The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

[_Maksutov]

I think it will become more and more difficult to define religion. While cults seem to develop along some common templates, some novelty is required to differentiate themselves in the marketplace of belief systems. And so there is some pressure for group mutation, which allows ultimately for some social innovation that might have been unlikely otherwise. I see cults as cultures in embryo. Most will fail, but nature is prolific after all.

[_The CCC]

[

Science is really just a methodology to gain knowledge. It's a way of analyzing and collecting facts into theories. Religion tends to just make assertions without facts. These great scientists who were also religious in almost all cases were not making these religious assertions. They just believed them because that is the world they grew up in. Many may have been closet unbelievers in these claims.

That makes even less sense. When someone repeatedly tells you what they believe. Whether you believe their truth claims or not believe them when they said what they believe.

[_Themis]

[

Science is really just a methodology to gain knowledge. It's a way of analyzing and collecting facts into theories. Religion tends to just make assertions without facts. These great scientists who were also religious in almost all cases were not making these religious assertions. They just believed them because that is the world they grew up in. Many may have been closet unbelievers in these claims.

That makes even less sense. When someone repeatedly tells you what they believe. Whether you believe their truth claims or not believe them when they said what they believe.

? I didn't suggest I wouldn't believe what a person says they believe. I just commented that some may be closet unbelievers. We see posters here who say they are with Mormonism. The real point here is that the great scientists, who are or were religious, were not the ones creating these religious assertions they believe in. They usually understand the difference between what they believe religiously and what they do scientifically.

[_Maksutov]

The same sort of science flourished in the Bestiaries,
which were used everywhere, and especially in the pulpits,
for the edification of the faithful. In all of these, as in that
compiled early in the thirteenth century by an ecclesiastic,
William of Normandy, we have this lesson, borrowed from
the Physiologus'. ''The lioness giveth birth to cubs which
remain three days without life. Then cometh the lion,
breatheth upon them, and bringeth them to life. . . . Thus
it is that Jesus Christ during three days was deprived of
life, but God the Father raised him gloriouslv."

Pious use was constantly made of this science, especially
by monkish preachers. The phoenix rising from his ashes
proves the doctrine of the resurrection ; the structure and
mischief of monkeys proves the existence of demons ; the
fact that certain monkeys have no tails proves that Satan
has been shorn of his glory ; the weasel, which " constantly
changes its place, is a type of the man estranged from the
word of God, who findeth no rest."

The moral treatises of the time often took the form of
works on natural histor}^ in order the more fully to exploit
these religious teachings of Nature. Thus from the book
On Bees, of the Dominican Thoma'l^of Cantimpre, we learn
that " wasps persecute bees and make war on them out of
natural hatred " ; and these, he tells us, typify the demons
who dwell in the air and with lightning and tempest assail
and vex mankind — whereupon he fills a long chapter with
anecdotes of such demonic warfare on mortals. In like
manner his fellow-Dominican, the inquisitor Nider, in his
book The Ant Hill, teaches us that the ants in Ethiopia,
which are said to have horns and to grow so large as
to look like dogs, are emblems of atrocious heretics, like
Wyclif and the Hussites, who bark and bite against the
truth ; while the ants of India, which dig up gold out of the
sand with their feet and hoard it, though they make no use
of it, symbolize the fruitless toil with which the heretics dig
out the gold of Holy Scripture and hoard it in their books
to no purpose.

[_Maksutov]

This pious spirit not only pervaded science ; it bloomed
out in art, and especially in the cathedrals. In the gargoyles
overhanging the walls, in the grotesques clambering about
the towers or perched upon pinnacles, in the dragons prowl-
ing under archways or lurking in bosses of foliage, in the
apocalyptic beasts carved upon the stalls of the choir,
stained into the windows, wrought into the tapestries, illumi-
nated in the letters and borders of psalters and missals, these
marvels of creation suggested everywhere morals from the
Physiologus, the Bestiaries, and the Exempla.

* For the Physiologus, Bestiaries, etc., see Berger de Xivrey, Traditions as-
trologiqnes ; also Hippeau's edition of the Bestiaire de Guillaume de Normatidie,
Caen, 1852, and such medioeval books of Exempla as the Luffien Natures; also
Hoefer, Ilistoire de la Zoologie ; also Rambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation Fran-
^aise, Paris, 1885, vol. i, pp. 368, 369 ; also Cardinal Pitra, preface to the Spicile-
gium Solismense, Paris, \%%^. passim ; also Cams, Geschichte der Zoologie; and, for
an admirable summary, the article Physiologus in the Encyclopcrdia Britannica.
In the illuminated manuscripts in the Library of Cornell University are some very
striking examples of grotesques. For admirably illustrated articles on the Besti-
aries, see Cahier and Martin. Melanges d' Archeologie, Paris, 1851, 1852, and 1856,
vol. ii of the first series, pp. 85-232, and second series, volume on Curiosith Mys-
tMeuses, pp. 106-164 ; also J. R. Allen, Early Christian Symbolism in Great Brit-
ain and Ireland (London, 1S87), lecture vi ; for an exhaustive discussion of the
subject, see Das Thierbuch des normannischen Dichters Guillaume le Clerc, heraus-
gegeben von Reinisch, Leipsic, 1890 ; and, for an Italian example, Goldstaub und
Wendriner, Ein Tosco- Venezianischer Bestiarius, Halle, 1892, where is given, on
pp. 369-371, a very pious but ve^ comical tradition regarding the beaver, hardly
mentionable to ears polite. For Friar Bartholomew, see (besides his book itself)
Medieval Lore, edited by Robert Steele, London, 1893, pp. 118-138.

Here and there among men who were free from church
control we have work of a better sort. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries Abd AUatif made observations upon the
natural history of Egypt which showed a truly scientific
spirit, and the Emperor Frederick II attempted to promote
a more fruitful study of Nature ; but one of these men was
abhorred as a Mussulman and the other as an infidel. Far
more in accordance with the spirit of the time was the ec-
clesiastic Giraldus Cambrensis, whose book on the topog-
raphy of Ireland bestows much attention upon the animals
of the island, and rarely fails to make each contribute an
appropriate moral. For example, he says that in Ireland
'* eagles live for so many ages that they seem to contend
with eternity itself; so also the saints, having put off the
old man and put on the new, obtain the blessed fruit of ever-
lasting life." Again, he tells us : " Eagles often fly so high
that their wings are scorched by the sun ; so those w^ho in
the Holy Scriptures strive to unravel the deep and hidden
secrets of the heavenly mysteries, beyond what is allowed,
fall below, as if the wings of the presumptuous imaginations
on which they are borne were scorched."

[_Maksutov]

In one of the great men of the following century ap-
peared a gleam of healthful criticism : Albert the Great, in
his work on the animals, dissents from the widespread belief
that certain birds spring from trees and are nourished by
the sap, and also from the theory that some are generated
in the sea from decaying wood.

But it required many generations for such scepticism to
produce much effect, and we find among the illustrations in
an edition of Mandeville published just before the Reforma-
tion not only careful accounts but pictured representations
both of birds and of beasts produced in the fruit of trees.*

This general employment of natural science for pious
purposes went on after the Reformation. Luther frequently
made this use of it, and his example controlled his followers.


* For Giraldus Cambrensis, see the edition in the Bohn Library, London, 1863,
p. 30 ; for Abd Allatif and Frederick II, see Hoefer, as above ; for Albertus Mag-
nus, see the De Animalibus, lib. xxiii ; for the illustrations in Mandeville, see the
Strasburg edition, 1484 ; for the history of the myth of the tree which produces
birds, see Max Muller's Lectures on the Science of Language, second series, lect. xii.


In i6i2, Wolfgang Franz, Professor of Theology at Luther's
university, gave to the world his sacred history of animals,
which went through many editions. It contained a very in-
genious classification, describing '* natural dragons," which
have three rows of teeth to each jaw, and he piously adds,
*' the principal dragon is the Devil."

