From God to Newton and The Reconcilation of Science and Theology

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It is not unusual to feel that in the so-called “Dark Ages” of medieval Europe, theology predominated in all the vicinity from theocracy to regalia and became the absolute authority within the spiritual global of Europe. At that time, the warfare between science and theology became serious, or exactly, the oppression theology placed on science changed into merciless. Science turned into left no space in the astonishing palace ruled via theology and became seen as heterodoxy.

Science and Theology

Newton

For example, Italian truth seeker and scientist Bruno, because of his insistence on clinical fact, was burned at the stake using the Inquisition in Rome in 1600. For believing in and publicizing Copernicus’ heliocentricism, the great physicist Galileo was imprisoned for life.1 Under top-notch stress and in the context of Western European fanaticism, there has been infrequently opportunity and space for technology to emerge. Up to the 17th and 18th centuries, technology strengthened hastily and defeated theology. God has become “grasp not at home,” and Newton became “Chamberlain inside the international.” Why did it take place in Europe? The key is to discover the origins of the upward thrust of present-day science. To see it, we first check out Western conventional weltanschauung.

A Western conventional weltanschauung is a form of dualism; no matter what in nature, morality, or religion, Western human beings frequently have a dualistic attitude. For instance, classical two-valued logic based totally on actual or false duality founded by Aristotle persists nowadays. Moreover, the dualism of thoughts and frame, issue and object, noumenon and phenomenon, ideal and reality, collective and character, and so forth ought to effortlessly be determined right here and there in Western records and culture. Especially in spiritual ideals and metaphysics, Western people adhered to a dualistic position so stubbornly that the transcendent global and the actual global departed completely, and heaven and earth were separated completely.2 No matter its importance or value, the previous is usually better than the latter. Probing into the origins of the dualistic worldview, we could retrospect to historical Greek philosophy (especially metaphysics) and Christian theology.

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Plato’s concept of Forms asserted that the area of Forms and the realm of factors are adverse.3 “The Forms are those changeless, eternal, and nonmaterial essences or styles of which the visible objects we see are handiest poor copies.” 4 Aristotle tried to triumph over Plato’s device of the dualism of Forms and actual matters, hbut he didn’t give up the dualistic concept of truth and phenomenon5, e.g… The difference between remembering and form.

Another detail of the Western traditional dualistic worldview is Christian theology. The city of God and the city of the world, as well as religion and purpose, are resolved wonderfully inside the Bible. Christian theology assures that any values and ideals that couldn’t be fulfilled inside the globe would be completed in paradise. If you verify God’s life, consider God piously. Compared to absolute Christian beliefs, any moral or ethical fee or temporal perfect shows insignificance in itself; for instance, Jesus’ reaction to the questions about paying tax – “Give consequently to the emperor the things which can be the emperor’s, and to God the matters that are God’s.” (Matthew 22: 22) typically represented the dualism of Christian theology.

The Christian theological notion above blended with Plato’s concept of Forms, and Aristotle’s metaphysics later built the voluminous gadget of scholasticism. In more than 1000 12 months of the medieval ecclesiastic gadget, Christian theology changed into the dominant ideology of Western Europe.

In this context, even though clinical researchers have never stopped, the clinical looking for and exploring nature or even all the secular concerns faced with this perfect, natural, and metaphysical realm built by Christian theology were suffering despisal, forgetting about, and oppression. Christian theology has become the unique absolute preferred of Western people and persecuted the ones disobediently. Although theology almost held all of the energy over all the secular and holy affairs and technological know-how seldom had an area to broaden, the theological worldview could not always be ever-triumphant and ever-valid. Once coming across holistic adjustments or encountering the assault of heterodox thought, the faiths of Western human beings could be lax, which would shake and even destroy the entire Christian theological worldview.

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Renaissance in the 15th and 16th centuries first revolted. The self-awakening catalyzed through humanism and the revival of historical Greek and Roman cultures broke down the unified complexion under the reign of theology. As a scientific grasp rather than God inside the theological international, man became the center of social lifestyles and educational research. Technological know-how won a previous threat to grow.6 Then Reformation, in opposition to the ethical corruption of the Catholic Church and the sham of the dualistic opposite of soul and body, advocated “justification through faith” and spiritual tolerance and rejected the absolute authority of and the secular managed by the Church.7 Therefore, science got rid of the no secular restriction of theology. In addition, enlightenment in Europe in the seventeenth and 18th centuries fulfilled Western Europe’s ideological liberation. Eight Reason replaced religion, and theology receded into the heritage. Modern technological know-how emerged as the times required.

Science

The intellectual revolutions above are the main reasons for the rise of current technology; however, in the final evaluation, the origins are from the collapse of the Christian theological worldview and the rise of the scientific worldview. It is plain that the disintegration of the Christian theological worldview began with a series of highbrow revolutions, such as the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment. However, commonly, it can be explained in phrases of the inherent issues of Christian theological worldview within and the attack of “the heterodox” mind from the outside.

First, the gadget of medieval scholasticism that wholly made a stand for Christian theology, although it attempted to shorten the massive hole between cause and faith, because of its insistence on “faith advanced to reason,” finally could not maintain the stability and harmony between faith and Reason. On the other hand, J. D. Scotus’ idea of “double fact” multiplied the departure of religion and cause.9 On the other hand, mysticism contended an instantaneous encounter and mystical union with God; J. Eckhart stated, “God and soul had been neither unacquainted nor far away, so soul became no longer most effective consistent with God, however same with God.” 10 Mysticism disdained all secular affairs. Therefore, the theological dualistic worldview becomes converted into a metaphysical monistic worldview that refuses any intervention of human purpose. W. Ockham’s nominalism argued towards the doctrines made up via scholasticism and the arguments of God’s existence. His precept of simplicity, called “Ockham’s razor”, contended that “what can be defined on fewer standards is explained needlessly by more” eleven, which has become a “prodder setting medieval theological machine into disintegration.” 12 Consequently, Western Europeans in the overdue Middle Ages misplaced their confidence in the Christian theological worldview and began to seek purpose.

Science practice

Secondly, Copernicus’ heliocentricism affected the worldview of the modern-day scientists and philosophers in the Renaissance, and geocentrism of the theological worldview became a serious challenge. Humans misplaced the superiority built through Christian theology within the cosmos, and the dualistic relation between heaven and the sector changed into unfastened. At that time, e.g., Galileo, scientists saw God as the prime efficient purpose of the physical global and disadvantaged God of the identity of final Reason. Therefore, the energy and the omnipotence of God have been questioned. Due to the impact of medical exploration, other scientists, including Bruno, frequently adopted a pantheistic function as a substitute for the theological dualistic worldview.
Meanwhile, an inclination in modern philosophy gradually emerged to cooperate with technological know-how to rationalize the sector. For instance, Descartes “first made use of God’s existence for the objectivity and fact of the bodily global after which locked God into coffee and defined the shape of the sector in a scientific view.” 13 As for the hassle of the transcendental international in theology turned into “hanged” and became a “pseudo-hassle.” The pantheistic metaphysics of Spinoza excluded the existence of the transcendental international, which additionally gave a death blow to the dualistic theological worldview.

On the opposite hand, the empiricism initiated by Locke evolved to Hume have become a thorough positivism of skepticism, which in the end denied secular substance and the existence of causal necessity and denied all the tribes of the arguments of God’s lifestyles via human motive and empirical facts, which greatly fluctuated the premise of theology. Kant’s principle of the antinomies and essential rational theology contended that the transcendental international or noumenal international, God’s life and the soul’s immortalityuldn’t be proved. Therefore, theology becomes excluded from human understanding. Hegel’s rationalistic dialectic metaphysics appeared as the variational procedure of the real global as the self-unfolding of absolute spirit and transformed the dualistic worldview into absolute idealism. The dualistic worldview was ultimately discarded, and Christian theological beliefs had been evanesced in Hegel’s system. Thus, motive gained the benefit over faith, and the scientistic worldview in preference to the theological dualistic worldview has become the dominant ideology of Western Europe.

