for religion and science as one of mutual respect and admiration in which the ultimate arena of each should remain separate. Religion is the realm and moral and ethical truths, which no amount of scientific knowledge can comment upon, and science is the realm of factual and testable knowledge about the physical universe, against which literalistic interpretations of the Bible should not infringe. To be sure, I am not entirely sold on his position (and neither are many of his most vociferous critics from the scientific and religious spheres) since areas that centuries ago would have found themselves undoubtedly within the dominion of religion, are now considered objectively testable by science. But can we truly believe the most anti-religious thinkers such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet when they say that, in a sense, God is testable and the verdict declaims that "God almost certainly does not exist"? I think that Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, was most likely taking the the Creationist position to task and actually subjecting it to the scientific method as the Creationists so wish it be (with predictable results). But, as a true agnostic, I can't abide by a scientific test on something which, I feel by its very definition, is untestable, anymore than I can stand when fundamentalist Christians attempt to peddle their ideology as science. And, considering that I have in the past and in some ways am still somewhat acquiescent to some of the more outlandish claims of peripheral science, I feel that there can still be some limited communication between these two realms--especially when one considers the history and the more congenial relationship occasioned at times in the past. Both science and religion have their angels and demons. Let us hope in the future, that it is the angels of both that prevail.

Science/Angels and Religion/Demons and Vice Versa, Part 1

There are few topics that command my academic interest the way that the relationship between science and religion does. I grew up in a fairly conservative, God-fearing part of the country to non-practicing but generally faithful Christian parents. They specifically raised me in a quasi-secular and intellectually open fashion, in that I was given all the opportunities to learn about science unfiltered by the political and religious ideologies of the curriculum setters. I spent much of my childhood reading about dinosaurs and other fossils of the geological strata, about the formation of the the stars, galaxies and planets, and of the great biodiversity of our planet. And, while we didn't go to church regularly, they did send me to vacation Bible school every year, I suspect so they felt less guilty about not making weekly Sunday outings mandatory, but also to "give us the information," so to speak, that we might make our moral, social, and intellectual decisions based on a secular humanist as well as religious education. My dad has told me numerous times that he wanted us to "decide for ourselves." In general, I've developed into quite the agnostic, and although I disliked Bible school when I went, in retrospect, I'm rather glad that I was given this education for its literary, historical, and cultural merits. I think I would be overstepping my position to say that I could somehow speak for the middle ground in the current culture war that seems to be raging around the non-issue of science vs. religion, but my studies into the philosophies and history of both fields have given me at least some understanding of the complex interplay of the two most powerful institutions of the 21st century.

Most recently, I've been thinking about this issue because of the release of Ron Howard's Angels and Demons last month. I read the book about a week before seeing the movie and liked it alright, though it is heavy-handed and makes science and religion seem like two monolithic entities clubbing each other in their isolated, hermetically sealed, cookie-cutter worlds. The movie improves on some of this, and unlike The Da Vinci Code, does a slightly more even-handed and nuanced job of portraying the relationship between religion and science. It is about as good of a job as one could do turning Angels and Demons into a movie, but unfortunately, that doesn't really help matters. The problem I have with the book and the movie, is that it simply exploits the perceived conflict and paints both religion and science without the depth, complexity, and intricacies that define their intertwined histories. Of course, a third-rate thriller novel and a summer popcorn piece are hardly the places for subtlety and exploration of dynamism, but I am dismayed to see the rich tapestry of these two establishments reduced to a good guy/bad guy relationship.

