Scientific Progress as Related to Frankish Civilization and Romanity

By Fr. John Romanides

There are clear and distinct boundaries between Theology and Science. Theology, as the Greek origin of the word suggests, is concerned with God - what God is and how one can attain communion with Him - whereas Science is concerned with the created world and is interested mainly in the use of the world.

Medieval Frankish civilization* was destroyed by Europe's scientific, economic, social, political and philosophical awakening. Romanity however, was not only unharmed, but was actually reinforced by this awakening of Europe, and later of America and Russia.

Neo-Greeklings not only cannot perceive the above; rather, they are angered when they hear such a comment, because their basic dogma is that light can be found only in Europe or America or Russia. In fact, they believe that only the Greeks who accept this idea can become enlightened.

Science and Orthodox Christianity: An Overview (2 of 2)

...continued from part one.

Science and Orthodoxy during the Ottoman Period

Byzantine humanism ended with the collapse of Byzantium, and the debate about nature ceased to be a priority for Orthodox scholars. Some who had fled to Italy eventually returned to their homeland, where they made a living by teaching; while others, who had already acquired a sound Orthodox theological education and despised the Westerners, would engage in translations, mostly of astronomical works, in parallel to their theological polemics. Yet the sixteenth century in the Ottoman territories failed to produce important works on science—and certainly none that could be perceived as contradictory to faith. Most of the scientific texts that were produced by Greeks were written in Latin, and thus their work was assigned more to the European Renaissance than to the Orthodox world. In the West, Greek scholars contributed a great deal to European humanism by teaching Greek, editing ancient Greek texts, and helping Western scholars discover new gems in Byzantine manuscripts, a number of which, having survived the destruction of Eastern libraries, were carried to libraries in Western European cities.

Science and Orthodox Christianity: An Overview (1 of 2)

By Efthymios Nicolaidis, Eudoxie Delli, Nikolaos Livanos, 

Kostas Tampakis, and George Vlahakis

Abstract

This essay offers an overview of the history of the relations between science and Eastern Christianity based on Greek-language sources. The civilizations concerned are the Byzantine Empire, the Christian Orthodox communities of the Ottoman Empire, and modern Greece, as a case study of a national state. Beginning with the Greek Church Fathers, the essay investigates the ideas of theologians and scholars on nature. Neoplatonism, the theological debates of Iconoclasm and Hesychasm, the proposed union of the Eastern and Western Churches, and the complex relations with the Hellenic past all had notable impacts on the conception of science held by the Byzantine Orthodox. From the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, the Christian Orthodox world did not actively participate in the making of the new science that was developing in modern Europe. It had to deal with the assimilation of scientific ideas produced by Western Christianity, and its main concern was the “legitimacy” of knowledge that did not originate directly from its own spiritual tradition. Finally, with regard to the Greek state, beyond the specific points of contact between the sciences and Orthodox Christianity—pertaining, for example, to materialism, evolution, and the calendar—the essay presents the constant background engagement with religion visible in most public pronouncements of scientists and intellectuals.

Gallup Poll Shows Belief in Creationist View of Humans at New Low in U.S.

A new Gallup poll released Monday shows some exciting developments in the faith and science conversation. In a question used since 1982, Gallup asks U.S. adults to choose between the following views of human origins:

1. Human beings developed over millions of years, but God guided this process.

2. Human beings developed over millions of years, but God had no part in this process.

3. God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years.

The Relationship Between Science and Scripture (Galileo Galilei)

In 1615, as the Roman Inquisition was beginning to investigate his heretical heliocentric model of the universe, Galileo — who knew how to flatter his way to support — wrote to Christina of Lorraine, the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany. The lengthy letter, found in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (public library), explores the relationship between Science and Scripture. Galileo bemoans his critics who “remaining hostile not so much toward the things in question as toward their discoverer,” making an eloquent case for why blind adherence to sacred texts shouldn’t be used to disarm the validity of scientific truth.

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany, 1615

By Galileo Galilei

To the Most Serene Grand Duchess Mother:

Some years ago, as Your Serene Highness well knows, I discovered in the heavens many things that had not been seen before our own age. The novelty of these things, as well as some consequences which followed from them in contradiction to the physical notions commonly held among academic philosophers, stirred up against me no small number of professors - as if I had placed these things in the sky with my own hands in order to upset nature and overturn the sciences. They seemed to forget that the increase of known truths stimulates the investigation, establishment, and growth of the arts; not their diminution or destruction.

Faith And Science In Orthodox Gnosiology and Methodology

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos

A. Problem or pseudo-problem?

The antithesis and consequent collision between faith and science is a problem for western (Franco-Latin) thought and is a pseudo-problem for the Orthodox patristic tradition. This is based upon the historical data of these two regions.

The (supposed) dilemma of faith versus science appears in Western Europe in the 17th century with the simultaneous development of the positive sciences. About this same time we have the appearance of the first Orthodox positions on this issue. It is an important fact that these developments in the West are happening without the presence of Orthodoxy. In these recent centuries there has been a spiritual estrangement and differentiation between the [rational] West and the Orthodox East. This fact is outlined by the de-orthodoxiation and de-ecclesiastication of the western European world and the philosophication and legalization of faith and its eventual forming as a religion in the same area. Thus religion is the refutation of Orthodoxy and, according to Fr. John Romanides, the sickess of the human being. Therefore, Orthodoxy remained historically as a non-participant in the making of the present western European civilization, which is also a different size than the civilization of the Orthodox East.

On God and Science

Hearing these two words, God and Science (or Religion and Reason), most people think there is a contrast. But is it true that everything that has to do with God (or religion) violates the discoveries and achievements of science (or reason)? Or perhaps the opposite is true, where science contradicts and denies religion?

Certainly from a historical point of view we can see how many times frictions occurred when there was an encounter between the two. Unfortunately, to the point where there were bloody persecutions (from institutional religion) or severe and fierce denial which also had hideous bloody endings (on behalf of science, including philosophical currents).

Scientific Progress, Frankish Civilization and Romanity

By Protopresbyter Fr. John Romanides

There are clear and distinct boundaries between Theology and Science. Theology, as the Greek origin of the word suggests, is concerned with God - what God is and how one can attain communion with Him - whereas Science is concerned with the created world and is interested mainly in the use of the world.

The History of the Word "Scientist"

Dr. Melinda Baldwin from Harvard University wrote a short yet fascinating and timely history of the word scientist and its association with the discipline of science titled "The History of 'Scientist'", a term historically more controversial than most would think.

Here are some excerpts from Baldwin’s piece: