Christian vs. Science

For decades, perhaps centuries, Christians have gotten a reputation as being anti-science. Darwin purported a theory that contradicts the Genesis account of Creation and anyone who disagrees with his theory must be backward and ignorant. But even before Darwin circumnavigated the globe on the Beagle, Christians have lived with these accusations.

Ronald L. Numbers and Kostas Kampourakis have edited a new book, Newton’s Apple and Other Myths about Science. In the very first essay, Michael H. Shank addresses the myth that Christians have been against science since the Middle Ages. I was taught in school that the Dark Ages was a time where the illiterate people knew only what the priests told them and virtually no learning took place. When I became a middle school teacher, I had learned enough to know better and taught my students differently, but the myth seems to persist.

Shank points out where the myth originates and its obvious inaccuracies. The problem actually originates with the Romans, who studied only what was written in Latin, and so the advances of the Greeks were ignored. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the areas of Western Europe had only those works in Latin to learn from. Christians weren’t suppressing learning and science. They inherited a body of learning and worked with what they had. Of course it took some time, but the people of Western Europe began studying on their own. People who support this myth see this as the beginning of the modern era, but nothing in history happens in a vacuum. It may have been a long time coming, but it was bound to come.

Then how, exactly, did the change come about? Shank writes, “Two institutions crucial for science evolved during the medieval period: observatories and universities.” Prior to the establishment of universities, the bishops and abbots controlled the education of young men given to the monasteries for such a purpose. And what was their purpose? To make scientific discoveries and educational advancement? No, their purpose was to spread the Gospel. MIT’s purpose is to train mathematicians and scientists; we don’t accuse the professors and leaders of MIT with suppressing the creative abilities of future writers and teachers. That’s not their purpose, and the purpose of the monasteries was to train spiritual leaders who would teach the people the Word of God.

Students enrolled in these universities – in the Middle Ages – and by 1500, more than a quarter million students had attended schools in northern and western Europe. The modern era come about because men in the Middle Ages went to university. As Shank points out, “When Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) came along, he was not a lonely genius born in medieval darkness and fertilized by contact with remote antiquity in Italy. He was one of thousands of university scholars who had not only inherited a widely diffused and reworked amalgam of Greek, Arabic, and Latin scientific learning but also been trained to criticize it.”

Do Christianity and science naturally oppose each other? No, not necessarily. Scientists seek to improve the world through medical and technological advancements. As Christians, we see some of these advancements as contrary to the teachings of scripture: cloning, euthanasia, the theory of evolution. Will arguing with scientists at the top of our lungs change their minds? Probably not.

But is that our purpose? Or is our purpose to share the love and grace of God with all people? They don’t need to hear us argue against their new advancements. They need to hear that we are all sinners and that Christ died for our salvation. Christianity is not anti-science, and it definitely isn’t anti-scientists!