"[This] magnificent critical survey, with its inherent respect for both the 'Westt's mainstream high cult
728 68 42MB
English Pages 560 [564]
THE BRILLIANT BESTSELLER "The most lucid and concise presentation I have read, of the grand lines of what every student should know about the history of Western thought. The writing is elegant and carries the reader with the momentum of a novel.... It is really a noble performance."
Joseph Campbell
fU i-t.
MIND Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View
RICHARD TARNAS
1 ex Uhris
Mitchell Kapor
? "THE BEST HISTORY OF WESTERN THOUGHT MASTERFUL." I HAVE READ Robert A. McDermott
Chairman, Philosophy Department Baruch College, City University of
"An
extraordinary piece of scholarship.
Western thought
history of sights
New
York
not only places the
It
in perspective, but derives
new
in-
concerning the evolution of our thinking and the future of
the whole
human
A
enterprise. ...
truly
important publishing
event."
John
E.
Mack
Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School Pulitzer Prize-winning author of
A
Prince of
Our
Disorder and The Alchemy of Survival
"This
is
the most creative and comprehensive treatment oi the
history of
Western thought
know.
I
.
.
.
The book
is
a real master-
piece."
Stanislav Grof
author of Realms of
and Beyond
the
the
Human
"I revelled in the intellectual pleasure
from beginning to end. read
it
all
And when
over again. ...
about ten, and including in
I
have added
my
and stimulation
got to the end, it
I
it
gave
wanted
to a small set oi
collection'
A
me to
books—
dictionary, the Bible, etc.— which
on my desk. ... No accolade would be excessive." Kenneth Ring
my 'permanent
without flaw.
I
Unconscious
Brain
sit
perfect book,
Professor of Psychology, University of Connecticut
Author of The Omega
Project
"AN INTELLECTUAL TOUR DE FORCE that presents a brilliant overview of the
ern world view in accessible form.
modern mind alone
is
development of the West-
The summary
of the post-
worth the price of the book." Stanley Krippner Professor of Psychology
California Institute of Integral Studies
"A
work of high adventure and intellectual daring." Gary Lachman Bodhi Tree Review
"The Passion of the Western Mind is a masterful chronicle of the and major flowerings of the Western search for understanding, from the pre-Socratic Greeks to the present day. It is also a
roots
powerful,
multi-layered
synthesis
that
precisely
integrates
the
philosophic, spiritual, and scientific dimensions of that search,
and prophesies its coming transformation. ... A great work of an original illumination." Harrison Sheppard The Hellenic Journal "[Tarnas]
has succeeded
in
weighing thousands of
facts
art,
and
welding them together into a breathtaking intellectual synthesis, presented in accomplished prose."
Georg Feuerstein, Spectrum Review
"A
sweeping intellectual overview of the emergence and evolu-
tion of day.
.
.
human thought from the earliest times down to the present With this volume Richard Tarnas goes a long way toward .
establishing himself as a
modern day Encyclopaedist." The
New
England Review of Books
"SUCCEEDS SPECTACULARLY AN EXCITING READ, A PAGE^BURNER." .
.
.
Robert Craft
The Quest "Exceptionally well-organized
Above little
all,
it
is
.
.
extremely well-written.
.
.
.
.
replete with insights that 'go off' like wonderful
firecrackers throughout the text. ...
Its
radically interdisci-
plinary nature explicitly calls into question the division of knowl-
edge into
'fields,'
the tale and
its
which
to be sure, a large part of the point o(
is,
significance: not trees, but the
compelling articulation.
.
.
.
whole jungle
in
[The book includes] the most concise
and compelling account of early Christian history that
I
have ever
read."
David
L. Miller
Professor of Religion, Syracuse University
New
author of The
Polytheism
"Richard Tarnas possesses a fascinating lucidity, and in The PasWestern Mind moves with ease among complex matters
sion of the
without sacrificing a bit of their complexity." Jeffrey
Hart
National Review
"An
important
tory, culture,
new
interpretation for the comprehension of his-
and humanity
itself.
.
.
.
Uncompromising
clarity,
breadth, and simplicity."
Kevan Prosnick The Inner Door "Truly on the cutting edge of thinking."
Harvard Center for Psychological Studies in the Nuclear Age
"AN INTELLECTUAL ADVENTURE, this challenging synthesis
the
throws a sharp light on ideas central to
modern outlook." Publishers
Weekly
''Brilliantly
conveys the drama of conflicting questions about mind
and matter,
faith
determinism.
dom
.
.
.
and reason, cosmology and science, freedom and An essential guidebook to the permanent wis-
of past philosophers."
Joseph
The
"No
F.
Keppler
Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer
other such overview provides, in equal compass, as clear and
cogent a survey.
Its
scholarship
is
impeccable."
Huston Smith, Professor of Religious Studies University of California, Berkeley, author of
The World's
Religions
and Beyond
the
Postmodern Mind
"Richard Tarnas speaks to our condition as humans alive at the Tarnas has accumulated a staggering end of the 20th century. amount of data, yet he spares us the confusion this knowledge could create in our minds. How does he manage this? He tells us .
.
.
not primarily about the things his mind has grasped, but rather about the things that have grasped his mind. Thus, his account grasps the reader's mind, too."
David Steindl-Rast coauthor of Belonging
to the
Universe
"A GREAT BOOK
A
.
.
.
passionate book about history, the ecstasy of thought, and
thought's relationship to the mystery of
lite.
Its
brilliance, cratts
manship, and courageousness should not be missed."
Walter R. Christie Chrysalis
"It
He
is
difficult to overpraise
has produced a
what Tarnas has accomplished.
much needed contemporary
plexed,' a comprehensive yet readily accessible tially
A
.
map
of the poten-
Institute Library ]ournal
compelling narrative history oi the evolving Western world
view— the Western mind and
spirit
— as
seen through the pivotal
interaction between philosophy, religion, and science. ten]
.
bewildering territory of Western intellectual history."
Sean M. Kelly The San Francisco ]ung 44
.
'guide for the per-
with the insight of a psychologist and the
.
.
.
artistry
[Writ-
of a
novelist."
Keith
Thompson
Utne Reader
"Tarnas
is
one oi those
rare but valuable people
who match
a
deep and lasting vision with impeccable scholarship, balance, and the sheer effort required to create something of world-changing quality."
Renn
Butler
Common Ground "As
close to perfect as any
human
project has a right to be."
Deane Juhan Author of Job's Body
Th,
Passion of the
Western
Mind Understanding the Ideas
That Have Shaped Our World View
Richard Tarnas
Ballantine Books
•
New
York
To Heather
Copyright © 1991 by Richard Tarnas All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copy-
Conventions.
right
No
part of this
book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publisher. Published in the United States by Ballantine
Random House, Inc., New York, and siRandom House of Canada Limited,
Books, a division of
multaneously in Canada by
Toronto.
This edition published by arrangement with Harmony Books, a division of
Crown
Publishers, Inc.,
Library of Congress Catalog
New
York.
Card Number: 92-90050
ISBN: 0-345-36809-6
Cover design by James R. Harris Cover painting: Thomas Cole. The on canvas, 53 X
Museum
Architect's 84'/i6
Dream
inches.
(1840), oil
The Toledo
of Art, Toledo, Ohio. Purchased with
funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in
Manufactured First
10
Memory
in the
of
Her
Father, Maurice A. Scott.
United States of America
Ballantine Books Edition: April 1993
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
3r >
Contents Preface
xiii
Introduction
1
The Greek World View
I.
The Archetypal Forms Ideas and Gods The Evolution of the Greek Mind from Homer
)
6 1
to Plato
]
16
The Mythic Vision
16
The
19
Birth of Philosophy
The Greek Enlightenment
25
Socrates
3
The
Platonic
Hero
35
The Philosopher's Quest and The Problem oi the Planets Aristotle
the Universal
Mind
48
and the Greek Balance
55
The Dual Legacy
II.
41
69
The Transformation
of the Classical Era
Crosscurrents o{ the Hellenistic Matrix
The Decline and Preservation of
the
73 75
Greek Mind
75
79
Astronomy Astrology
81
Neoplatonism
84
Rome The Emergence
87
III. Judaic
89
of Christianity
The
Christian World
Monotheism and the Divinization
Classical Elements
The Conversion
of History
and the Platonic Inheritance
of the Pagan
Mind
View
91
94 98 106
Contraries Within the Christian Vision
120
Exultant Christianity
125
Contents
Dualistic Christianity
130
Further Contraries and the Augustinian Legacy
138
Matter and
138
Spirit
Augustine
143
Law and Grace
148
Athens and Jerusalem
The Holy
Spirit
Rome and
and
151
Its
Vicissitudes
155
Catholicism
The Virgin Mary and A Summing Up
IV.
158
the Mother
Church
162 165
The Transformation
of the Medieval Era
171
The Scholastic Awakening The Quest of Thomas Aquinas
175
Further Developments in the High Middle Ages
191
179
The Rising Tide of Secular Thought
191
Astronomy and Dante
193
The
Secularization of the
Church and
the Rise
of Lay Mysticism Critical Scholasticism
The Rebirth
196
and Ockham's Razor
of Classical
Humanism
209 209
Petrarch
The Return of Plato
At
200
the Threshold
V. The Modern World View The Renaissance The Reformation The Scientific Revolution
2
1
220
223
224 233
248
Copernicus
248
The
251
Religious Reaction
Kepler Galileo
The Forging of Newtonian Cosmology The Philosophical Revolution
254 258 261
272
Bacon
272
Descartes
275
Contents
x
Foundations
o\ the
i
Modem World View
Ancients and Moderns
291
The Triumph
298
oi
Secularism
The Early Concord
Science and Religion:
Compromise and
298
Conflict
)01
308
Philosophy, Politics, Psychology
Modem
The
Character
}
Hidden Continuities
VI.
320
The Transformation
The Changing Image
of the
Human
of the
Modern Era
326
Self-Critique oi the
From Locke
to
325
from Copernicus
through Freud
The
1
Modern Mind
333
Hume
333
Kant
341
The Decline of Metaphysics
35
The
Crisis of
Modern Science
355
Fate
366
The Divided World View
375
Romanticism and The
Two
Its
366
Cultures
Attempted Syntheses: From Goethe and Hegel Existentialism
and hJihihsm
to
]ung
378 388
The Postmodern Mind At the Millennium
41
VII. Epilogue The Post-Copernican Double Bind
416
395
415
Knowledge and the Unconscious
422
The Evolution of World Views
433
Bringing
It
All Back
Home
441
Chronology
446
Notes
468
Bibliography
494
Acknowledgments Index
*>
* 1
515
Preface
This book presents a concise narrative history oi the Western world view
My
from the ancient Greek to the postmodern.
aim has been
within the limits of a single volume, a coherent account
mind and
of the Western
studies,
changing conception of
its
—
advances on several fronts
in philosophy,
The
evolution
reality.
Recent
depth psychology, religious
—have shed new
and history of science
evolution.
to provide,
ot the
on
light
remarkable
this
account presented here has been greatly
historical
in-
fluenced and enriched by these advances, and at the end o( the narrative I
have drawn on them to
set forth a
new
perspective for understanding
our culture's intellectual and spiritual history.
We
hear
much now about
the breakdown o( the Western tradition,
the decline oi liberal education, the dangerous lack of a cultural foundation for grappling with contemporary problems. Partly such concerns reflect insecurity
and nostalgia
in the face of a radically
Yet they also reflect a genuine need, and thoughtful
men and women who
addressed.
How
did the
it is
to
I
and working
them we must recover
of uncritical reverence for the views and values of ages
past, but rather to discover era.
ideas
influence the world today? These are
pressing questions for our time, and to approach
—not out
is
present condition?
its
How did the modern mind arrive at those fundamental
our roots
number of
recognize such a need that this book
modern world come
principles that so profoundly
changing world.
to that growing
and integrate the
historical origins of our
own
believe that only by recalling the deeper sources of our present
world and world view can we hope to gain the self-understanding necessary for dealing with our current dilemmas. The West's cultural and intellectual history
can thus serve
challenges that face us
all.
essential part of that history
Yet
I
also simply
history of
wanted
as a preparatory
Through more
this
book
I
education for the
have hoped
to tell a story
I
thought worth
Western culture has long seemed
telling.
Judaism and rhe
and imperial Rome, Church and the Middle Ages,
Hellenistic era
The
to possess the dynamics,
scope, and beauty of a great epic drama: ancient and classical
the Catholic
to Rial
readily accessible to the general reader.
rise
the Renai
4
(
C
Sreece, the
hristianity,
Reforma-
tion, and Scientific Revolution, the Enlightenment and Romanticism
xiv
Preface
and onward
own
to our
compelling time. Sweep and grandeur, dramatic
and astonishing resolutions have marked the Western mind's
conflicts
sustained attempt to
comprehend the nature of reality
—from Thales and
Pythagoras to Plato and Aristotle, from Clement and Boethius to
Aquinas and Ockham, from Eudoxus and Ptolemy to Copernicus and Newton, from Bacon and Descartes to Kant and Hegel, and from all these to Darwin, Einstein, Freud, and beyond. That long battle of ideas called "the
Western
been a
tradition" has
and consequence we
An
bear within ourselves.
all
adventure whose sum
stirring
epic heroism has
shone forth in the personal struggles of Socrates, of Paul and Augustine, of Luther and Galileo, and in that larger cultural struggle, borne by these
and by many
less visible protagonists,
extraordinary course. There
is
which has moved the West on
And there
high tragedy here.
its
something
is
beyond tragedy.
The
following account traces the development of the major world
views of the West's mainstream high culture, focusing on the crucial sphere of interaction between philosophy, religion, and science. Perhaps
what Virginia Woolf said of great works of literature could be of great world views:
much
in their
them
in
all
"The
success of the masterpieces seems to
freedom from
—but
in the
completely mastered
its
—indeed we
perspective."
no
its
My goal
evolution, and to take each
special priority for
present one (which
on
its
itself
its
been to
human
—seeking
own terms. I have assumed reality,
including our
spirit
that
to understand
consequences, to
Today the Western mind appears
let its
I
zation's
history.
believe
we can
I
would
and appreci-
meaning unfold.
be undergoing an epochal
to
transformation, of a magnitude perhaps comparable to any in our I
in the
multiple and in profound flux). Instead,
approach an exceptional work of art experience
not so
mind which has
Western mind
have approached each world view in the same
ate, to
a
in these pages has
any particular conception of
is
lie
tolerate the grossest errors
faults
immense persuasiveness of
give voice to each perspective mastered by the
course of
said as well
participate
intelligently
civili-
in
that
transformation only to the extent to which
we
Every age must remember
Each generation must exam-
ine
its
history anew.
and think through again, from
ideas that
have shaped
its
its
own
book
distinctive vantage point, the
understanding of the world.
from the richly complex perspective of the this
are historically informed.
late
Our task
is
to
twentieth century.
I
do so
hope
will contribute to that effort.
R. T.
The Passion of the
Western
Mind
The world
is
deep:
deeper than day can comprehend.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Introduction
A
book that explores the evolution oi the Western mind places spec ial demands on both reader and writer, for it asks us to enter into frames of reference that are sometimes radically different from our own.
book
invites a certain intellectual flexibility
cal imagination, a capacity for
men and women
—
Such
viewing the world through the eyes
from other times.
a
a sympathetic metaphysi-
One must
in a sense
wipe the
t
>t
slate
clean, attempt to see things without the benefit or burden of a pre-
conceived outlook.
Of course
only be striven
never achieved. Yet to aspire to that ideal
for,
such a pristine, malleable state of mind can is
perhaps
the single most important prerequisite for an enterprise such as
Unless we are able to perceive and articulate, on their without condescension, certain powerful
no longer consider
valid or defensible
conviction that the Earth
is
—
beliefs
for
own
this.
terms and
and assumptions that we
example, the once universal
the stationary center of the cosmos, or the
even more enduring tendency among Western thinkers to conceive of
and personify the human species then we will of our
own
fail
in
predominantly masculine terms
to understand the intellectual
thought.
Our constant
challenge
is
and to
cultural foundations
remain
faithful to the
historical material, allowing our present perspective to enrich, but not
the various ideas and world views
distort,
challenge should not be underestimated, that will
become
I
we examine. While
that
believe that today, for reasons
clear in the later chapters of the book,
we
are in a better
position to engage this task with the necessary intellectual and imaginative flexibility
The
than
at
perhaps any time in the past.
following narrative
is
organized chronologically according to the
three world views associated with the three major eras that have traditionally
been distinguished
in
Western
cultural history
— the
classical,
the medieval, and the modern. Needless to say, any division oi history into "eras"
and "world views" cannot
in itself
do
justice to the actual
complexity and diversity of Western thought during these centuries. Yet to discuss such an immense mass of material fruitfully, one must first introduce some provisional principles of organization.
overarching generalities, we may
Within these
then better address the complications
2
Introduction
and ambiguities, the internal
conflicts
and unanticipated changes that
have never ceased to mark the history of the Western mind.
We begin with the Greeks.
It
was some twenty-five centuries ago that
the Hellenic world brought forth that extraordinary flowering of culture that
marked the dawn of Western
civilization.
Endowed with seemingly
primeval clarity and creativity, the ancient Greeks provided the Western
mind with what has proved to be a perennial source of insight, inspiration, and renewal. Modern science, medieval theology, classical humanism all stand deeply in their debt. Greek thought was as fundamental
—
for
Copernicus and Kepler, and Augustine and Aquinas,
and Petrarch. Our way of thinking underlying logic, so
much
is
still
so that before
as for
Cicero
profoundly Greek in
we can begin
own thought, we must first look closely They remain fundamental for us in other ways as
its
to grasp the
character of our
at that of the
Greeks.
well: Curious,
innovative, critical, intensely engaged with ing for order
life
Greeks were originators of intellectual values were in the
and with death, search-
and meaning yet skeptical of conventional
fifth
century b.c. Let us
as relevant
verities,
the
today as they
recall, then, these first protagonists
of the Western intellectual tradition.
A detailed chronology for the events discussed in this book appears at the end of the text (page 446), while dates of birth and death for each historical figure cited can be found next to the individual's name in the Index. A discussion of gender and language in the text appears at the beginning of the Notes (page 468). Note:
I
The Greek World View
To
approach what was distinctive
protean as that of the Greeks, its
most
let us
striking characteristics
tendency to interpret the world
in a vision as
—
complex and
begin by examining one of
a sustained, highly diversified
in terms of archetypal principles.
This
tendency was in evidence throughout Greek culture from the Homeric epics onward, though
it first
emerged
in philosophically elaborate
form
the intellectual crucible of Athens between the latter part o( the
century b.c. and the middle of the fourth. Associated with the figure Socrates,
it
there received
its
foundational and in some
At
tive formulation in the dialogues of Plato.
cosmos
as
scendent
its
basis
of
respects defini-
was
a
view of the
an ordered expression of certain primordial essences or
first
in
fifth
tran-
principles, variously conceived as Forms, Ideas, universal*,
changeless absolutes, immortal deities, divine archai, and archetypes.
Although
this perspective
took on a number of distinct inflections, and
although there were important countercurrents to
this view,
it
would
appear that not only Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and Pythagoras before lus
them and
Homer and lesiod, Aeschycommon visit in, reflect' something
Plotinus after, but indeed
and Sophocles
all
expressed
like a
1
4
The Greek World View
ing a typically
of
Greek propensity
to see clarifying universals in the chaos
life.
Speaking in these broad terms, and mindful of the inexactness of such
we may
generalities,
say that the
Greek universe was ordered by
which underlay concrete
plurality of timeless essences
reality,
giving
a it
form and meaning. These archetypal principles included the mathematical forms of
dark, male
of
man
geometry and arithmetic; cosmic opposites such
and female, love and hate, unity and
(anthropos)
and other
living creatures;
as light
and
multiplicity; the forms
and the Ideas of the Good,
the Beautiful, the Just, and other absolute moral and aesthetic values. In the pre-philosophical Greek mind, these archetypal principles took the
form of mythic personifications such
(Ouranos and Gaia),
as well as
as Eros,
more
Chaos, Heaven and Earth
fully personified figures
such
as
Zeus, Prometheus, and Aphrodite. In this perspective, every aspect of
existence was patterned and permeated by such fundamentals. Despite
the continuous flux of
phenomena
in
both the outer world and inner
experience, there could yet be distinguished specific immutable structures or essences, so definite
an independent
and enduring they were believed own.
reality of their
It
was upon
this
to possess
apparent im-
mutability and independence that Plato based both his metaphysics and his theory of
knowledge.
Because the archetypal perspective outlined here provides a useful point of departure for entering into the Greek world view, and because Plato was that perspective's preeminent theoretician and apologist,
whose thought would become the
single
the evolution of the Western mind,
we
most important foundation shall begin
Platonic doctrine of Forms. In subsequent chapters,
development of the Greek vision
historical
as a
for
by discussing the
we
shall pursue the
whole, and thereby
attend to the complex dialectic that led to Plato's thought, and to the equally complex consequences that followed from
it.
Yet to approach Plato, we must bear in mind his unsystematic, often tentative,
bear in
and even
mind too the
ironic style of presenting his philosophy.
inevitable
We
should
and no doubt often deliberate ambiguities
inherent in his chosen literary mode, the dramatic dialogue. Finally,
must of
recall the range, variability,
some
fifty years.
With
these qualifications, then,
we may make
provisional attempt to set forth certain prominent ideas and
suggested by his writings.
Our
we
and growth of his thought over a period a
principles
tacit guide in this interpretive effort will
be
The Greek World Ywu
the Platonic tradition
5
itself,
philosophical perspective
Having established
it
which preserved and developed
a
specific
regarded as originating with Plato.
that pivotal position within the
can then move backward and forward
Greek mind, we
— retrospectively
to
the early
mythological and Presocratic traditions, and then onward to Aristotle.
The Archetypal Forms What
has been
commonly understood
Platonism revolves around
as
Forms. That assertion demands a partial
though a profound one,
shift,
from what has come to be our usual approach to
we must
this shift,
its
the asserted existence of the archetypal Ideas or
cardinal doctrine,
first ask,
"What
is
reality.
To
understand
the precise relation between the
Platonic Forms or Ideas and the empirical world of everyday reality?"
Upon
this
question turns the entire conception. (Plato used the Greek
words
idea
and
eidos interchangeably. Idea
was taken over into Latin and
English, while eidos was translated into Latin as forma
and into English
as
"form.") It is
crucial to the Platonic understanding that these
Forms are
pri-
mary, while the visible objects of conventional reality are their direct Platonic Forms are not conceptual abstractions that the
derivatives.
human mind
creates by generalizing from a class of particulars. Rather,
they possess a quality of being, a degree of reality, that
superior to that
is
of the concrete world. Platonic archetypes form the world and also stand
beyond
They
They manifest themselves within time and
it.
constitute the veiled essence of things.
Plato taught that
what
can best be understood
is
perceived as a particular object in the world
as a concrete expression of a
Idea, an archetype which gives that object
A particular thing
condition. it.
Something
Beauty
is
dite) that
is
it is
it.
When
one
falls
it
is
What
The
art,
one
or
is
true,
Beauty (or Aphro-
the beloved object being
to,
the
meaning.
on
its
beautiful object. Beauty
essence.
The
Platonist
a limited perception of the
he answers, that the ordinary person
aware of an archetypal
is
not an archetype but a specific
some other
argues, however, that this objection rests is
it is
essential factor in the event
only an attribute of the particular, not
It
and
not the way one experiences an event
is
actually attracts
person, or a concrete work of
event.
special structure
this level that carries the deepest
could be objected that this
of this sort.
its
by virtue of the Idea informing
in love,
one recognizes and surrenders
archetype, and
is
what
more fundamental
"beautiful" to the exact extent that the archetype of
is
present in
Beauty's instrument or vessel.
It
yet are timeless.
level, despite its reality.
is
not directly
But Plato described
how
a
The Archetypal Forms
philosopher
on the
reflected itself,
who
7
has observed
mam
may suddenly glimpse
matter,
who
has long
absolute beauty
-Beauty
objects oi beauty, and
supreme, pure, eternal, and not relative to any specific person Of
The philosopher
thing.
beautiful
lies all
appearance. the absolute Plato's
If
thereby recognizes the Form or Idea
phenomena.
something
Form
is
\
le
th.it
under-
unveils the authentic reality behind the
beautiful,
so because
is
it
it
"participates" in
o\ Beauty.
mentor, Socrates, had sought to know what was
virtuous acts, so that he could evaluate
how one
common
to
all
should govern one's
He reasoned that it one wishes to choose actions that are good, one must know what "good" is, apart from any specific circumstances. To evaluate one thing as "better" than another assumes the conduct
in
life.
existence of an absolute good with which the two relative goods can be
compared. Otherwise the word "good" would be only
meaning had no
stable basis in reality,
word whose
a
and human morality would lack
secure foundation. Similarly, unless there was
some absolute
a
basis for
evaluating acts as just or unjust, then every act called "just" would be a
When
relative matter of uncertain virtue.
those
who engaged
with Socrates espoused popular notions of justice and
good and
evil,
be arbitrary, basis.
in dialogue
injustice, or of
he subjected these to careful analysis and showed them to
full
of internal contradictions and without any substantial
Because Socrates and Plato believed that knowledge of virtue was
necessary for a person to live a
life
of virtue, objective universal concepts
of justice and goodness seemed imperative for a genuine ethics. Without
human
such changeless constants that transcended the vagaries of
human
ventions and political institutions,
con-
beings would possess no firm
foundation for ascertaining true values, and would thus be subject to the dangers o{ an amoral relativism.
Beginning with the Socratic discussion of ethical terms and the search Plato ended with a comprehensive theory of
for absolute definitions, reality.
Just as
man
as
moral agent requires the Ideas o(
goodness to conduct his
life
well,
so
man
as scientist
justice
and
requires other
absolute Ideas to understand the world, other universals by which the
chaos, flux, and variety of sensible things can be unified and intelligible.
The
philosopher's task encompasses both the moral and the
scientific dimensions, It
seemed evident
property
—
as all
made
and the Ideas provide
to Plato that
a
when many
foundation object-
human beings share "humann
m
continued
those-
eaih
non |ewi was awakened. While the
the
inclusion ot
full
Israel
Jerusalem Christians, under the leadership o( lames and Peter, continued tor
some time
common
to require the observance ot traditional Jewish rules against
new
eating, thus circumscribing the
religion into the |udak
framework, Paul asserted, amidst much opposition, that the new tian
freedom and hope
tor salvation
Gentiles without the Judaic Law
hits
(
was already universally present,
as well as
lews within
needed, and could embrace, the divine Savior. In that doctrinal controversy within the early Church,
it.
All ot
first
tor
mankind
fundamental
was Paul's univenalism
it
that prevailed over Judaic exclusivism, with large repercussions tor the classical world.
For the reluctance on the part of most Jews to embrace the Christian
and the success
revelation,
o\ Paul's reaction
—combined with
the Gentiles
— bringing Christianity new
political events to shift the
to
religion's
center o\ gravity from Palestine to the larger Hellenistic world. After
movements led by the the Romans, reaching a
Jesus's death, the messianic political revolutionary
Zealot party continued critical
among
the Jews against
peak a generation later in a widespread Palestinian revolt In the
Roman
ensuing war,
troops crushed the rebellion, captured Jerusalem,
and destroyed the Jewish Temple (70 a.o.). The Christian community in
Jerusalem and Palestine was thereby dispersed, and the closest link
the Christian religion to Judaism
Jerusalem Christians
—was
must also be noted
many
culture was in sal in
both
its
transcended citizenship
all
that,
its
nationalities rights to
phenomenon. compared with Judaism, Greco«Roman vision.
The Rom. in Empire and
and previous
cosmopolitan HellemstK age, with
ita
as well as
Romans.
t
great urban centers
affirmed that universal
positions
all
human
beingi are
Cosm |ual
fre
Logos of Greek philosophy
immanent
in
I
he
I
he
:
World*
|
children
anscended
tr
— rhe divine Reason
and imperfections
the cosmos yet
the
I
and o
travel, joined together the civilized world as never before
mankind and
lawi
its
political boundaries, grai
conquered peoples
ideal o( the brotherhood of
m
more consistently nonsectarian and univer-
respects
practice and
and
and symbolized by the
severed. Christianity thereafter was
Hellenistic than a Palestinian It
— maintained
ot
ruling
rhe
ill
all
hum
human reason and potentially available
to
100
The
every individual of whatever nation or people. But above Christian religion of world proportions was
Roman
existence of the Alexandrian and
made
World View
Christian
all,
feasible
by the prior
empires, without
lands and peoples surrounding the Mediterranean would
a universal
still
which the have been
divided into an enormous multiplicity of separate ethnic cultures with
widely diverging linguistic, political, and cosmological predispositions. Despite the understandable antagonism
toward their
Roman
the freedom of
rulers,
it
by
felt
many
movement and communication that was From Paul,
the propagation of the Christian faith. Christianity, to Augustine,
its
most
molded by
its
indispensable to at
the start of
influential protagonist at the
the classical era, the character and aspirations of the decisively
early Christians
was precisely the Pax Romana that afforded
Greco-Roman
These considerations apply not only
new
end of
religion
were
context.
to the practical side of Christian-
dissemination but also to the elaborated Christian world view as
ity's
came
to rule the
imagined
as
an entirely independent and monolithic structure of
we may more
it
Western mind. Although the Christian outlook may be belief,
accurately distinguish not only opposing tendencies within
the whole, but also a historical continuity with the metaphysical and religious conceptions of the classical world.
Christianity, the pluralism
It is
true that, with the rise of
and syncretism of Hellenistic
culture, with
its
various intermingling philosophical schools and polytheistic religions,
were replaced by an exclusive monotheism derived from the Judaic tradition. It
is
also true that Christian theology established the biblical
revelation as absolute truth and
demanded
strict
conformity to Church
doctrine from any philosophical speculations. Within these limits,
however, the Christian world view was fundamentally informed by classical predecessors.
Not only
tween the tenets and
rituals of Christianity
its
did there exist crucial parallels be-
and those of the pagan
mystery religions, but in addition, as time passed, even the most erudite elements oi Hellenic philosophy
were absorbed by, and had their
influence on, the Christian faith. Certainly Christianity began and
triumphed in the gion
— eastern
Roman Empire
and Judaic
not
as a
in character, emphatically
vational, emotional, mystical, depending faith
and
belief,
philosophy but as a
and almost
fully
on
communal,
independent of Hellenic rationalism.
pagan intellectual system with which the view of
many
early
sal-
revelatory statements of
Yet Christianity soon found Greek philosophy to be not
in
reli-
it
just
an alien
was forced to contend, but,
Christian theologians, a divinely pre-
Classical Elements
and
the Platonic flJwiililwtl
101
arranged matrix tor the rational explication
The
essence of Paul's theology
ordinary
human
in a
ct
the Christian faith,
belid th.u |etua wai not mi
being hut was the Christ, the
man
incarnated as the glorious
lav in hii
otcrn.il Son d ( tod, who mankind and bring history to itl vision, God's wisdom ruled all ot Kistoq
Jesus to save
denouement. In
Paul's
hidden manner, hut had
at
become manifest
last
Christ,
who was
archetype of
all
him, and found tion.
its
which was patterned
triumphant meaning
Christianity thus
human
came
strivings, as
an unfolding
in his
ma
in
the
him, converged
after
in
incarnation and resume
to understand the entire movement
history, including all ot
coming of
made
the very principle ot divine wisdom. Christ
creation,
who
in Christ,
reconciled the world with the divine. All thingi had been
o!
various religious and philosophical
its
ot the divine plan that
was
fulfilled
In
the
Christ.
The correspondences between
this
conception of Christ and that
of
The
the Greek Logos did not go unnoticed by Hellenistic Christians.
remarkable Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, an older
contemporary of Jesus and Paul, had already broached
on the term "Logos."4 But
svnthesis pivoted
it
a Judaic-C ireek
was with the opening
words of the Gospel according to John, "In the beginning was the Logos," that Christianity's relationship to Hellenic
Soon
potently initiated.
philosophy was
an extraordinary convergence
afterward,
Greek thought and Christian theology was
in progress that
would leave
both transformed. Faced with the fact that there already existed
nean culture
in the greater Medit.
a sophisticated philosophical tradition
from the Greeks, the
educated class of early Christians rapidly saw the need that tradition with
both
for their
own
tor integrating
Such an integration wis pursued assist the Greco-Rom. in culture in
their religious faith. satisfaction
and
to
understanding the Christian mystery. Yet
this
was considered no mar-
riage of convenience, for the Spiritually resonant Platonic philosophy
only harmonized with,
it
the Christian conceptions derived from the revelation
d
New
the
Testament. Fundamental Platonic principles now found
and new meaning
cosmos, the primacy
imperatives,
its
ttion
in the Christian context: the existence ofal
dent reality of eternal perfection, die
on the "tending
tU A
also elaborated and intellectually enha:
of the spiritual
I
I
divine
over the material,
wisdom
of the soul," the loul's immortality ,md high
experience of divine
i
in
'
U
the
102
The Christian World View
of scrupulous self-examination, the admonition to control the passions
and appetites that
it is
in the service of the
good and
better to suffer an injustice than to
death as a transition to more abundant condition of divine knowledge state,
now
true, the ethical principle
commit one, the
life,
belief in
the existence of a prior
obscured in man's limited natural
the notion of participation in the divine archetype, the progressive
assimilation to
God
as the goal oi
entirely distinct origins
human
aspiration. Despite
from the Judaeo-Christian
ancient Christian intellectuals the Platonic tradition was thentic expression of divine wisdom,
its
having
religion, for itself
many an au-
capable of bringing articulate
metaphysical insight to some of the deepest of Christian mysteries. Thus
matured during
as Christian culture
its first
several centuries,
its
religious
thought developed into a systematic theology, and although that theology was Judaeo-Christian in substance, largely Platonic.
the early
Such
Church
—
a fusion
first
metaphysical structure was
by Justin Martyr, then more
Alexandria and Origen, and In turn,
its
was advanced by the major theologians of
finally,
fully
by Clement of
most consequentially, by Augustine.
Christianity was regarded as the true
consummation of
philosophy, with the gospel as the great meeting ground of Hellenism
and Judaism. The Christian proclamation that the Logos, the world
Reason
itself,
had
actually taken
human form
in the historical person of
Jesus Christ compelled widespread interest in the Hellenistic cultural
world. In their understanding of Christ as the incarnate Logos, early
Christian theologians synthesized the Greek philosophical doctrine of the intelligible divine rationality of the world with the Judaic religious
Word of God, which manifested a personal God's and gave to human history its salvational meaning. In
doctrine of the creative providential will Christ,
the Logos became man: the historical and the timeless, the
absolute and the personal,
Through
the
human and
his redemptive act, Christ
the divine became one.
mediated the
soul's access to the
transcendent reality and thus satisfied the philosopher's ultimate quest. In terms strongly reminiscent of Platonism with
its
transcendent Ideas,
Christian theologians taught that to discover Christ was to discover the truth of the cosmos
and the truth of one's own being
in
one unitary
illumination.
The Neoplatonic
philosophical structure, developing simultaneously
alongside early Christian theology in Alexandria, seemed to offer an especially fitting metaphysical language within
which could be
better
KM
Classical Elements arid the Platonic Inheritance
comprehended theJudaeo-Christian vision. In Neoplatonism, the Inertia ble transcendent Godhead, the One, had brought forth its manifest image the divine Nous or universal Reason and the World Soul. In
— image— the Son
Christianity, the transcendent Father had brought forth his manifest
and the Holy
or Logos
Spirit.
now
Hut Christianity
brought dynamic historicity Into the Hellenic conception by asserting that the LogOS,
the eternal truth whieh had heen present from the
creation of the world, had
human
now heen
sent forth into world historj
means of the
form to bring that creation, by
Spirit
,
hack to
many
reconciled.
What had heen
the philosopher's private ipiritual
ascent was now, through the Incarnation destiny of the entire creation.
Through the indwelling
ot the
LogOS, the historical
The Word would awaken Holy
of the
One. That supreme
to the
its
One and
divine essence. In Christ, heaven and earth were reunited, the the
In
Spirit
all
mankind.
would occur the world's return
Light, the true source of reality shining forth
now recognized as the light ot As Clement of Alexandria announced, "By the Logos, the whole world is now become Athens and Greece."
outside Plato's cave of shadows, was Christ.
It
is
indicative o( this intimacy between Platonism and Christianity
that Plotinus
and Origen, the central thinkers,
school of pagan philosophy and the
first
shared the same teacher in Alexandria,
whom
figure
about
turn,
was pivotal
virtually
thought
profound
as to
is
school o\ Christian philosophy,
Ammonius
itself as
as
one
in
Saccas (a mysterious
known). Plotinus's philosophy,
in Augustine's gradual
Augustine saw Plotinus Plato's
nothing
respectively, of the last
whom
in
conversion to Christianity.
"Plato lived again," and regarded
"the most pure and bright
in
philosophy
.ill
be in almost perfect concordance with the
C
christian t.uth.
Thus Augustine held that the Platonic Forms existed within the reative mind of God and that the ground of reality lay beyond the world t the m
darkness and suffering, severance from God.
Augustine was the most modern of the ancients: he
In
a
cm
»r
144
The Christian World View
istentialist's self- awareness
with his highly developed capacity for
and time,
sciousness
psychological perspicacity,
his
God,
his intensity of inner conflict,
sophistication.
was Augustine who
It
first
—thereby
in the soul. Yet
gency of that ego on God, without
he
and
wrote that he could doubt
own
knowing, willing, and existing
human ego
without
self
his intellectual skepticism
everything, but not the fact of the soul's
of the
doubt and
his
human
remorse, his sense of the solitary alienation of the
in-
memory and con-
trospection and self-confrontation, his concern with
experience of doubting, of
affirming the certain existence
also affirmed the absolute contin-
whom
it
could not
alone be
exist, let
capable of attaining knowledge or fulfillment. For Augustine was also the
most medieval of the ancients. His Catholic predispositions, his otherworldly focus,
tokened the succeeding age God's sin,
will,
evil,
of the
—
and
as did his
religiosity, his
his
cosmic dualism
keen sense of the
Mother Church, of miracles,
monolithic
grace,
all fore-
invisible, of
and Providence, of
and the demonic. Augustine was a man of paradox and ex-
tremes, and his legacy would be of the same character. It
was certainly the quality and power of Augustine's conversion
experience of an overwhelming influx of grace from
away from the corrupt and
God
—the
turning
him
—that was
egoistic blindness of his natural self
the culminating factor in his theological vision, imprinting in
him
a
conviction of the supremacy of God's will and goodness and the imprisoned poverty of his own. intervention in his
what may have
life left
The luminous potency of Christ's positive human person in relative shadow. Yet
the
especially influenced his religious understanding
pivotal role played by sexuality in Augustine's religious quest.
was the
Although
mindful of nature's inherently divine ordering (and often more unstinting in his praise of the creation's beauty and bounty than a Platonist),
Augustine placed extreme emphasis in his
own
of his sexual instincts as the prerequisite for
life
on the
full spiritual
ascetic denial
illumination
—
point of view supported by his encounters with both Neoplatonism and
Manichaeism, yet
reflective of deeper roots in his
own
personality
and
experience.
Love of God was the quintessential theme and goal of Augustine's religiosity, and love of God could thrive only if love of self and love of the flesh were successfully conquered. In his view, succumbing to the flesh
of
was
at the heart of
man's
Knowledge of Good and
participated,
was
fall;
Adam's eating the
Evil, the original sin in
tied directly to
fruit
from the Tree
which
all
mankind
concupiscence (and indeed the biblical
Further Contraries arui the
Au^ustmum
\j
1
4S
"knowing" had always possessed sexual connotations). For Augustine, die evil character ot fleshly
was
lust
shame
visible In the
that attended
ita
expression, uncontrolled by the rational will, and that attended the mere
nakedness of the sexual organs. Procreation
would nor have entailed such
now
enduring commitment, and
brought offspring,
procreative purposes.
generation, BO that
and
suffering
and shame. Marriage
could realize some i:ood our ot the inherited
least
at
in Paradise before the Fall
bestial impulsiveness
all
But the primal sin infected
humanity was condemned
guilt in lite,
and
Augustine held that the root of
true that
it
o\
carnal
CO pain in childbirth, to
Only by
Christ's
traces of that sin be
all
removed and man's soul be freed from the curse of is
born
all
to the final evil ot death.
grace and with the resurrection oi the body would
It
evil, since
a limitation ot sexuality to
his fallen nature.
evil did
not reside in
matter, as the Neoplatonists suggested, for matter was God's creation and therefore good. Rather, evil was a consequence of man's misuse of his Evil lay in the act of turning itself
tree
will.
God
— not
in
what was turned
to.
—of turning
away from
Yet in Augustine's linking of that sinful
abuse of freedom to concupiscence and sexuality, and to the pervasive corruption of nature thereafter, the germ of the Neoplatonic and more
extreme Manichaean dualism lived on.
On
this
Creation
pivot
— man
rested
of Augustine's
tenor
the
as well as nature
—was
moral
theology.
indeed an infinitely marvelous
product or God's benevolent fecundity, but with man's primal sin that creation was set so fundamentally awry that only the next, heavenly,
would
restore
its
original integrity
and
glory.
Man's
life
was precipitated
fall
by his willful rebellion against the proper divine hierarchy, a rebellion
tounded spirit.
in the assertion of the values of the flesh against those of the
He was now
no longer
free to
enslaved to the passions of the lower order.
determine his
life
Man
was
simply by virtue of his rational will,
not only because circumstances beyond his control presented themselves, but also because he was unconsciously constrained by ignorance and
emotional conditioning. His
become ingrained in a state of
initial
sinful
thoughts and actions had
habits and finally ineluctable chains imprisoning
divine grace could possibly break the vicious spiral of
bound by
him
wretched alienation from God. Only the intervention
his vanity
and
sin.
Man
pride, so desirous of imposing his will
as to be incapable of transforming himself by his
present, fallen state, positive freedom for
acceptance of God's grace. Only
God
man
own
was so
on others,
powers.
could consist onlv
could free man, since
of
n
In his in
the
action by
146
The
man on his own could be sufficient God already knew for all time who
to
Christian
World View
move him toward salvation. And who the damned
were the elect and
based upon his omniscient foreknowledge of their different responses to his grace.
Although
official
Christian doctrine would not always accept
Augustine's more extreme formulations of predestination or his nearly
human
complete denial of any active
role in the process of salvation, the
subsequent Christian view of man's moral corruption and imprisonment
was one
Thus
largely it
congruent with Augustine's.
man who so decisively declared God's love and his own life also recognized, with a potency that
was that the
liberating presence in
never ceased to permeate the Western Christian tradition, the innate
bondage and powerlessness of the human soul Sin.
From
as perverted
this antithesis arose the necessity for
by Original
Augustine of a divinely
provided means of grace in this world: an authoritative Church structure,
man
within which haven
could
satisfy his overriding
needs for spiritual
guidance, moral discipline, and sacramental grace.
Augustine's critical view of
human
As an
evaluation of secular history.
Augustine was dominated in his
Church
preservation of
nature had
its
corollary in his
influential bishop in his
later life
own
era,
—the
by two pressing concerns
unity and doctrinal uniformity against the
entropic impact of several major heretical movements, and the historical
confrontation with the
fall
of the
Roman Empire
invasions. Faced with the crumbling empire civilization itself,
Augustine saw
ical progress in this world.
With
under the barbarian
and the apparent demise of
little possibility for its
any genuine histor-
manifest evils and cruelties, wars and
murders, with man's greed and arrogance, licentiousness and vice, with the ignorance and suffering
all
human
beings were forced to experience,
he instead saw evidence of the absolute and enduring power of Original Sin,
which made of
this life a
torment, a hell on earth from which only
Christ could save man. Augustine answered the great criticism aimed at the Christian religion by the surviving pagan
had undermined the opened the way
Roman
integrity of
for barbarian
triumph
its
—with
negative
—
that Christianity
imperial power and thereby
a different vision of history: All true progress
transcended this world and
Romans
a different set of values
was necessarily
fate.
What was
spiritual
and
and
important for
man's welfare was not the secular empire but the Catholic Church. Because divine Providence and factors in
human
spiritual salvation
were the ultimate
existence, the significance of secular history, with
its
Further Contraries and the
passing values and
Augustmum
147
Lej
fluctuating and generally negative progress, was
its
accordingly diminished.
