compressing arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other … Faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; and eventually a divergence between them, impossible to conceal, must take place.
From the measured tones of this statement, Draper descended into virulent anti-Catholicism and a near proclamation of war:
Will modern civilization consent to abandon the career of advancement which has given it somuch power and happiness … Will it submit to the dictation of a power … which kept Europe in a stagnant condition for many centuries, ferociously suppressing by the stake and the sword every attempt at progress; a power that is founded in a cloud of mysteries; that sets itself above reason and common sense; that loudly proclaims the hatred it entertains against liberty of thought and freedom in civil institutions …
Then has it in truth come to this, that Roman Christianity and Science are recognized by their respective adherents as being absolutely incompatible; they cannot exist together; one must yield to the other; mankind must make its choice—it cannot have both.
Equally uncompromising statements of war issued from the other side, as in this proclamation from the First Vatican Council:
Let him be anathema …
Who shall say that no miracles can be wrought, or that they can never be known with certainty, and that the divine origin of Christianity cannot be proved by them …
Who shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that onemay be allowed to hold as true their assertions, even when opposed to revealed doctrine.
Who shall say that it may at times come to pass, in the progress of science, that the doctrines set forth by the Church must be taken in another sense than that in which the Church has ever received and yet receives them.
Them’s fighting words indeed. But remember that these fulminations from both sides reflect the political realities of a particular time (as discussed on this page – this page ), not the logical necessities of coherent and unchangeable arguments. Pio Nono’s stark proclamation rightly angered scientists, but it also brought great sorrow to liberals and supporters of science within the Church. Moreover, as documented in chapter 2 ( this page – this page ) for recent papal attitudes toward human evolution, the Catholic Church has since abandoned this confrontational position, born of a specific set of historical circumstances, and has warmly embraced NOMA.
Draper extolled the flat-earth myth as a primary example of religion’s constraint and science’s progressive power:
The circular visible horizon and its dip at sea, the gradual appearance and disappearance of ships in the offing, cannot fail to incline intelligentsailors to a belief in the globular figure of the earth. The writings of the Mohammedan astronomers and philosophers had given currency to that doctrine throughout Western Europe, but, as might be expected, it was received with disfavor by theologians … Traditions and policy forbade [the papal government] to admit any other than the flat figure of the earth, as revealed in the Scriptures.
Russell comments on the success of Draper’s work:
The History of the Conflict
is of immense importance, because it was the first instance that an influential figure had explicitly declared that science and religion were at war, and it succeeded as few books ever do. It fixed in the educated mind the idea that “science” stood for freedom and progress against the superstition and repression of “religion.” Its viewpoint became conventional wisdom.
White’s later book also presents Columbus as an apostle of rationalism against theological dogma. Of Cosmas Indicopleustes’ flat-earth theory, for example, he wrote: “Some of the foremost men in the Church devoted themselves to buttressing it with new texts andthrowing about it new outworks of theological
From the measured tones of this statement, Draper descended into virulent anti-Catholicism and a near proclamation of war:
Will modern civilization consent to abandon the career of advancement which has given it somuch power and happiness … Will it submit to the dictation of a power … which kept Europe in a stagnant condition for many centuries, ferociously suppressing by the stake and the sword every attempt at progress; a power that is founded in a cloud of mysteries; that sets itself above reason and common sense; that loudly proclaims the hatred it entertains against liberty of thought and freedom in civil institutions …
Then has it in truth come to this, that Roman Christianity and Science are recognized by their respective adherents as being absolutely incompatible; they cannot exist together; one must yield to the other; mankind must make its choice—it cannot have both.
Equally uncompromising statements of war issued from the other side, as in this proclamation from the First Vatican Council:
Let him be anathema …
Who shall say that no miracles can be wrought, or that they can never be known with certainty, and that the divine origin of Christianity cannot be proved by them …
Who shall say that human sciences ought to be pursued in such a spirit of freedom that onemay be allowed to hold as true their assertions, even when opposed to revealed doctrine.
Who shall say that it may at times come to pass, in the progress of science, that the doctrines set forth by the Church must be taken in another sense than that in which the Church has ever received and yet receives them.
Them’s fighting words indeed. But remember that these fulminations from both sides reflect the political realities of a particular time (as discussed on this page – this page ), not the logical necessities of coherent and unchangeable arguments. Pio Nono’s stark proclamation rightly angered scientists, but it also brought great sorrow to liberals and supporters of science within the Church. Moreover, as documented in chapter 2 ( this page – this page ) for recent papal attitudes toward human evolution, the Catholic Church has since abandoned this confrontational position, born of a specific set of historical circumstances, and has warmly embraced NOMA.
Draper extolled the flat-earth myth as a primary example of religion’s constraint and science’s progressive power:
The circular visible horizon and its dip at sea, the gradual appearance and disappearance of ships in the offing, cannot fail to incline intelligentsailors to a belief in the globular figure of the earth. The writings of the Mohammedan astronomers and philosophers had given currency to that doctrine throughout Western Europe, but, as might be expected, it was received with disfavor by theologians … Traditions and policy forbade [the papal government] to admit any other than the flat figure of the earth, as revealed in the Scriptures.
Russell comments on the success of Draper’s work:
The History of the Conflict
is of immense importance, because it was the first instance that an influential figure had explicitly declared that science and religion were at war, and it succeeded as few books ever do. It fixed in the educated mind the idea that “science” stood for freedom and progress against the superstition and repression of “religion.” Its viewpoint became conventional wisdom.
White’s later book also presents Columbus as an apostle of rationalism against theological dogma. Of Cosmas Indicopleustes’ flat-earth theory, for example, he wrote: “Some of the foremost men in the Church devoted themselves to buttressing it with new texts andthrowing about it new outworks of theological
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