Contrary to popular opinion, science and religion have not always been at odds in the way they seem to be today. For most of Western history, in fact, they have acted in concert with one another, with theological concepts motivating physical discovery and natural philosophy informing theology. Pioneering this historical theory of the interplay between these two seemingly disparate institutions are historians such as David C. Lindbergh and Ronald Numbers, as well as several scholars within the scientific and religious communities, such as Ian Barbour, Stephen J. Gould and John Polkinghorne, who, though their views differ wildly, nevertheless advocate a greater understanding between the two. Lindbergh and Numbers in particular are critical of what is known as the Conflict Thesis, or the Draper-White Thesis, which enjoyed almost universal currency in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Conflict Thesis, as its name implies, envisioned a relationship always at odds, in which religious institutions conservatively and authoritatively forbade any scientific teaching contrary to Biblical dogma, and science played the role of downtrodden bearer of light amidst the darkness. However, as is often the case, more can be gleaned about the society that proposed the theory than the society on which it comments. Most modern interpretations of the Conflict thesis contend that the discord envisioned was a contemporary outcropping of two currents of thought specific and novel to this era: the emergence of a coherent theory of evolution and the beginnings of fundamentalist Christian belief. And it was the latter, which, though commonly believed to hearken back to earlier, more "pure" Christian motives, was really a reactionary response to what was perceived to be an out-of-control progress towards a more secularly oriented society. As the great religious historian Karen Armstrong has noted, fundamentalism (not only Christian, but Islamic, Hindu, and Jewish) is a peculiarly modern institution, designed primarily to act as a traditionalist check against the march of progress, embodied particularly by the scientific enterprise and the liberal open societies of Western democracy. In the political sphere, social scientist from all political stripes have pointed to the commonalities between the ultimate goals of Muslim extremists in the Middle East and their fundamentalist Christian counterparts in the United States - the only difference being that the relative weakness and corruption of political institutions in the Islamic world compared to the West has given these radical extremists a modicum of real power in places such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The centuries of Western history including such formational movements as the Reformation, Enlightenment, and Scientific Revolution, as well as the setbacks such as the Thirty Years War and World Wars, have given Western society an infrastructure in which Church and State are by and large separated. In other words, our own society guards against just such extremists coming to power. The Christian version of this vein of fundamentalist thinking is relegated to bloggers, radio personalities, and televangelists, who are no less extreme, at least in their rhetoric, than their Muslim counterparts:

When the Christian majority takes over this country, there will be no Satanic churches, no more free distribution of pornography, no more talk of rights for homosexuals. After the Christian majority takes control, pluralism will be seen as immoral and evil and the state will not permit anybody the right of practicing evil.
-Gary Potter, President of Catholics for Political Action

Hostility toward America is a religious duty, and we hope to be rewarded for it by God . . . . I am confident that Muslims will be able to end the legend of the so-called superpower that is America.
-Osama bin Laden

When I, or people like me, are running the country, you'd [abortion providers] better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we will execute you. I mean every word of it."
-Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue

There is no reform except through jihad. . . We have to realize the nature of this conflict: Our enemies do not agree with or approve of our rights.
-Ayman al-Zawahiri

I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good. . . Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism. Our goal must be simple. We must have a Christian nation built on God's law, on the Ten Commandments. No apologies.
-Randall Terry

If a woman wants to work away from her home and with men, then that is not allowed by our religion and our culture. If we force them to do this they may want to commit suicide.
-Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, Taliban Minister of Justice

We should invade their [Muslims'] countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.
-Ann Coulter

Sorry, Ann, but the Crusading Age has been over for about 700 years. But what does this have to do with science and religion? A lot actually. The point of the above quotes is not to disparage Christian belief but to demonstrate the true radicalism that these outliers represent. Just as we consider Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other Muslim extremists a plague on civilized society, so too should we consider those preaching hatred in the name of Christianity in this country. And the people who are most responsible for the religious attack on science are these very authors, organizers, "thinkers" (if I may stretch this word to its barest of connotations) and extremists. This fringe element should be treated exactly as it is: fringe. True, these people have more power and influence in the United States than in most other industrialized nations, but they have no power, for example, to impede scientific research in evolutionary biology or particle physics, both of which are unlocking secrets about the universe once solely reserved for the domain of religion. Their power lies in opening a Creation Museum and electing politicians with sympathetic, albeit less extreme views. Some statistics are troubling, such as a recent poll showing that a mere 39% of Americans accept the theory of evolution (compared to 80 or 90% in most other industrialized nations). But overall, science and religion are not mortally opposed to one another the way our media, political structure, and entertainment industry seem to believe.

In my next post on the topic, I will explore the historical relationship between science and religion and why they have not always been and need not currently be at odds, the fact that even the terms "science" and "religion" simplify the problem too much as it assumes that these blanket terms cover all facets of these two dynamic institutions, and finally, examine what appropriate relations between the two should be in the twenty-first century.