Yet history, like It
all
else in creation,
Man
embodied God's moral purpose.
was
manifestation of God's
a
could not
in the present
time ot darkness and chaos,
vindicated only
at
to a great
it
grasp that purpose
meaning would he still
Augustine com-
spiritual in design (indeed,
melody by some
ineffable composer, with the parts of
melody being the dispensations suitable
that
its
the end o\ history. But although world history was
command and
under God's pared
hilly
tor
will.
to
each epoch),
its
secular
aspect was not positively progressive. Rather, because of Satan's continuing
power
in this world, history
Manichaean
battle
ot
was destined
good versus
to enact, as in the eternal
a deteriorating
evil,
and divisive
evolution of the spiritual elect and the mass of the worldly damned. In the course ot this drama, God's motives were often hidden but ultimately just.
For whatever apparent successes or defeats happened to individuals
in this lite,
souls
they were as nothing compared with the eternal fates their
had earned. The
and achievements of secular history
particulars
were of no ultimate importance
in themselves.
Actions in
this life
were
significant mainly for their afterworldly consequences, divine reward or
punishment. The individual history
from
and
this
this
soul's search for
God was
primary, while
world merely served as the stage for that drama. Escape
world to the next, from
God, from
self to
constituted the deepest purpose and direction of great saving grace in history was the
flesh to spirit,
human
Church founded by
life.
The one
Christ.
Instead o( the early Christian anticipation oi an immanent, as well as
imminent, world change, Augustine gave up the
whose
fallen
Christ had indeed already defeated Satan, spiritual
realm,
religious reality history,
field of this world,
tendency was naturally negative. In Augustine's vision,
the
but in the transcendent
only realm that genuinely mattered.
was not subject to the vagaries
and that
reality
interior experience of
could be
God
as
known
of
this
The
true
world and
its
only through the individual's
mediated by the Church and
its
sacra*
ments.
Here the Neoplatonic influence spiritual ascent
Judaic
— joined,
and
to
principle ot a collective,
— inward,
subjective, the individual
an extent took precedence OVCT, the historical
exterior,
spirituality.
The
penetration of Christianity by Neoplatonism borh augmented and explicated the mystical and interior element
t
rhe Christian revelation,
148
The Christian World View
But in so doing,
especially that of John's Gospel.
simultaneously
it
diminished the historical and collectively evolutionary element that primitive Christianity, especially Paul and very early theologians like
had inherited and
Irenaeus,
gustine's strong sense of
developed from Judaism. Au-
radically
God's government of history
—
dramatic
as in his
scenario of the two invisible societies of the elect and the damned, the
God and
city of
the city of the world, battling throughout creation's
history until the Last
Judgment
—
still
reflected the Judaic ethical vision
of God's purposefulness in history. Indeed, the doctrine of the two cities
would have much influence on subsequent Western the autonomy of the spiritual
Church
fundamental depreciation of the cal background,
history, affirming
vis-a-vis the secular state.
secular,
combined with
his psychological predispositions,
But his
his philosophi-
and
historical
his
context, transformed that vision in the direction of a personal and interior otherworldly religiosity.
In other essential aspects of Augustine's thought and the evolving
Christian world view
God ally
—
as in the
dualism o{ an omnipotent transcendent
versus the sin-enchained creaturely
and morally authoritative
—
nity of chosen believers
it
man, and the need
religious structure
was the Judaic
for a doctrin-
governing the
sensibility that
commu-
dominated.
This was particularly visible in the evolution of Christianity's characteristic
commandments.
attitudes toward God's moral
Law and Grace For the Jews, the Mosaic solidity,
that
a living guide, their pillar of existential
which morally ordered
good relation Jesus's
Law was
to
their lives
God. While the Judaic
time by the Pharisees, held forth the need for
the Law, early Christianity asserted what contrasting view: of
The Law was made
God, which eliminated the need
called up a liberating
own. That union o( earned
and retained them
tradition,
gift
Law could
strict
wills
with
obedience to
believed was a fundamentally
man and was fulfilled
for repressive
in the love
obedience and instead
and wholehearted embrace o{ God's
will as one's
was mediated only by divine grace, the un-
of salvation brought to establish,
for
it
its
mankind by
Christ. In this view, the
negative precepts written in stone, only an
imperfect obedience by fear. By contrast, Paul declared,
man
could be
genuinely justified only by faith in Christ, through whose saving act believers could
know
in
as represented in
the freedom o{ God's
grace.
The
all
Law's strictures
Further Contraries and the
made man
i tinner,
Angustmum
L
1
divided against himself. Instead ol being in "slavery"
under the Law, the Christian believer was he participated
tree,
because In
t
hrist'l grace
freedom.
in Christ's
Before his conversion, Paul himself had been a Pharisee and
defender of the Law. But after his Conversion, he deprecating Kal to the impotence
and the presence
Christ's love
of
Law compared with
the
of the Spirit
a fervid
with
testified
self-
the power of
working within the human
person. Paul's understanding of the Law, however, was viewed by Jeus a
parody
of
its
true nature. For them, the
called forth moral responsibility in
good works
pined
as necessary
elements
exemplified the ultimate
human
man.
in the
It
even
effort,
if
futility of a
Law was
God's
itself
gift
lt
s
and
human autonomy and
upheld
economy
role for those elements,
a
4 V>
of salvation. Paul, too,
but asserted that his
Law-governed
religiosity.
own
life
More than
divinely legislated, was required for something as
fundamental and suprahuman
as the
redemption of the human
soul.
Good works and moral
responsibility were necessary but not sufficient.
Only the supreme
oi Christ's incarnation and self-sacrifice
ble that life in
desired.
gift
harmony with God which the human
made
soul so deeply
Faith in Christ's grace, rather than scrupulous conformity to
ethical precepts,
was man's
surest path to salvation
—and the evidence of
that faith was the Christian's works of love and service that Christ's grace
made
possible. For Paul, the
because the true end of the
Law was no longer Law was Christ.
the binding authority,
Similarlv underscoring the break from the Judaic Law, John's Gospel
proclaimed, "For the law was given through Moses; but grace and truth
came through
Jesus Christ."
The
tension between God's will and man's,
between external regulation and inner inclination, could be dissolved the love of spirit.
God, which would unite human and divine
To awaken
Kingdom
to this state of divine love
one unitary
was to experience the
man
of Heaven. Because of Christ's redemption,
attain true righteousness in the eyes of
in
in
could
now
God, not by constraint but
in
happy spontaneity. Yet this contrast in the
New Testament
between moral
divinely graced freedom was not unambiguous.
The
with interpersonal ethics was a dominant element outlook, but
one hand,
its
the
restriction
Gospels' concern in
the Christian
character seemed open to both interpretations
tone of Jesus's teachings was often
compromising and judgmental, phrased
in
and
On
extremelv
the
un-
the hard dialectic of the
Semitic manner, and intensified in the light of the imminent end times.
150
The Christian World View
In Matthew's Gospel, followers
—
the
made even more
strict for Jesus's
for unconditional
moral integrity
under the urgency of the messianic transition. Jesus's
emphasis
righteousness, and
was
repeatedly
on the inner
His demands for heightened,
spontaneous thoughts
more than human
way
is
enemy
unceasing forgiveness, utter detachment from worldly
—and the demand
full
hand,
Law
requiring purity of intention as well as act, love of the
as well as friend,
things
the
for faith in
spirit
is
pressed to
On
the other
on compassion over
over the external letter of the law.
—judging
even absolute, moral purity
as well as deliberate acts
will to achieve
—seemed
to presuppose
such inner goodness, thus opening the
God's grace. Often his intention appeared to be that of
lending comfort to the poor, the desperate, the outcast and the
while direly warning the proud and spiritual
counted
and mundane
status.
more than
for
self-
A
sinful,
those secure in their
humble openness
to
divine grace
The Law was God's higher commandment of love.
legalistically righteous behavior.
constantly to be measured against
According to the
self-satisfied,
New
Testament, the extent to which a
legalistic
morality had overcome Jewish religious practice was evidence that the
Law had become entrenched and frozen in the course of time, an end in itself that was now obscuring rather than mediating the individual's true relation to
God and
to others.
But even the new Christian revelation of God's graciousness was open to antithetical interpretations
and consequences,
especially under later
The Pauline and Augustinian stress on divine grace human works and self-dependent righteousness lent itself not just to unitary notion of human fulfillment in embrace of the immanent
historical conditions.
over the
divine will, but also to an emphatic reduction of man's positive volitional
freedom relative to the omnipotence of God. In the struggle tion,
man's
own
efforts
for salva-
were comparatively inconsequential; only God's
saving power could be effective.
The
sole source of
good was God, and
only his mercy could save mankind from the natural fallen inclination toward blind perversity. Because of
Adam's
sin, all
human human
beings were corrupt and guilty, and only Christ's death had atoned for that collective guilt.
The
resurrection Christ brought to
human
being
he be condemned was dependent on the Church's
sacra-
present in the Church, and the justification that every required
lest
mankind was
ments, access to which in turn demanded conformity to specific ethical
and
ecclesiastical standards.
L.
Further Contraries and the Augiistmum
Since the Church and
its
151
sacred
tablished vehicles oi God's grace, the cant,
its
human
hierarchy absolutely authoritative,
beings were intrinsically prone
constant
temptation,
required
they
wore the divinely
institutes
Church was suprahumanlv its
to sin
stern
against uninhibited actions and thoughts,
es-
signify
laws definitive. Because
and lived
in B
world
oi
Church-defined sanctions
lest their
eternal souls
to
tall
the lame debased fate as their temporal bodies. Especially in the West,
under the historical exigencies
Church's responsibility
or the
for the
newlv converted (and, from the Church's perspective, morally primitive) barbarian peoples, a pervasive vertically in the institutional established, with
all spiritual
authority flowing
preme papal sovereign. Thus the Christian
Church
—with
judicial structure,
its
its
downward from the
^trevs
absolutist moral precepts,
its
complex
legal-
accounting system of good works and merits,
and sacraments,
its
—
often seemed
its
power of excommunication, and
on the inhibition of the
damnation
su-
characteristic tone of the medieval
meticulous distinctions between different categories of sin, beliefs
Church was
its
mandatory its
flesh against the continual
forceful
threat of
more reminiscent of the older Judaic concept
oi God's law, indeed an exaggeration of that concept, than of the
new
unitarv image of God's grace. Yet such elaborate safeguards appeared
necessary in the present world of moral waywardness and secular danger, to preserve a
genuine Christian morality and to guide the Church's
charges into the eternal
life.
Athens and Jerusalem Another dichotomy within the Christian question of
its
purity
and
integrity
belief system involved the
and how these should be preserved.
For the Judaic inclination toward religious exclusivism and doctrinal purity also passed itself
on
to Christianity, maintaining a constant ten-
sion with the Hellenic element,
which sought and found evidence
oi
i
divine philosophy in the works of diverse pagan thinkers, especially Plato.
While Paul
at times stressed the
need
for
complete differentiation
of Christianity from the deceptive ideas of pagan philosophy, which tor
on other occasions he suggested a more liberal approach, quoting from pagan poets and tacitly infusing elements of Stoic ethics into his Christian teachings (Paul's n.inw that reason should be carefully avoided,
i
152
The Christian World View
Tarsus in Asia Minor was in his time a cosmopolitan university especially
renowned
for
its
city,
Stoic philosophers). Later Christian theolo-
gians in the classical era were often imbued with
Greek philosophy before
converting to Christianity, and subsequently continued to find value in
A
the Hellenic tradition.
syncretistic mysticism informed
many
early
Christian thinkers as they eagerly recognized identical patterns of meaning in other philosophies and religions, often applying allegorical analysis to
compare
it
was found,
biblical
and pagan
for the
literatures.
The Truth was
one, wherever
Logos was all-comprehensive and boundlessly
creative.
As
early as the
second century, Justin Martyr
first
advanced a theology
that saw both Christianity and Platonic philosophy as aspiring toward
the same transcendent God, with the Logos signifying at once the divine
mind,
human
reason,
and the redemptive Christ who
both the
fulfills
Judaic and Hellenic historical traditions. Later, the Christian Platonist
school in Alexandria used as
its
basis the paideia,
the classical Greek
education system from Plato's time centered on the liberal
arts
and
now with theology as the highest and culminating new curriculum. In this framework, learning per se was a
philosophy, but science of the
form of Christian
discipline,
even of adoration. Such learning did not
limit itself to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, but
encompass a
moved beyond
knowledge with the
larger whole, to illuminate all
it
to
light of
the Logos.
A characteristic compromise position, Greek culture from
it,
at
once employing the admired
for Christian apologetic purposes
and yet keeping distance
was presented by Clement of Alexandria
in his use of
Odyssey: Sailing by the island o{ the Sirens on his way
home
Homer's
to Ithaca,
Odysseus tied himself to the mast of his ship so he could hear their seductive singing ("have
full
knowledge") without succumbing to their
temptation and destroying himself on their rocky shores. So too could the mature Christian
make
his
way through the sensual and
enticements of the secular world and pagan culture, having edge of them while tying himself to the cross
intellectual full
knowl-
—the mast of the Church
for spiritual security.
Just as often,
however, Christianity more
parent in rejecting virtually ideas
all
fully
resembled
Judaic
contact with non-Christian philosophical
and systems, considering them not only profane but
this view,
its
valueless. In
the true core of the Christian mystery was so unique and
Further Contraries and the Au^ustinunx LtgBCy
luminous that
1
could onlv be blurred, distorted, or
it
falsified
infusion or other cultural streams. For the Hellenic side of
hi im
C
5
J
by the
unity
,
the Logos (as Ood'i wisdom, the universal Reason) was seen as operative in
non-Christian wisdom preceding the revelation, and
framework of world history outside the Judaeo-Christian
in
the larger
tradition. But in
the more exclusivist understanding, the Logos (here understood more particularly as
God's Word) tended
Confines ot Scripture,
Church
with the secular sophistication
to he recognized solely within the
doctrine, and biblical history. ot
Compared
pagan philosophy, the Christian gospel
must seem mere foolishness, and any dialogue between the two would he
Thus Tertullian
futile.
in the late
second century emphatically ques-
tioned the relevance ot the Hellenic tradition in his dictum
Athens
to
Theological variants and religious innovations nism, Donatism, Pelagianism, Arianism
Church
—were
—Gnosticism, Monta-
especially abhorrent to
authorities, because they controverted matters close to the heart
o\ Christianity,
and were therefore viewed
as heretical, perilous,
requiring effective condemnation. Christianity's ot
doctrine and structure, with
its
demand
—
and
for uniformity
attendant intolerance, found part of
basis in the urgent primitive Christian imperative
Paul
"What has
do with Jerusalem?"
that the body of Christ (the
—seen
its
especially in
Church community) be pure and
undivided in readiness for the Parousia. Augustine presented, again, an influential stance containing elements of
respectful concerning classical culture
—knowledgeable and
both sides
and
particularly Platonic philoso-
phy, vet acutely conscious of Christianity's unique doctrinal superiority and, especially as he grew older, forcefully active in repressing heresies.