The upward thrust of current science could not start until the conventional dualistic worldview becomes transformed due to the fact weltanschauung is the final knowledge of the world or human lifestyles of people, which is capable of doubtlessly predominate the closing mindset towards sports in the existence of thinkers, social people or even the hundreds in a region. The handiest is if the traditional theological worldview changes using a brand new purpose-primarily based worldview, The scientistic worldview, the upward thrust of cutting-edge technological know-how, could have an ultimate guarantee. In a phrase, the origins of the rise of cutting-edge science were the crumbling of the theological dualistic worldview and the predominance of the clinical worldview.

The conversion from theology to science has had a nice and terrible influence on Western records. After one foot up on the quick lane of scientific improvement, the practical life of Western Europe substantially stepped forward, material civilization rapidly progressed, the exploration of nature and geography changed into continuously superior, and the era was dramatically reformed. Western countries made continuous progress, while Eastern international locations fell ways behind. They affect the conversion from theology to science unmeasurable, just as historian H. Butterfield mentioned on this problem: “The effect on the world lifestyle of the upward push of contemporary technological know-how inside the 17th century should most effectively be noted within the same breath with the upward thrust of Christianity within the first century.” 14 However, it no longer means that this conversion doesn’t negatively affect Western Europe. “Weltanschauung may be a comprehensive experience that doubtlessly impacts the cultural atmosphere, e.g., educational thoughts, lifestyle patterns, living attitudes, etc. S . A . And society.” 15 Accordingly, while the weltanschauung of the humans in a location undergoes a proper-approximately or fundamental conversion, the educational subculture and existence attitudes and behaviors may have holistic modifications.

Because the traditional dualistic worldview was the dominant ideology from Aristotle to the late Middle Ages, wherein Western Europeans soaked themselves and took it with no consideration all of the time, the now secular crisis of Western Europe was coming at the simple day the theological worldview collapsed. In the context that the theological worldview nodded to its fall and nihilism became widespread around Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky Nie,tzsche, and so forth. The nineteenth century inaugurated the philosophical ideas of existentialism in an accident to keep the no secular crisis and return to the lost psychic home of Western Europe.

Danish logician, Kierkegaard’s existentialistic notion changed into a vital response to Hegel’s rationalism, which rejected Hegel’s overlook of theology and the hassle of religion and contended that theological understanding and Christian ideals are the subjective reality that cannot be evanesced in customary goal knowledge. His concept that rationalizes Hegel and so on held the location of the supremacy of purpose and decreased the transcendental world into the abstract idea, which obliterated the paradoxicality (reality as subjectivity) of theology and the non-rationality (now not congruent with Reason, however, with emotions and faith) of the dualistic worldview.

Theology

Russian novelist Dostoevsky found the trouble of destiny of existence after the collapse of the theological worldview. In his novels from Crime and Punishment to The Brothers Karamazov, he discussed looking for the nonsecular way out after the comedown of religion in God. He implied that Western human beings could not find a savior for their religious crisis besides Christian theology and beliefs. Another initiator of existentialism and a consultant figure of the philosophy of Will Nietzsche, although likewise criticizing rationalism, drove the theological dualistic worldview into collapse at the same time. From the assumption that “God is useless” (Nietzsche certainly believed that Western Europeans had misplaced the theological worldview.), he claimed that each conventional morality, philosophy, and theology must be revalued with the collapse of the dualistic worldview. New values and ideals must be established via the Superperson who can harmonize the animal nature with the intellect and balance Dionysian and Apollonian elements. His theory of the Will to Power is the foundation of his philosophy of the Superperson. Sixteen

From the argument above, it’s obvious that the conversion from theology to technology, even though it introduced high-fabric civilization to the Western international, also produced a deep religious crisis for Western human beings. The scientistic worldview in the acute might regard purpose because the particular preferred to evaluate all values and exclude any other “scientistic” worldviews, which might, in addition, reject the value and meaning of religion and affection and completely alienate human beings from the recognition of lifestyles. Furthermore, improving scientific theories could have inspired the development of productive technologies, which might increasingly decorate the danger of scientific technicalization. The maximum risk of medical technicalization is to do away with the motive of cost by using the cost of tool and allowing people to overlook the problem of existence themselves and end up the common “Massman” or the “commonplace herd” degenerated from the actual and man or woman living inside the mathematically mechanical technique. In the context of no secular externalization and secularization, the Christian ideals disappeared while the theological dualistic worldview lost its unique means.