Near the end of the same century, Father Kircher, the
great Jesuit professor at Rome, holds back the sceptical
current, insists upon the orthodox view, and represents
among the animals entering the ark sirens and griffins.

Yet even among theologians we note here and there a
sceptical spirit in natural science. Early in the same seven-
teenth century Eugene Roger published his Travels in Pales-
tine. As regards the utterances of Scripture he is soundly
orthodox : he prefaces his work with a map showing, among
other important points referred to in biblical history, the
place where Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the
jawbone of an ass, the cavern which Adam and Eve inhab-
ited after their expulsion from paradise, the spot where
Balaam's ass spoke, the place where Jacob wrestled with
the angel, the" steep place down which the swine possessed
of devils plunged into the sea, the position of the salt statue
which was once Lot's wife, the place at sea where Jonah
was swallowed by the whale, and " the exact spot where St.
Peter caught one hundred and fifty-three fishes."

[_mikwut]

This narrative has been thoroughly debunked. I might recommend John Hedley Brooke's Reconstructing Nature in demonstrating the folly of these historical master narratives.

mikwut

[_Maksutov]

This narrative has been thoroughly debunked. I might recommend John Hedley Brooke's Reconstructing Nature in demonstrating the folly of these historical master narratives.

mikwut

This work is of historical interest. Perhaps you would like to start a thread with your premise and explain it at length.

[_Maksutov]

As to natural history, he describes and discusses with
great theological acuteness the basilisk. He tells us that
the animal is about a foot and a half long, is shaped like a
crocodile, and kills people with a single glance. The one
which he saw w^as dead, fortunately for him, since in the
time of Pope Leo IV — as he tells us— one appeared in Rome
and killed many people by merely looking at them ; but the
Pope destroyed it with his prayers and the sign of the cross.
He informs us that Providence has wisely and mercifully
protected man by requiring the monster to cry aloud two or
three times whenever it leaves its den, and that the divine
wisdom in creation is also shown by the fact that the mon-
ster is obliged to look its victim in the eye, and at a certain
fixed distance, before its glance can penetrate the victim's
brain and so pass to his heart. He also gives a reason for
supposing that the same divine mercy has provided that the
crowing: of a cock will kill the basilisk.

Yet even in this good and credulous missionary we see
the influence of Bacon and the dawn of experimental sci-
ence ; for, having been told many stories regarding the sala-
mander, he secured one, placed it alive upon the burning
coals, and reports to us that the legends concerning its
power to live in the fire are untrue. He also tried experi-
ments with the chameleon, and found that the stories told
of it were to be received with much allowance : while, then,
he locks up his judgment whenever he discusses the letter
of Scripture, he uses his mind in other things much after
the modern method.

[_Maksutov]

In the second half of the same century Hottinger, in his
Theological Examination of the History of Creation, breaks
from the belief in the phoenix ; but his scepticism is care-
fully kept within the limits imposed by Scripture. He
avows his doubts, first, " because God created the animals
in couples, while the phoenix is represented as a single, un-
mated creature " ; secondly, '' because Noah, when he en-
tered the ark, brought the animals in by sevens, while there
were never so many individuals of the phoenix species " ;
thirdly, because " no man is known who dares assert that
he has ever seen this bird"; fourth, because " those who
assert there is a phoenix differ among themselves."

In view of these attacks on the salamander and the
phoenix, we are not surprised to find, before the end of the
century, scepticism regarding the basilisk : the eminent
Prof. Kirchmaier, at the University of Wittenberg, treats
phoenix and basilisk alike as old wives' fables. As to the
phoenix, he denies its existence, not only because Noah
took no such bird into the ark, but also because, as he
pithily remarks, '' birds come from eggs, not from ashes."
But the unicorn he can not resign, nor will he even con-
cede that the unicorn is a rhinoceros ; he appeals to Job
and to Marco Polo to prove that this animal, as usually
conceived, really exists, and says, " Who would not fear to
deny the existence of the unicorn, since Holy Scripture
names him with distinct praises?" As to the other great
animals mentioned in Scripture, he is so rationalistic as
to admit that behemoth was an elephant and leviathan a
whale.