Christian thinking in the centuries following Augustine generally
re-
flected a similar position. Despite constant influences, both conscious
and unconscious, from other philosophical and
Church ance
tor
officially
adopted a restrictive dogmatic stance with
other systems on their
own
Thus Augustine's sense of the need hirr^elt
religious systems,
and others) the
pluralistic
the
little toler-
terms. for restraining or
and
heretical,
negating (in both
the biological,
the
worldlv, and the human, in favor of God, the spiritual, the one true Church and its one true sacred dextrine, was crystallized in the final moments of the ancient world, and, through his enduring influence on
major Church
embodiment
figures like
in the
Pope Gregory the Great, given
medieval Western Church. Because
t
institutional
the remark-
154
able
The Christian World View
power of
his thought, his writings,
and
his personality,
and because
Augustine in some sense articulated the nascent self-consciousness of an era,
the development of the Christian sensibility in the
largely
through his mediation. By the end of the
exultant and inclusive religious
spirit visible in
West took
place
classical period, the
primitive Christianity
had taken on a different character: more inward, otherworldly, and philosophically elaborate,
dogmatic.
yet also
more
institutional,
juridical,
and
The Holy The fundamental
and
Spirit
Its
Vicissitudes
tensions inhering in Christianity from
to clear focus in the extraordinary doctrine ot the
person ot the Christian Trinity with
The New Testament
God
stated that before Jesus died, he
the Holy Spirit" into a group ot the
as a
in
numinous
an upper room
in
Spirit to
had promised
his
remain with them
to
The subsequent "descent of disciples who had gathered together
continue and complete his redemptive
on Pentecost
lolv Spirit, the third
I
the Father and Christ the Son.
would send the Holy
disciples that ChkI
come
outset
its
task.
Jerusalem was reportedly experienced
accompanied by
visitation o\ great intensity,
sound
a
"like
the rush ot a mighty wind tilling the house," with "tongues as of fire"
The event was
appearing above each disciple.
interpreted by those
present as an overwhelming and indisputable revelation of Christ's continuing presence
among them
despite his death and ascension.
Im-
mediately afterward, according to the report in Acts of the Apostles, the inspired
began
disciples
Through the
Spirit the
preaching
ecstatically
Word was spoken
Christ's passion could be disseminated to
A
Spirit.
new
the
multitudes:
now
the fruit of
humanity. As Pentecost for Law on Mount Sinai, so now
all
the Jews had marked the revelation of the tor the Christians
to
to the world;
a new revelation, the pouring forth commenced with the Spirit's coming upon
marked
it
age had
people of God. This Pentecostal experience
—apparently
of the
the
all
renewed
in
subsequent communal gatherings, and in other circumstances involving charismatic
—
ecstasies
phenomena such
as
unexpected healings and prophetic
later served as the basis for the
Church's doctrine of the Holy
Spirit.
This doctrine conceived of the Holy Spirit
wisdom (the manifest
lite
as the spirit of truth
and
Paraclete, or Counselor), as well as the divine principle ot in
both material creation and
spiritual rebirth. In the first,
or revelatory, aspect, the Holy Spirit was recognized as the divine source ot
inspiration that
had spoken through the Hebrew prophets. Now,
however, the Spirit was democratized, made accessible to
and not Spirit
and
just the tew.
was recognized
as
,ill
In the second, or ptoc ieative, aspect,
as the
progenitor ot Christ within Mary
bein^ present at the beginning of Jesus's ministry
(
^hrisn.ms the Holy
hifl
m< »rher,
when he
156
The Christian World View
baptized by John the Baptist. Jesus had died that the Spirit might all:
come
to
only thus could take place humanity's death and rebirth into the
fullness of
God. Through the continuing
gressive incarnation of
God
influx of the Spirit, a pro-
humanity was being
into
and propelling the divine birth of Christ community. Although
human
a
renewing
effected,
in the continuing Christian
being's mortal reasonings were valueless
by themselves, with the inspiration of the Spirit one could attain divine
knowledge. Although on one's
own
resources a
human
being could not
one
find sufficient love within oneself for others, through the Spirit
could
know an
infinite love
embracing
all
humanity. The Holy Spirit was
the Spirit of Christ, the agent of man's restoration to divinity, God's
through and with the Logos. The presence of the
spiritual force acting
Holy Spirit made possible a sharing in the divine life, and a state communion within the Church that was in essence a participation
God.
Finally, because the
Holy
Spirit's
presence brought divine authority
and numinosity to the Church's believing community, the seen as the basis for the Church the
life
of the
ing tradition,
Church
—
its
and
blows "where
New it
its
was
Spirit
itself in all
aspects of
its
develop-
spiritual authority.
experience of the Holy Spirit, however, soon came
into conflict with the conservative
Church. The
expressing
sacraments, prayer, and doctrine,
hierarchy,
its official
The spontaneous
itself,
of in
imperatives of the institutional
Testament described the But
wills."
as such,
Spirit as like a
wind that
the Spirit possessed inherently
spontaneous and revolutionary qualities that placed
it,
by definition,
beyond any control. Individuals claiming the presence of the
Spirit
tended to produce unpredictably variable revelations and charismatic
phenomena.
Too
often
appropriate activities in verse
such manifestations
Church
services,
—unrestrained
in-
wandering preachers with
—seemed unconducive
and unorthodox messages
pursuit oi the Church's mission. For such
and
di-
to the positive
phenomena, the Church did
not consider the authority of the Holy Spirit to be genuinely present. not more circumspectly defined, the principle oi the Holy Spirit in
more extreme manifestations seemed at best
premature,
human
If its
to lend itself to a blasphemous, or
deification that
would threaten the traditional
separation between Creator and creature, and would contravene the
supreme uniqueness of Christ's redemptive
act.
In view of these tendencies toward the disruptive and heretical,
mindful oi the need to preserve an orderly structure of belief and the
Church came
to
and
ritual,
adopt a generally negative response to
self-
The Holy
Spirit
and fa Vidssitudts
proclaimed outbursts
the Holy Spirit.
of
expressions of the Spirit healings^ speaking lation
S7
1
The charismatk and
— spontaneous
spiritual
in tongues, prophecies,
— were increasingly discouraged
new
irrational
miraculous
ecstasies,
assertions of divine reve
in favor ol more- ordered, rational
manifestations, such as sermons, organized religious services and rituals, institutional authority,
k
and doctrinal orthodoxy.
apostolic writings was carefully selected
A
fixed c.inon ot spec
and permanently established,
with no new revelations recognized as God's infallible Word. thority ot the
now
Holy
Spirit,
it
The
au-
invested by Christ in the original apostles,
passed on in a sacredly established order to the bishops ot the
Church, with the ultimate authority pontiff, the successor CO Peter.
principle ot
West claimed by
in the
The notion
ot the
revolutionary spiritual power,
community and moving
it
Holy
Rom. in
Spirit as a divine
immanent
in
the
human
toward deification, diminished in Christian
belief in favor ot a notion of the
Holy
Spirit as solely invested in the
The
authority and activities of the institutional Church.
continuity oi the
the
stability
Church were thereby maintained, though
and
at the ex-
pense of more individualistic forms of religious experience and revolutionary spiritual impulses.
The
relation of the
defined in the
New
Holy
Spirit to the Father
Testament. The
first
and Son was not precisely
Christians were plainly more
concerned with God's presence among them than with meticulous theological formulations. Later
Church councils defined the Holy
Spirit
as the third
person of the triune God, with Augustine describing the
Spirit as the
mutual
spirit
of love uniting the Father and Son. For a time
in early Christian worship, the
(symbolized, as
it
would be
Holy
Spirit
later as well,
was imaged
by a dove), and was sometimes
referred to as the divine Mother. In the long run, the
conceived rather
in
more general and impersonal terms
and numinous power, whose intensity seemed minished apostles,
as
feminine terms
in
to
Holy
Spirit
as a mysterious
have radically
time grew more distant from the generation of the
and whose continuing presence,
lodged chiefly in the institutional Church.
activity,
was
difirst
and authority were
Rome and The
Judaic influence
vinely
mandated
God, the moral
on
Catholicism
Christianity in the
historical mission, the stress
—
West the sense of a dion obedience to the will of
—
the doctrinal conformity and exclusiveness
was and modulated by the influence of Rome. The Church's
rigor,
further amplified
conception of humanity's relationship to
God
as a judicial
Roman
defined by moral law was partly derived from
Church,
Catholic
based
in
Rome,
Roman
of the
effectiveness
strictly
which the
and integrated.
inherited religious
state's
one
law,
cult
The
was based upon
More fundamentalwere founded on the idea of jus-
meticulous observance of a multitude of regulations.
Roman
ly,
legal theory
and practice
tification; transposed to the religious sphere, sin
of a legal relationship established by
doctrine of justification
—was
tion
set forth
was a criminal violation
God between
himself and man.
of sin, guilt, repentance, grace, and restitu-
by Paul in his Letter to the Romans,
up again by Augustine
The
—
as the
12
and was taken
foundation of man's relationship to God.
Similarly, the Judaic imperative of subordinating the highly developed
but refractory
human
will to that of divine authority
cultural patterns in the political subordination
mense authoritarian
Roman
structure of the
found supporting
demanded by the im-
Empire.
God
himself was
generally conceived in terms reflective of the contemporary political
—
environment
unquestionably
as
commander and
just, a stern ruler
king, lord
of
all
and master, inscrutably and
who was
ultimately generous to
his favorites.
The
Christian Church, mindful of
responsibility
it
an unusually durable form classical world.
the
Roman
doctrinal
The
state
—were
its
spiritual mission
and the great
bore for the religious guardianship of mankind, required to ensure
its
survival
and influence
in the late
established cultural patterns and structures of both
and the Judaic
religion
—
particularly suited to the
psychological, organizational,
development of a strong and
self-conscious institutional entity capable of guiding the faithful
and
enduring through time. As the Christian religion evolved in the West, its
Judaic foundation readily assimilated the kindred juridical and au-
thoritarian qualities of the
Roman
Roman
imperial culture, and
much
of the
Church's distinctive character was molded in those terms: a
Rome and
Catholicism
1
powerful central hierarchy,
and
spirituality, the
demand
complex
a
oi
pnests and bishops, the
obedience from Church members and
tor
ment, formalised
effective enforce
its
and institutionalized Sacraments,
rituals
defense against any divergence trom authorized dogma, militant expansiveness aimed
and so
The
torth.
converting and
at
earth, a ruler
living representative ot
vital religious
ing in heaven* Christian truth itself
and
civilizing the harhanans,
and judge whose decisions regarding
communication, and other
strenuous
a
a centrifugal
bishop's authority was declared to be
and unquestionable. He was the
on
governing ethics
judicial structure
binding spiritual authority
SM
C
iod-ordained
God's authority heresy, ex-
sin,
matters were considered bind-
under Rome's influence became a
matter tor legislative battles, power politics, imperial edicts, military
enforcement, and eventually assertions of divinely the the
the
o\
infallible authority
by
new Roman sovereign, the pope. The fluid and communal forms of primitive Church gave way to the definitively hierarchical institution
Roman
Catholic Church. Yet within such a firm and com-
prehensive structure, Christian doctrine was preserved, the Christian faith
disseminated,
and
Christian society maintained
a
throughout
medieval Europe. In the period after Constantine's conversion in the early fourth century, the relationship of
reversal:
Rome
Rome
to Christianity
the persecutor had
gressively uniting itself with the
coincided with those of the
had undergone
a
complete
become Rome the defender,
pro-
Church. The Church's boundaries now
Roman
state,
and
its
role
was now
allied
with
the state in maintaining public order and ruling the activities and beliefs of
its
By the time of Pope Gregory the Great
citizenry.
and architect of the medieval papacy, who reigned sixth century
—Western
been Augustine's era
society
had changed so
at the turn of the
drastically that
what had pagan
dialectical statement against the spirit of the late
had now become the governing norm of the
theater, circuses,
— the exemplar
and
festal
culture.
n The
public
holidays of paganism had been replaced by
Christian sacramental celebrations and processions, holy days and days.
A
new
moved onto
the world stage with an unprecedented consciousness
mission to spiritually master the world. institution
feast
sense of public responsibility entered Christianity
o\
the Church,
The
the religious counterpart
Empire, increasingly absorbed and controlled the spiritual quest.
became Roman.
As
the
ot
its
centralized and hierarchical
Roman Empire became
to
focitt ot
the the
(
Roman hn
Christian, Christi
160
The Christian World View
The
decision by Constantine to
Rome
Empire eastward from
to
had immense consequences
also
move
the capital of the
Roman
Byzantium (renamed Constantinople) for the
West,
for after the empire's
division into an eastern
empire's collapse in the cultural
and western sector, and after the western wake of the barbarian migrations, a political and
vacuum occurred
in
much
of Europe.
The Church became
the
only institution capable of sustaining some semblance of social order and civilized culture in the spiritual
West, and the bishop of Rome,
head of the imperial metropolis, gradually absorbed many of
the distinctions and roles previously possessed by the
The Church took over sole literate class,
Roman
a variety of governmental functions
the sole patron of knowledge and the
who
as the traditional
arts, its clergy
emperor.
and became
became the West's
and the pope became the supreme sacred authority,
could anoint or excommunicate emperors and kings.
of Europe that were founded
on the
ruins of the
The new
states
Western empire, which
were successively converted to Christianity, inevitably perceived papal
Rome the
as the sovereign spiritual center of
first
power
Christendom. In the course of
millennium, the Western Church not only concentrated
in the
Roman
bishop,
it
its
also gradually but decisively asserted
its
independence from the Eastern churches centered in Byzantium and allied there
distances,
with the still-reigning Eastern emperor. The geographical
the differences in language, culture, and political circum-
stances, the differing effects of the barbarian
and Moslem incursions,
various major doctrinal conflicts, and finally the West's
tendencies
Rome and
—
all
14
the Greek church of Byzantium.
In these circumstances, Christianity in the historical opportunity. Freed East,
West experienced
from both the church and the
unimpeded by the previous
civil
and secular
empire in the West, and empowered by the their rulers, the
own autonomous
widened the separation between the Latin church of a unique
state of the
structures of the old
religiosity o{ its peoples
and
Western church assumed an extraordinarily universal
The Roman Church became not just the Empire's religious counterpart, but its historical successor. The ideal self-image of the ensuing medieval Church was that of a spiritual Pax Romana reigning over the world under the guidance of a wise and authority in medieval Europe.
beneficent priestly hierarchy. Augustine himself had envisioned the
fall
new Rome,
the
of the old spiritual
Rome, the temporal empire,
in the light of a
empire of the Christian Church, which began with the apostles
and would continue throughout history
as a reflection in this
world
R
between competing arguments, and with
reason tor discerning correct doctrine.
It is
not that Christian truths were called into question; rather, they were
now
subject to analysis.
negligence
it,
after
As Anselm
becoming firm
stated. "It
me
seems to
a
case ot
our faith, we do not strive to
in
understand what we believe."
Moreover,
atter long Struggle
thorities, the universities
won
own communities. With
with local religious and political au-
the right from king and pope to form their
the University oi Paris's receipt of a written
charter from the Holy See in 1215, a Civilization,
with the universities
now
new dimension entered European existing as relatively
autonomous
centers oi culture devoted to the pursuit o( knowledge. Although Christian theology
and dogma presided over
increasingly permeated by the rationalist spirit.
context that the
new
were
this pursuit, these
translations of Aristotle
It
was into
and
his
in turn
this fertile
Arabic com-
mentators were introduced. Initially
some
ecclesiastical authorities resisted the
sudden intrusion
o\
the pagan philosophers, especially their writings on natural philosophy
and metaphysics,
lest
Christian truth be violated. But their early bans on
teaching Aristotle quickened scholars' curiosity and provoked deeper Study of the censored texts. Aristotle could not in any case be easily dismissed, for his already
known works on
logic, passed
on by Boethius,
had been considered authoritative since the beginning of the Middle Ages, forming one of the bases of Christian culture. Despite the misgivings of conservative theologians, the culture's intellectual interests
were increasingly Aristotelian
in character
time the Church's strictures became
lax.
if
not yet in content, and
in
But the new attitudes were to
transform drastically the nature and direction of European thought.
The
principal occupation of medieval philosophy had long been the
joining of faith with reason, so that the revealed truths ot Christian
dogma could be
explicated and defended with the aid oi rational analysis.
Philosophy was the handmaid of theology, er.
Reason was thus subordinate
understanding of "reason" take
on
a
was
faith's interpret-
to faith. But with the introduction of
and the new focus on the
Aristotle
as reason
visible world, the early
as formally correct logical thinl
new meaning: Reason now
Schol in to
signified not only logic bur also
178
The Transformation of
empirical observation and experiment
With
world.
tellectual territory, the tension
The
A
had
man knowledge tic
between reason and
to be integrated with the
between
faith
now
was
radi-
this
demands of Christian
new
doctrine.
reason and faith, between hu-
of the natural world and the inherited doctrines o{ divine
emerged
fully in
philosophers Albertus
men
cognition of the natural
constantly growing multiplicity of facts about con-
resulting dialectic
revelation,
i.e.,
Medieval Era
the increasingly extended scope of the philosopher's in-
cally heightened.
crete things
—
the
the thirteenth century's culminating Scholas-
Magnus and
his pupil
Thomas Aquinas. Both
were devoutly loyal to biblical theology, yet also concerned with the
mysteries of the physical world, and sympathetic to Aristotle's affirmation
human intellect. These scholars of Scholasnot have known the ultimate consequences of
of nature, the body, and the ticism's
golden age could
their intellectual quest to
so directly this tension tian, reason
in the late
and
faith,
comprehend
all
that exists. For by confronting
between divergent tendencies— Greek and Chris-
nature and spirit— the Scholastics prepared the way
medieval universities for the massive convulsion in the Western
world view caused by the Scientific Revolution. Albertus was the
first
medieval thinker to make the firm distinction
between knowledge derived from theology and knowledge derived from science.
The
theologian
is
the expert in matters of faith, but in
mundane
matters the scientist knows more. Albertus asserted the independent value of secular learning and the need for sense perceptions and empirical observations
on which
to
ground one's knowledge of the natural world.
In this view, Aristotle's philosophy was regarded as the greatest achieve-
ment
of the natural
human
reason working without benefit of Christian
inspiration.
After Albertus had grasped the intellectual power of Aristotelianism
and established was
left
lenge.
it
as a necessary part of the university curriculum,
Aquinas
the philosophical task o{ coherently integrating the Greek chal-
Devout Dominican, son of
Italian nobility,
descendant of the Nor-
man and Lombard conquerors, student at Naples, Paris, and Cologne, advisor to Rome — Aquinas knew the breadth and dynamism of European cultural
life
and did
his pivotal teaching at the University of Paris, at the
epicenter of the West's intellectual ferment. In Aquinas, the forces at
work
in the
immediately previous centuries came to
his relatively brief life
full articulation.
he would forge a world view that dramatically
omized the high Middle Ages' turning of Western thought on a
new
direction of
In
epit-
its
axis, to
which the modern mind would be the heir and
trustee.
The Quest The
Thomas Aquinas
of
passion tor synthesis that Albertus and Aquinas experienced was
men
perhaps Inevitable tor such
between the
and the
past
or the natural
future:
new
world and a
moment
at that
Moreover,
it
faith in Christian revela-
was the peculiarity of that
—
era,
and of those men
two
to the natural world
and human reason on the other
loyalties
to the gospel
—were
antithetical but as mutally supportive. Albertus o\ the
Dominican order and thus
in
on the one hand, and
particular, that these
members
standing
drawn magnetically toward the opening range ot intellectual competence, yet
imbued with an unshakable, indeed renewed tion.
in history,
felt
not
as
and Aquinas were both
participants in a sustained
and
widespread influx of evangelical fervor spearheaded a generation earlier
by Dominic and Francis of Assisi.
The
quickly flourishing
Dominican
and Franciscan mendicant orders had brought not only new
vitality but
new
values to medieval Christianity.
Francis's mystical joy in the sacred fellowship of nature, Dominic's
cultivation of scholarship in the service of the gospel, their dissolution of rigid
boundaries between clerical and
internal
lay, their
more democratic forms of
government granting greater individual autonomy,
their call to
leave the monastic cloister to preach and teach actively in the world
these encouraged a
new openness
and freedom. Above
all,
to nature
and
society, to
human
this fresh infusion of apostolic faith
—
all
reason
supported a
between Christian revelation and the secular world,
direct dialogue
while recognizing anew an intimate relation between nature and grace. In the eyes of the evangelicals, the to be cloistered far
Word
from humanity's daily
the immediate particularities of
human
of
God
life,
was not a remote truth
but was directly relevant to
experience. By
the gospel required entrance into the world.
very nature,
its
3
Heirs to this religious rapprochement with the secular, Albertus and
Aquinas could more logical tradition,
freely
develop those aspects of the Christian theo-
found even
in
Augustine, that affirmed the Creator's
providential intelligence and the resulting order and beauty within the
created world.
It
was
a short step to their
conclusion
tli.it
world was explored and understood, the greater knowledge
ence
for
God would
result.
the more the «
»t
-ind rever-
Since there could be onlv one valid truth
180
The Transformation of
the
Medieval Era
derived from the one God, nothing reason would uncover could ultimately contradict theological doctrine. Nothing that was true and valuable, even
if
achieved by man's natural
could ultimately be
intellect,
foreign to God's revelation, for both reason and faith derived from the
same source. But Aquinas went
still
further, asserting that nature itself
could provide a deeper appreciation of divine wisdom, and that a rational exploration of the physical world could disclose
—not
dim
inherent religious
its
own
reflection of the supernatural but
on
its
terms, a rationally intelligible natural order discovered in
its
profane
value
just as a
reality.
Traditional theologians opposed the its
new
scientific perspective
because
purported discovery of regular determining laws of nature seemed to
diminish God's free creativity, while also threatening man's personal responsibility
and need
for faith in Providence.
To
assert the value of
nature seemed to usurp the supremacy of God. Basing their arguments on the teachings of Augustine concerning nature's
fall
and the need
for
God's redemptive grace, they viewed the new science's positive and deterministic conception of nature as a heretical threat to the essence of
Christian doctrine.
But Aquinas held that the recognition of nature's order enhanced
human
understanding of God's creativity and in no way lessened divine
omnipotence, which he saw
as expressing itself in a
according to ordered patterns over which
Within
own
this structure,
nature, with
man
God
continuous creation
God remained
willed each creature to
sovereign.
move according
virtue of his rational intelligence.
God, but rather was
into the fabric of the divinely created order.
And
mind
to
its
Man's freedom was not threatened
either by natural laws or by his relationship to
orderliness allowed
to
himself given the greatest degree of autonomy by
man
built
the fact of nature's
to develop a rational science that
would lead
his
God.
For Aquinas, the natural world was not just an opaque material stage
upon which man destiny.
Nor was
briefly resided as a foreigner to
his spiritual
nature governed by principles alien to spiritual con-
cerns. Rather, nature
other,
work out
and
spirit
were intimately bound up with each
and the history of one touched the history oi the other.
Man
himself was the pivotal center o{ the two realms, "like a horizon oi the corporeal and of the spiritual."
To
give value to nature did not, in
Aquinas's eyes, usurp God's supremacy. Rather, nature was valuable, as
was man, precisely because
God gave
it
existence.
To
be a creature of the
The Quest of ThonuLs AXIOMS
181
Creator did not signify a separation from God, but rather to
relationship
a
God. Moreover, divine grace did not vitiate nature, but perfected it. Aquinas was also convinced thai human reason and freedom were
valuable on their
own
account, and that their actualization would further
autonomy
serve the glory of the Creator. Man's
not limited by the taet
ot
intellect
was
God's omnipotence, nor would their
full
emergence be an inappropriate presumption against
founded
the Creator.
Rather,
God's own nature,
in
and
ot will
oi
powers by
creature
these special qualities were themselves tor
man was made
in
Man
God's Image.
autonomous
could, by his unique relationship with the Creator, enjoy
and volitional powers modeled on those o(
intellectual
a
God
himself.
Influenced by Aristotle's teleological concept of nature's relation to
Form and the Neoplatonic understanding of the
the highest
new
all-pervasive
One, Aquinas declared
a
Within human nature,
as divinely posited, lay the potential for actively
basis tor the dignity
and potential of man:
moving toward perfect communion with the infinite ground of man's God, who was the source of all development toward perfection in
being,
nature.
Even human language incarnated the divine wisdom, and was
therefore a worthy instrument capable of approaching and elaborating
the mysteries of creation.
and yet according
faith
own
its
to
Hence human reason could function within its own principles. Philosophy could stand on and yet complementary
virtues apart from,
intelligence
and freedom received
their reality
to,
Human from God
theology.
and value
himselt, for God's infinite generosity allowed his creatures to participate in his
own
do so
to the full extent of his ever-developing
At
being each according to
distinctive essence,
infinite capacity of
God
man would
be to presume to lessen the
human freedom and
for the realization of specifically will.
God had
created the world as
with immanent ends, and to reach his ultimate ends, to pass through realize his
his very
source of
immanent
humanity.
all.
ends: to be as
Man
God, of
if
God
man were
to
a
realm
man wis intended man hid fully to
intended,
was an autonomous parr
autonomy allowed him Indeed, only
of freely loving
To strive human values
himself and his creative omnipotence.
was to promote the divine
and
and man could
humanness.
the heart of Aquinas's vision was his belief that to subtract these
extraordinary capacities from
for
its
make
of God'fl unil
his return freely to the
genuinely tree could he he capable
freely realizing his exalted spintu.il destiny.
>**«*£
182
The Transformation of
Aquinas's appreciation of
human
an appreciation that affected
nature extended to the
the
Medieval Era
human
body,
his distinctive epistemological orientation.
In contrast to Plato's antiphysical stance, reflected in
much
of the tenor
of traditional Augustinian theology, Aquinas incorporated Aristotelian
concepts to assert a
new
attitude. In
man,
spirit
and nature were
distin-
homogeneous whole: The soul was the form of man, the body was the matter. Man's body was thus guishable, but they were also aspects of a
intrinsically necessary to his existence.
to man's benefit that his soul
4
In epistemological terms,
was united with a body,
for
it
it
was
was only
man's physical observations that could activate his potential understand-
Aquinas repeatedly quoted from
ing of things.
Romans, "the
invisible things of
that are made."
The
God
Paul's Letter to the
are clearly seen
divine invisibles,
... by the things
among which Aquinas included
the "eternal types" of Augustine and Plato, could be approached only
through the empirical, the observation of the
visible
experiencing the particular through the senses, the
then move toward the universal, which made
and
particular.
human mind
By
could
intelligible the particular.
Therefore both sense experience and intellect were necessary for cognition,
and
each informing the other. In contrast to
intellect for
Aquinas were not opponents
Plato's implication, sense
in the quest for
but partners. Like Aristotle, Aquinas believed that the
knowledge,
human
could not have direct access to transcendent Ideas, but that sensory experience to
awaken
its
Just as Aquinas's epistemology
it
intellect
required
potential knowledge of universals.
more deeply
necessity of this- world experience for
stressed the value
human knowledge,
and even
so did his
ontology assert the essential worth and substantiality of this world's existence.
5
Sensible things did not exist merely as relatively unreal
images, as shadowy replications of the Platonic Ideas; rather, they had a substantial reality of their
own,
as Aristotle
had maintained. The forms
were genuinely embedded in matter, united with matter to produce a composite whole. But here Aquinas went beyond the Aristotelians'
tendency to view nature
as existing apart
from God, arguing that a
deeper philosophical understanding of the meaning of existence would
To
accomplish
this,
Aquinas
reintroduced the Platonic notion of "participation" in this
new
context:
fully
connect the created world with God.
Created things have true substantial Existence,
which
is
reality
because they participate in
from God, the infinite self-subsistent ground of
all
being. For God's essence was precisely his existence, his infinite act of
The Quest of Thomas Aquinas
183
being which underlay the finite existence of all created things, each with its
own particular essence. The essence of each thing,
its
specific
participation in the real existence
its
a thing
and the
is
God
created being. In
and the
tact that
tact oi his
alone
is
it
kind of being,
communicated
at all are
hfa
ot essence
essence
is
se.
tence. Existence for creatures
it
by God.
is
What
distinct aspects of
God
Thus every
and existence, while God alone
existence per
to
the measure of
is
is
"be-ing"
creature
is
any
God
there absolute simplicity, for what
is
being are one and the same:
unlimited, absolute, beyond definition.
pound
two
is
ifi
itself
a
com-
not a compound, for
Creatures have existence;
God
is
exis-
not self-given, and therein lay Aquinas's
tundamental philosophical tenet: the absolute contingency of the
finite
world on an infinite giver of being.
Thus torth,
Aquinas,
for
God was
not only the supreme Form drawing nature
but was also the very ground of nature's existence. For both
Aristotle
and Aquinas, form was an active principle
—not
just a struc-
dynamism toward realization; and the entire creation was dynamically moved relative to the highest Form, God. But whereas Aristotle's God was apart from and indifferent to the creation of which he was the unmoved mover, for Aquinas God's true essence was existence. God communicated his essence to his creation, each instance of which became real to the extent of its reception of the act of existence communicated by God. Only in this way was the Aristotelian Prime Mover genuinely connected to the creation he motivated. And conture,
but a
versely, only thus
was the Platonic transcendent genuinely connected to
the empirical world of multiplicity and flux. Building on philosophical developments in the Arab and Christian
Neoplatonist traditions (which were, besides Augustine and Boethius, the main sources for his knowledge of Plato), and particularly on the
thought of the ancient Eastern Christian mystic
who
used the
name
Dionysius the Areopagite, Aquinas aspired to deepen Aristotle by using Platonic principles. Yet he also saw Platonism's need for Aristotelian principles.
made
full
Indeed, for Aquinas, the Platonic theory
when
metaphysical sense only
principle of existence
existence might lend
itself,
itself to.
it
beyond the various types
And
this
ot
to reach the
of
being
tli.it
deepening required an Aristote-
lian context of a nature that possessed real being
through nature's constant process
participation
(A
was deepened
becoming,
its
—
a reality
achieved
dynamic movement
184
The Transformation of
from potentiality to
actuality.
