God, Aquinas, and Dawkins: The Three Ages of Science

The Three Ages of Science.

The historical development of science can be divided into three stages in two different ways, within science itself and also against the background of the beliefs of society.

Within science, we can distinguish three distinct views of the world, as an organism, as a mechanism and as a mathematical formalism. The ancient Greeks, anxious to preserve human values, viewed the world as an organism, but this was a failure. In the Renaissance, when science came to maturity with Newton, the world became a mechanism, following precise mathematical equations. If we know the initial conditions, these enable us to calculate all subsequent motions, and the results are in precise agreement with our measurements. Finally, in the present century, mechanistic physics proved inadequate, and now for much of our work, we rely mainly on the mathematical equations, although physical understanding is still essential.

The relation between science and the society in which it lives also passes through three stages. In the first stage, most of the beliefs about the material world prevented or hindered the growth of science. Eventually science struggled into existence in the High Middle Ages when the Christian beliefs about the world provided the necessary conditions for its birth. It came to maturity in the Renaissance, and at that time most of the pioneer scientists were believing Christians who saw their work as showing forth the glory of God. At this point science became an autonomous self-sustaining enterprise that develops in accord with its own internal criteria, although it was still within a broadly Christian society. It needed the material support of society, and the relations between science and society were not always smooth. There have been from the beginning tensions between the scientists on the one hand and the theologians, the Church and the State authorities on the other, and among scientists between Christians and secularists. These can be a stimulating and healthy tensions, but they often degenerate into mutual incomprehension and hostility. Examples abound: Luther and Melanchthon attacked the Copernican theory, and Galileo was punished for his views. Nowadays the tension continues: many theologians are apprehensive of science, scientists like Hawking and Dawkins attack and pour scorn on theology, and there are continual battles with Government agencies to obtain sufficient support for scientific research.

In the present century we have moved into the third stage, when science more and more frequently finds itself in a society that is no longer broadly Christian, but indifferent or anti-Christian, either in its ideological roots or through the authority of the State. Science has spread rapidly over the world to non-Christian societies, as people become aware of its technological applications. But there is an important distinction; technology is easily exported and readily welcomed, but science is extremely difficult to export. Schools and universities all over the world teach science, but in most cases this has proved rather difficult, and it is not at all easy to establish really fruitful research programmes. Twice in Europe science has come under totalitarian regimes that have treated science as a slave or as a god, in Nazi Germany and in Soviet Russia. In both cases the effect on science has been disastrous, and science withered. Can science survive in a post-Christian society?

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