1. Did Christian Theology Help Cause Science
Did Christian Theology Help Cause Science?: The Jaki-Duhem and Merton Theses Explained
Eric V. Snow
Selling your ideas is challenging. First, you must get your listeners to agree with you in principle. Then, you must move them to action. Use the Dale Carnegie Training® Evidence – Action – Benefit formula, and you will deliver a motivational, action-oriented presentation.
Read aloud Karl Popper’s comment in Jaki, “Origin of Science,” p. 152, n. 45.
Read aloud British Philosopher Alfred North Whitehead’s concession, C:CS?, p. 11; Rationality assumption issue: Universe knowable since God is rational, not whimsical, and so made a knowable, observable universe.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses
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2. If Christianity is blamed for causing science . . .
. . . then Christian theology should be credited for causing science.
UN’s Environmental Programme’s Global Biodiversity Assessment’s condemns Christian ideas that desacralized nature, made man distinct from the world.
Open your presentation with an attention-getting incident. Choose an incident your audience relates to. The incidence is the evidence that supports the action and proves the benefit. Beginning with a motivational incident prepares your audience for the action step that follows.
1. Read aloud quotes from UN’s report, as in p. 26, “C:CS?”; Origin, p. 107;154, n65
2. Read Jaki’s witty retort, p. 27, “C:CS?”; Origin of Science, p. 107.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses

3. Bad or incomplete explanations for the rise of science
Must explain why modern science rose in early modern Europe first, not elsewhere.
Other civilizations also had peace, wealth, social organization, educated elite, etc.
Limits to sociological explanations
Intellectual climate is absolutely crucial
Ideas have consequences
Marxist/materialist bias against analyzing
Cultures won’t automatically develop science
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses
Quote Jaki, in C:CS?, p. 3; Savior of Science, p. 35; avoid loose, broad def. of “sci.,” why Europe different, and thus first, needs explanation; Sarton’s loose def.s, “Origin,”75. 84: Sci. besides math, geom., created by late Medieval/early Mod. Europe (physics—external world)

4. Christian ideas, not just Greek, needed for the birth of science
Definition of self-sustaining “science” crucial, it isn’t wisdom or practical technology.
Duhem-Jaki thesis: Christian theology after centuries eventually drives out or restrains pagan ideas so science can be born.
Merton thesis: Like Weber’s on Calvinism helping cause the rise of capitalism.
Puritanism’s beliefs and practical values promoted the rise of science in England.
Next, state the action step. Make your action step specific, clear and brief. Be sure you can visualize your audience taking the action. If you can’t, they can’t either. Be confident when you state the action step, and you will be more likely to motivate the audience to action.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses
Read aloud def.of science in C:CS?, p. 3; Duhem-Jaki: Assert continuity between Medieval & early modern science: Who did Galileo & Da Vinci depend upon? Buridan, Oresme, etc.

5. For science to develop, what Christian ideas did it need?
Time is conceived of as linear, from creation, not cyclical, as per pagan view; is quantifiable.
Christians don’t want crucifixion literally repeated!; 1x for all.
Clarifies cause-effect relationships, succession actions
Chinese example of chronological confusion
Avoids complacency and/or hopelessness since no lasting developmental progress is possible.
E. Indian examples, repetition causes also stagnation, etc.
To complete the Dale Carnegie Training® Evidence – Action – Benefit formula, follow the action step with the benefits to the audience. Consider their interests, needs, and preferences. Support the benefits with evidence; i.e., statistics, demonstrations, testimonials, incidents, analogies, and exhibits and you will build credibility.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses
Chinese example, quote Jaki, in C:CS?, p. 7. East Indian examples, C:CS?, p. 12; Reincarnation/transmigration of souls: Goal is to try to escape cycle, join Brahma; Sci. abs. Req. quantifying observations; Medievals quote Wis. Sol. 11:21 very freq. Origin, 85; Aristotle’s complacency: inventions for comfort several times in prior centuries, Origin, 93. 1x for all, p. 94.

6. What bad pagan ideas prevented the rise of science?
Organismic view of nature hinders scientific mind-set:
All of universe/world one huge organism that is born, lives, dies, reborn. (Applies to it cyclical view of time/reincarnation). Denies creation from nothing, ex nihilo; world always existed.
Pantheistic: Everything is divine and/or alive, has its own consciousness. Mankind not qualitatively different from world.
If has will of own, universe can’t be reliably predicted, has no firm, steady laws of nature. Heavenly laws not = to earthly laws
It conceives of stars, planets, rocks, water in oceans, etc., as alive, as gods, as divine, etc. Planets named for gods.
Christianity allowed for the de-animation of the heavens and of nature: Non-living rocks, inorganic outer space made modern science of astronomy possible; laws of physics then universal.
To complete the Dale Carnegie Training® Evidence – Action – Benefit formula, follow the action step with the benefits to the audience. Consider their interests, needs, and preferences. Support the benefits with evidence; i.e., statistics, demonstrations, testimonials, incidents, analogies, and exhibits and you will build credibility.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses
Quote Buddhist monk attacking creation ex nihilo, C:CS?, p. 6; to Chr., world inferior to Creator; Avoids mystically, unanalytically exalting it and/or seeking unity with it. “ALL IS ONE” claim. vs. Gen. 1:26; To have sci., man must see self as dif., since image of God, and God dif., man dif., His highest product, so have confidence in reason. Quote Jaki, “Origin,” p , 69+:Sav.,68+:Greks mainly saw heavens as divine, dif. From earth, like Plato,Ptlmy,Arist.;vs. Anaxagrs.,Demc.(atoms)