Medieval Era
Thus Aquinas showed the complementar-
of the two Greek philosophers, o{ Plato's exalted spiritual absolute
ity
and
Aristotle's dynamically real nature,
an integration achieved by using
not to the Ideas but to Existence. In doing
Plato's participation relative
he further corrected Aristotle by showing that concrete individuals
so,
were not to
the
but were united both to each other and
just isolated substances,
God by
their
common participation
Yet he also corrected
in existence.
Plato by arguing that divine Providence did not pertain just to the Ideas,
but extended directly to individuals, each of which was created in the
image of
God and
participated, each in
limited fashion, in God's
its
unlimited act of existence.
Aquinas thus gave to
God
alone what Plato gave to Ideas in general,
but by doing so gave increased reality to the empirical creation. Since "to be"
to participate in existence,
is
God's
own
being,
founded in God's
and since existence
then every created thing possesses a true
infinite reality.
The
God
is
firstly
finite
and most
significantly in
God's nature, each in
God was not so much a
Aquinas synthesized crete reality by
its
specific
and perfection. an
thing,
entity that 7
being. In effect,
with Aristotle's con-
Plato's transcendent reality
loving infinite Creator, giving freely of his
dynamism,
the Platonic emphasis reality,
own
means of the Christian understanding o{ God
own
Similarly, he synthesized the Aristotelian stress
dent
the Ideas
of a series of other entities, but was rather the infinite act of
existence (esse) from which everything derived
teleological
all
own
its
a part of God's infinite variety
In Aquinas's understanding, first
reality
supreme essence. All created beings participate
manner manifesting
was the
of
on the deepest
the true and ultimate exemplar of creation, and
are inflections of that
gift
Ideas are in a sense the exemplars
of God's creation, as formal designs in God's mind; but level
the
itself
is
striving forward to
on
more
as the
being to his creation.
on
nature's
and man's
perfect realization, with
nature's participation in a superior transcen-
by conceiving the divine as standing in absolute ineffable
perfection and yet also as bestowing
created things. These are then
its
essence
—
i.e.,
existence
moved dynamically toward
precisely because they participate in being,
dynamic tendency toward the Absolute. As
which in
is
by
—
to
realization
its
Neoplatonism,
nature a all
crea-
tion begins and ends with, goes forth from and returns to, the supreme
One. But
for
Aquinas,
God
created and gave being to the world not by
necessary emanation but by a free act of personal love.
And
the creature
The Quest of Thomas Aquinas
lss
participated not merely in the
One
.is
b distant
So Aquinas followed and dynamism, ty
transcendent
and
tor individual beings,
reality, his belief in the
and goal
and
tor the
ot being,
its
reality
epistemological necessi-
Yet in his emphatic awareness
his strongly spiritual sensibility
infinite source ot
God.
b\
Aristotle in his regard for nature, for
sense experience.
of
semi*real emanation, but
entnv created
in "be-ing" (esse) as a fully real individual
ot
superior
a
immortality of the individual soul,
which focused on
a
loving
rod as the
c
he continued the Augustinian tradition
medieval theology and thereby more nearly resembled Plato and
Flotinus. But the distinction
and human knowledge was an epistemologically
in relation to the Ideas
significant
one,
tor
Aquinas made against Plato and Augustine
it
sanctioned
Christian
the
explicit
intellect's
recognition ot the essential value of sensory experience and empiricism,
which Plato and Augustine had devalued
in favor of direct illumination
from the transcendent Ideas. Aquinas did not deny the existence Ideas. Rather, ontologically
oi the
he denied their self-subsistence apart from
material reality (in keeping with Aristotle) and their separate creative apart from
status
God
keeping with Christian monotheism and
(in
Augustine's placement of the Ideas within the creative mind of God).
And
epistemologically he denied the
human
intellect's capacity to
know
the Ideas directly, asserting the intellect's need for sensory experience to activate an imperfect but meaningful understanding of things in terms of B
eternal archetypes.
knows
perfectly,
If
man would know even
he would have to open
For Aquinas, like Aristotle,
imperfectly what
God
his eyes to the physical world.
we know concrete
things
then we
first,
can know universals. For Plato and Augustine, the reverse was
true.
Augustine's theory of knowledge rested on the epistemological certainty that
man
could
know
truth by being illuminated directly from within by
the knowledge of God's transcendent Ideas. These Ideas constitute the
Logos, Christ, Augustine's inward teacher,
who
in
Aquinas would retain aspects Plato's epistemological
well as spirit,
edge
is
who
contains
an interior manner illuminates the human ot
all
intellect.
Ideas
and
Although
Augustine's view, he could not embrace
dependence on the Ideas alone.
and human cognition must
reflect
Man
1-
matter
as
both principles: knowl-
derived from the sensory experience ot concrete particulars, from
which universals can be abstracted, and because in recognizing the universal intellectually participating,
however
this
knowledge has
in singular thing! the
validity
human mind
is
indirectly, in the original pattern by
186
The Transformation of
which God created that
thing.
the
Medieval Era
Here Aquinas again integrated Plato with
Aristotle by identifying the soul's capacity for such participation with Aristotle's active
intellect,
common
entity
intelligence
—though
he strenuously opposed
who would make
the nous a single separate
or nous
those interpreters of Aristotle
mankind, which would tend
to all
and moral
deny individual
to
responsibility, as well as the immortality of the
individual soul.
Aquinas agreed that
a kind of reality
can be ascribed to the Ideas,
as
eternal types in the divine intellect akin to the forms that exist in an architect's
human (i.e.
mind
prior to his constructing a building, but
beings can directly
know them
in this
Only
life.
he denied that a
more
perfect
angelic) intelligence can enjoy intimate contact with God's eternal
,
notions and grasp them directly. Earthly man, however, understands things in the light of those eternal types in the same things in the light of the Sun.
blank
slate, in a state
The mind without
and thus
that he sees
sensory experience
intellect
would be
effectively blind. In his present condition,
focus his active intellect,
a
which contains within
it
unintelli-
man must
the likeness of the
divine light, onto his sensory experience of the physical world
going to attempt to grasp truth, and from that point he
means of
is
of potentiality with regard to things intelligible.
But sensory experience without the active gible,
way
if
he
is
may proceed by
discursive reasoning in the Aristotelian manner. In Aquinas's
philosophy, the Ideas recede into the background, and emphasis instead placed
on sensory experience
as that
is
which provides the neces-
sary particular sense images that the active intellect illuminates so as to
abstract intelligible species or concepts.
Aquinas thus offered
a solution to
one of the central and most endur-
ing problems of Scholastic philosophy, the problem of universals. early
ism"
The
medieval doctrine of universals was characteristically that of "Real-
—
i.e.,
the universal existed as a real entity. Since the time of
Boethius, opinion was divided as to whether the universal was real in the Platonic sense, as a transcendent ideal independent of the concrete particular,
or in the Aristotelian sense,
associated with
its
as
an immanent form
individual material embodiment.
fully
Under Augustine's
influence, the Platonic interpretation was usually favored. Yet in either
case the reality of universals was so generally affirmed that Anselm, for
example, argued from the existence of the Idea to the existence of the particular, the derivative of the Idea.
Anselm and teacher
But Roscellinus,
a
contemporary of
of Abelard, criticized the belief in real universals,
The Qiwst of
Tkamu
is;
Atftnca
asserting that the latter were merely words or
names (nonmui)- thus
giving voice to the philosophical doctrine of nominalism. Aquinas, using distinctions formulated by AJbertua
Magnus, strove
by suggesting that the Ideas had throe kinds the
mind
things
ot
God independent
(in re),
from things
and
ot existence: as
{anu rem),
ot things
exemplars
In
forms
in
as Intelligible
human mind formed
concepts in the
as
to resolve the dispute
by abstracting
{pOSi rem).
These meticulous epistemological distinctions and others were important
tor
human knowledge
Aquinas because
tor
them
like
him the nature and processes of
bore directly on matters of weighty theological con-
cern. In Aquinas's view,
man
could strive to
know
things as they are
because both the things and man's knowledge oi them were determined
same absolute being
— God.
Like Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas believed in the possibility oi
human
by and, like
man
himself, expressive of the
knowledge because he was convinced of an ultimate identity between
Man
could
formal, or universal, aspect.
Man
being and knowledge.
know an
object by comprehending
its
possessed this capacity for comprehen-
mind was merely impressed by superior separated the Ideas, but because his own mind possessed a superior, "nobler" element by which it could abstract valid universals from sense
sion not because his entities,
lumen
impressions. This capacity was the light o{ the active intellect
The
intelUctiis agentis.
light of
human
reason derived
divine Truth which contained the eternal types of
power from the
its
all
things. In
endow-
God had given him the potential for knowledge o\ the world, just as God had endowed all beings, as possible objects ot knowledge, with intelligibility. Thus the human mind could make true ing
man
with this
light,
judgments. Yet Aquinas held that, because of the relationship
o\
human
cognition.
the knower.
could
know
The
To know
was
by receiving
sented every instance of material embodiment. it
it
As
—
its
universal aspect,
Aristotle
had been created
had in
knowledge Aquinas recognized
-is
said, the soul
such a way it.
in the process
have that thing itself.
th.it
the thing's form apart from
order of the universe inscribed within this
in a sense to
soul received the form of an object into
a thing
things, because
a thing
being and
of
knowledge, something of deeper significance was involved
its
was
as to
The
which
individuating in
,\
sense
all
have the whole
G
end of man, but rather the supreme
beatific
vision
of
much
the state of philosophical contemplation recognized by Aristotle final
repre-
But the hmhe^r condition
the vision of
in
soul
4
as
Chri
the
188
The Transformation of
mysticism. By expanding his like
God, and
to be like
the
Medieval Era
own knowledge, man was becoming more
God was
man's true desired end. Because pure
being and pure knowledge were both expressive of God (with knowledge constituting the "being to itself" of being, the self-illumination of being),
and because lutes,
a finite being participates, in a partial way, in those abso-
every act of knowing was not only an expansion of one's
but an expanding participation in God's nature.
And
own
being
by knowing exis-
—though ever
tence in created things, the mind could gain a positive
—knowledge
imperfect
of
God, by
virtue of the analogy
being and Infinite Being. Thus for Aquinas, the
was endowed with profound the
way
finite
human effort to know The way of truth was
religious significance:
of the Holy Spirit. .*.*
The
between
^% " —
extraordinary impact Aquinas had
on Western thought
lay es-
pecially in his conviction that the judicious exercise of man's empirical
and rational
intelligence,
the Greeks, could the
human
now
which had been developed and empowered by
marvelously serve the Christian cause. For
intellect's penetrating
objects in this world
—
their order, their
their absolute
their finiteness,
it
was
cognition of the multitude of created
dynamism,
their directedness,
dependence on something more
—
that
revealed, at the culmination of the universe's hierarchy, the existence of
an
infinite highest being,
Christianity. For
God
an unmoved mover and
first
was the sustaining cause of
ultimate unconditioned condition for the being oi result of the metaphysical quest, of
cause: the
all
all
God
of
that exists, the
things.
The
final
which the Greeks were the prime
exemplars, was discovered to be identical to that of the spiritual quest, of
which Christianity was the
definitive expression.
reason, but was not opposed by
it;
Rather than view the workings of secular reason sis
to the truths of religious faith,
Faith transcended
indeed, they enriched each other. as a threatening antithe-
Aquinas was convinced that ultimately
the two could not be in conflict and that their plurality would therefore serve a deeper unity. Aquinas thereby fulfilled the challenge of dialectic
posed by the earlier Scholastic Abelard, and in so doing opened himself to the influx of the Hellenic intellect. It is
true that rational philosophy could not
on
its
own
offer
ling proof for all the spiritual truths revealed in Scripture
doctrine. But
it
compel-
and Church
could enhance the spiritual understanding oi theological
The Quest of Thonuis Affumos
1
enhance the philosophical understanding
matters, just as theology could
Because God's wisdom permeated
of worldly matters. creation,
knowledge of natural
of Christian
although
taith,
89
could only magnify the profundity
reality
in
aspects oi
all
ways that might nor be know able
in
advance. Certainly the philosophy of the natural mind alone could not penetrate fully into the deepest meanings oi the creation.
Human
Christian revelation was necessary.
darkened hy the
To approach
Fall.
And
Aristotle for
if
Word; and only
human
Aquinas
search for spiritual un-
(like Plato for
lacked an adequate conception of the Creator, Aquinas saw
on
Aristotle while correcting
love
But the philosophical enterprise was
nevertheless a vital element in the derstanding.
this,
human
the highest spiritual realities,
thought required the illumination of the revealed could truly reach the infinite.
For
intelligence was imperfect,
Augustine)
how
to build
and deepening him wherever necessary
whether by infusing Neoplatonic conceptions, by employing the special insights of Christian revelation, or by acuity.
Thus Aquinas gave
significance
—
as
or,
it
drawing on his
to Aristotelian
own
philosophical
thought a new religious
has been said, Aquinas converted Aristotle to
Christianity and baptized him. Yet
it is
equally true that in the long run
Aquinas converted medieval Christianity
to Aristotle
and to the values
Aristotle represented. Aristotle's
introduction
into
the
Aquinas opened Christian thought
mous dynamism
of this world, of
medieval West
to the intrinsic
man and
as
mediated by
worth and autono-
nature, while not forsaking the
Platonic transcendent of Augustinian theology. In Aquinas's view, an
understanding of Aristotle paradoxically allowed theology to become
more
fully "Christian,"
more resonant with the mystery of the Incarna-
tion as the redemptive reunion of nature and spirit, time and eternity,
man and God.
Rational philosophy and the scientific study of nature
could enrich theology and faith ideal
itself
while being
was "a theologically based worldliness and
a
fulfilled
by them.
theology open
world." For Aquinas the mystery of being was inexhaustible, but
mystery opened up to man, radiantly
if
to seek perfection, to
Aquinas thus texts,
know
a fuller
move beyond himself and return to embraced the new learning, mastered
the Absolute, to
and committed
himself to
the
th.it
never completely, through the
devout development of his God-given intelligence: so
onward from within
The
to the
God drew
in, in
participation in
his all
the available
Herculean intellectual
t,isk
of
The Transformation of
190
the
Medieval Era
comprehensively uniting the Greek and Christian world views in one great
summa, wherein the
scientific
and philosophical achievements of
the ancients would be brought within the overarching vision of Christian
More than a sum of its parts, Aquinas's philosophy was a live compound that brought the diverse elements of its synthesis to new theology.
expression
—
and then
set
as
if
he had recognized an implicit unity in the two streams
about drawing
it
out by sheer force of intellect.