7. More bad pagan ideas that hindered scientific development
Must avoid pseudo-scientific “explanations” that have nothing to do with what occurs in physical reality.
Astrology: Idea that the positions of stars determine human destiny crippling to taking initiative in life.
Chinese examples: Yin/Yang, I Ching (Book of Changes) for divinations.
People don’t search for better, more correct explanations of natural phenomena when they think they know the “causes” already. Read alleged final causes into events, substances.
Aristotle’s “four elements” theory example, pagan Greek.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses
Chinese examples, C:CS?, p. 8, top; Christian opp.to astrology more successful than in other civiliz.: Augustine against, etc.

8. What Christian ideas promoted the rise of science?
The external world is both real and fundamentally orderly.
People won’t carefully investigate, analyze, or quantify illusions and chaos; meditating on nature isn’t “science.”
Hindu/Buddhist concept of Maya, “All is illusion,” cripples would-be physical sciences in India, China, etc.
If nature whimsically controlled by millions of gods, deities, godlets, spirits, and demons, not predictable.
Christian view that God is rational and trustworthy, so therefore His physical creation is knowable; man’s mind reliable.
Islam’s Allah much more willful and unpredictable than Jehovah, ultimately hinders Islamic science.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses
Quote C:CS?, pp ; Oresme’s clock maker metaphor for God; later somewhat misused by Deists; Christ’s body real (I Jn, vs. Gnostics), so physical world real; historical events must be real for Chr. to be true; bal. ult. purpose for man’s life w/ mechanism’s reliability, as Scholasticism, vs. Soc. on Anaxg., Darwin; Origin,105-6.

9. Balance between faith and reason needed
Balanced synthesis of Thomas Aquinas and Scholasticism critical to late Medieval science’s rise.
Catholicism ultimately finds a way to accept much of Aristotle’s philosophy without going overboard either way.
Had to reject bad ideas of Aristotle (heavens alive) while accepting good ones (logic) to have science.
Bishop of Paris Tempier’s 1277 condemnation crucial.
Islam’s lack of balance stops its scientific development.
Muslim philosophers Mutazilites, Avicenna, Averroes subordinate Islamic theology to Aristotle’s ideas.
Muslim theologians Al-Ghazzali and al-Ashari often very mystical, emphasized Allah’s will over His reason.
To close, restate the action step followed by the benefits. Speak with conviction and confidence, and you will sell your ideas.
C:CS?, p15. Ghazzali’s “Incoherence of Philosophers” promoted occasionalism, God’s constant direct intervention in creating all effects in world. Averroes double truth theory, that religious truth not = to phl. Truth, denies metaph. unity of intel. & phys. World; But to have mod. sci., must with certainty & clarity deny error, not say “all right,” false tol.: MUST deny bad pagan ideas like Aristotle’s “Heavens,” “Physics.” Tempier, per Duhem, “Origin,” 70, 139.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses

10. Merton’s thesis: Did Puritanism help cause science?
Sociological, “externalist” explanation, not intellectual, “internalist,” from within science’s own history.
17th century science in England promoted by Puritan values of utility, reason, empiricism, and seeking the glory of God.
Serve God through serving the community through useful trades, “callings,” vs. monastic ideal of contemplative withdrawal from world.
Reason and education both praised for practical purposes; vs. speculative philosophy, scholasticism.
High % of 17th century British scientists Puritans.
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses

11. Biblical beliefs and values helped to cause science
World’s overemphasis on Galileo’s condemnation by Catholicism’s Inquisition gives false impression.
Galileo and da Vinci depended on Oresme, Buridan, their medieval predecessors.
Jaki-Duhem and Merton theses make important correctives.
Synthesis of Greek philosophy, Hindu-Arabic numerals, and Christian theology created true self-sustaining science.
Sources:
Stanley Jaki, The Savior of Science, The Origin of Science and the Science of Its Origin, Science and Creation.
Robert Merton, “Science in Seventeenth Century England.”
Pierre Duhem, Le System du Monde: Proposed project to translate it into English, distribute to universities.
To close, restate the action step followed by the benefits. Speak with conviction and confidence, and you will sell your ideas.
Must note continuity from medieval period to early modern; for unbiased history of sci., don’t jump from Greeks to Galileo (Herbert Spencer, Wm. Whewell 19th c. error); Jaki, “Origin,”
Jaki-Duhem & Merton Theses