Further Developments in the
The
High Middle Ages
Rising Tide of Secular Thought
Aqtlinas's optimistic confidence in the conjunction of reason and revela-
tion was not shared by everyone.
Other philosophers, influenced by
Arabic commentator, Averroes, taught Aristotle's
Aristotle's greatest
works without seeing the need
for or the possibility o{ consistently
coordinating his scientific and logical conclusions with the truths of Christian faith. These "secularistic" philosophers, centered in the arts faculty at Paris
and
led by Siger of Brabant,
noted the apparent
dis-
crepancies between certain Aristotelian tenets and those of Christian revelation
—
particularly such Aristotelian concepts as the single intellect
common to all mankind (which human soul), the eternity of the
implied the mortality of the individual material world (which contradicted the
creation narrative of Genesis), and the existence of
between
God and man
many
intermediaries
(which overruled the direct workings of divine
Providence). Siger and his colleagues asserted that
if
philosophical rea-
son and religious faith were in contradiction, then the realm of reason
and science must
in
some sense be outside the sphere of theology.
A
"double-truth" universe was the consequence. Aquinas's desire for fun-
damental resolution between the two realms thus found not only to the position of the traditional Augustinians,
itself
who
opposed
rejected the
intrusion of Aristotelian science altogether, but also to the Avenoists'
heterodox philosophy, which Aquinas viewed
as inimical to
an inte-
grated Christian world view and as undercutting the potential o(
a
genuine Christian interpretation oi Aristotle. But with better transitions of Aristotle's writings
and with
their gradual separation from the
Neoplatonist interpretations with which they had lon^ been conflated, the Aristotelian outlook was increasingly recognized as
cosmology not readily combined with
a
naturalistic
a straightforward Christian out-
look.
Faced with
this disturbing
outbreak of Intellectual independence
the universities, ecclesiastical authorities
condemned
the
in
new thought
iaj
The Transformation of
the
Medieval Era
Sensing the secularizing threat of the pagan Aristotelian- Arabic science, embrace of profane nature, the ol Ul autonomous human reason and its
Chuich was
pressed to take a stand against the antitheological thinking Spread.
The
truths of Christian faith
were supernatural, and
nee Jed to he safeguarded against the insinuations of a naturalistic rationalism. Aquinas had not succeeded in resolving the heated differences
pew
een the opposing camps, and after his early death in 1274 the rift more profound. Indeed, three years later when the Church made its
condemned propositions, some of those taught by Aquinas were included. Thus the division between the warring adherents of reason and •
faith
was further deepened,
secularists but also
by
for
its
censure of not only the
initial
Aquinas, the Church cut off communication between
the scientific thinkers and the traditional theologians, leaving the
camps increasingly aloof and
The Church's
many
distrustful
two
toward each other.
prohibition did not stop the
new
philosophers, the die was already cast.
thinking. In the eyes of
Having
tasted the
power of
the Aristotelian intellect, they rejected a return to the previous status
quo.
that their intellectual duty was to follow the
They recognized
critical
judgments of
human
reason wherever these led, even
contradicted the traditional verities of faith.
Not
if
that
that the truths of faith
could ultimately be doubted; but such truths could not necessarily be justified
by pure reason, which had
and which tound
The
its
its
own
logic
and
its
own conclusions,
application in a realm perhaps irrelevant to faith.
potential divorce between theology and philosophy was already
viable.
And once
opened, the Pandora's box of scientific inquiry would
not shut. In these final centuries o{ the
authority was
still
Middle Ages, however, the Church's
secure and could
without endangering
its
cultural
accommodate
itself to
doctrinal shifts
hegemony. Despite repeated censure by
new ideas were too attractive to be altogether suppressed, even among devout Church intellectuals. Half a century after Aquinas's death, his life and work were reevaluated by the Church the Church, the
hierarchy and he was canonized, a scholar-saint. All Thomist teachings
were removed from the
list
condemned
of
propositions.
Recognizing
Aquinas's prodigious achievement in interpreting Aristotle in Christian terms, the
Church began incorporating
into ecclesiastical doctrine, with positor.
Aquinas and
this
Aquinas
his Scholastic followers
mated Aristotle by working out
in
modulated Aristotelianism
as its
most authoritative ex-
and colleagues thus
legiti-
painstaking detail the unification of
Further Developmtnts
his science,
fa H^h Middk Ages
m
193
philosophy, and cosmology with Christian doctrine. With
out that synthesis,
it
questionable whether the force
is
ism and naturalism could have been
ol
(
taeek rational*
00 fully assimilated into a culture as
pervasively Christian as the medieval West.
Bui
with the Church's
gradual acceptance ol thai work, the Aristotelian corpus was elevated virtually to the status ol Christian
dogma.
Astronomy and Dante With
my
the discovery of Aristotle
came
BS well
Ptolemy's works on astrono-
explicating the classical conception ot the heavens, with the planets
revolving around the Harth in concentric crystalline spheres, and with the
mathematical refinements
further
epicycles,
ot
eccentrics,
and
equants. Although disparities between observation and theory continued to arise
and demand new solutions, the Ptolemaic system
the most sophisticated astronomy details while
convincing
maintaining
scientific
tixed with the
its
account
still
reigned as
known, capable of modifying
Above
basic structure. tor the natural
heavens moving around
it.
all,
it
itself in
provided
perception ot the Earth
Taken
a
as
together, the works of
Aristotle and Ptolemy offered a comprehensive cosmological paradigm
representing the best science of the classical era, one that had dominated
now swept
Arabic science and that
From the twelfth and thirteenth
the universities in the West.
centuries even the classical astrology
codified by Ptolemy was being taught in the universities (often linked to
medical studies), and was integrated by Albertus and Aquinas into Christian context.
Astrology
in
fact
a
had never entirely disappeared
during the medieval era, periodically enjoying royal and papal patronage
and scholarly repute, and constituting the cosmic framework ongoing and growing
vital
esoteric tradition.
longer an immediate threat to Christianity,
Middle Ages more gy in the
freely
scheme
of"
and
tion to astrology
—
by Aquinas in his
its
theologians ot the high
thini^. especially given
Aristotelian-Ptolemaic lystemarizafkwv
its
classical
Summu
»»t
astrolo-
pedi
traditional Christian ol
implicit negation ot tree will an TheologjCO. There
an
But with paganism no
explicitly accepted the relevance
The
tor
lie
wbm met
I
affirmed
rh.tr rlu-
planets
influenced man, specifically his corporeal nature, but thai thn High the use of his God-given reason and tree will
and achieve freedom from
man
COul
astrological determinism.
I
most
in-
The Transformation of
194
dividuals did not exercise this faculty
make
dictions. In principle, however, the soul was
maintained the Christian belief
man
Medieval Era
and were therefore subject to
planetary forces, astrologers were able to
according to astrologers, the wise
the
accurate general pre-
free to choose, just as,
ruled his stars. Aquinas thus
and divine grace while
in free will
acknowledging the Greek conception of the
celestial powers.
Astrology, conjoined with astronomy, rose again to high status as a
comprehensive science, capable of disclosing the universal laws of nature.
The
planetary spheres
Saturn
ter,
affecting
—formed
human
—Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars,
successive
Jupi-
heavens surrounding the Earth and
existence. For underlying the restored classical cosmolo-
movement must
gy was Aristotle's fundamental axiom, "The end of every
be one of the divine bodies moving in the sky."
As
the translations from
the Arabic continued during the succeeding generations, the esoteric
and
astrological conceptions forged in the Hellenistic era, enunciated in
the Alexandrian schools and Hermetic tradition and carried forward by the Arabs, gradually achieved widespread influence
among
the medieval
intelligentsia.
But
it
was when the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology bestowed to
Christianity by the Scholastics was embraced by Dante that the ancient
world view
fully
reentered the Christian psyche and was there elaborated
and permeated with Christian meaning. Closely following Aquinas time and
spirit,
Dante
le,
and
similarly inspired by the scientific
realized in his epic
The Commedia
achievement
Divina
Commedia what was
represented,
on
in Christian culture.
several counts, an unprecedented
As
a sustained act of the poetic
imagination, Dante's epic transcended earlier medieval conventions its
literary sophistication,
in
its
in
its
its
instruments o( religious understanding, in
its
human
eros
in
in
its
expression of a
upholding oi poetry and learning
as
implicit identification of
the feminine with the mystical knowledge of God, in amplification of
—
eloquent use of the vernacular, in
psychological insight and theological innovations, in
deepening individualism,
in
and cosmological paradigm of the medieval
effect the moral, religious, era.
poem La
in
wisdom of Aristot-
its
a Christian context.
bold Platonic
But especially
consequential for the history of the Western world view were certain ramifications of the epic's cosmological architecture. For by integrating
the scientific constructs of Aristotle and Ptolemy with a vividly imagined portrayal oi the Christian
universe,
Dante created
a
vast classical-
Christian mythology encompassing the whole of creation that would
Further Development*
m
the lli^h
exert a considerable
l^s
Middle
— and
complex—-influence on
the latei Christian
imagination. In Dante's vision, as in the medieval vision generally, the heavens were both numinous and humanly meaningful. The human microcosm directlv reflected the
macrocosm, and the planetary spheres embodied
human
the various forces influencing
Dante
destiny.
our
filled
general conception by poetically uniting the Specific elements
ban theology with the equally specific elements
ot
this
hns
I
astronomy.
ot classical
Commedia, the ascending elemental and planetary spheres
In the
envelop the central Earth culminate the throne ot
spheres
m
God, while the
reverse,
in the highest sphere,
descend toward the corrupt core
Aristotelian geocentric universe thus ture tor the moral
drama
became
ot Christianity,
.1
and balanced
at
references,
situated
and earthly
his ethereal
the moral pivot between his spiritual
now
corporeal natures. All ot the Ptolemaic planetary spheres
Christian
The
ot the Earth.
massive symbolic struc-
which man was
in
between Heaven and Hell, drawn between abodes,
containing
mirroring the celestial
Hell,
circles ot
thai
with
ranks
specific
ot
angels
and
took on
and archangels
responsible for each sphere's motions, even for their various epicyclic
refinements.
being
The Commedia
portrayed the entire Christian hierarchy of
— ranging from Satan and Hell
Earth, out through the
Mount
in the dark
ot Purgatory,
successive angelic hosts to the supreme celestial sphere,
point,
all
God
depths o( the material
and on up through the
in Paradise at the highest
with man's earthly existence at the cosmological mid-
carefully
mapped onto
resulting Christian universe
humankind was positioned
The
the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian system.
was
a divine
macrocosmic
womb on
securely in the center, enclosed
God's omniscient and omnipotent being. Thus Dante, achieved an extraordinarily comprehensive ordering
in
which
sides by
.ill
Aquinas,
like
of the COSII*
medieval Christian transfiguration of the cosmic order
set forth
K
the
Greeks.
But the
ven,-
power and vividness
was to encourage an unexpectedly psyche. its
core,
The
of this
critical turn nt
events
medieval mind perceived the physical world
and that perception had gained new
of Aristotle and Greek science
K
BS B srniaur.il
Christian world view readily established
with every aspect
ci
in
the uilrur.il
,is
lymbolk
specificity with the
Christian intellectuals.
the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian cosmology
imagination,
Greek-Christian integration
itself in
the Greek
iseol
I
foundation
the collective scientific
tO
eml
(
tor the
.hristi.m
The Transformation of
196
imbued with
the
Medieval Era
In the minds of Dante and his
religious significance.
contemporaries, astronomy and theology were inextricably conjoined,
and the cultural ramifications of found: for
if
this
cosmological synthesis were pro-
any essential physical change were to be introduced into that
system by future astronomers
—such
as, for
example, a moving Earth
the effect of a purely scientific innovation would threaten the integrity of the entire Christian cosmology.
The
intellectual
comprehensiveness and
desire for cultural universality so characteristic of the Christian
mind
in
the high Middle Ages, bringing even the details of classical science into its
were leading
fold,
it
into directions that
would
later
prove intensely
problematic.
The Secularization of the Church and the Rise of Lay Mysticism In the high Middle Ages, the Christian world view was
The
question.
status of the institutional
after the
a role of
tenth century, the
immense
beyond
Church, however, had become
considerably more controversial. Having consolidated
Europe
still
authority in
its
Roman papacy had gradually assumed
political influence in the affairs of Christian nations.
By the thirteenth century, the Church's powers were extraordinary, with the papacy actively intervening in matters of state throughout Europe,
and with enormous revenues being reaped from the the growing magnificence oi the papal court and
its
faithful to support
huge bureaucracy. By
the early fourteenth century the results of such worldly success were both clear
and
unsettling.
Christianity
had become powerful but com-
promised.
The Church hierarchy was visibly prone to financial and political motivation. The pope's temporal sovereignty over the Papal States in Italy
involved
it
in political
complicated the Church's
and military maneuverings that repeatedly
spiritual self-understanding.
Moreover, the
Church's extravagant financial needs were placing constantly augmented
demands on the masses o( devout
Christians. Perhaps worst o{
secularism and evident corruption of the papacy were causing in the eyes of the faithful,
its
it
all,
the
to lose,
spiritual integrity. (Dante himself had
made
the distinction between spiritual merit and the ecclesiastical hierarchy,
and
felt
compelled to consign more than one high Church
Inferno for betraying the Church's apostolic mission.)
official to
The
the
very success
Further Developmeiu*
of the
in the
Church's striving
vated, was
WuLile
lli^h
l«->7
tor cultural
now undermining
hegemony,
.u
spiritually moti-
first
religious tomul.it ions.
its
meantime, the secular monarchies of the European nation* had gradually gained power and cohesion, creating i situation in
In the states
which the papal claim
to
toward serious conflict At the height panstveness, the
was inevitably leading
universal authority ot
Church suddenly found
extreme institutional disruption—
Avignon under French control
tirst
wealth and worldly ex
its
itself
caught up
with the transfer
century
in a
ot
the papal
\
of
DO
(the "Babylonian captivity") and sub-
sequently with the unprecedented situation of having two, and then three,
With
popes simultaneously claiming primacy (the "Great Schism"). the BttCred papal authority SO obviously forces,
political
at
wayward
the mercy ot
worldly pomp, and personal ambition, the Church's
actual spiritual role was
becoming increasingly obscured and the unity
ot
Western Christendom dangerously threatened. Dunns: these same years
Church's accelerating seculanz.it ion,
ot the
in
the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, an extraordinary wave ot
much of Europe, especially men and women laypersons as
mystical fervor swept through
involving thousands of
—
the Rhineland. well as priests,
monks, and nuns. Intensely devotional, Christ-centered, and aimed
at
achieving a direct inner union with the divine, this religious outpouring
took place largely without regard to the established structures of the
Church. The Christian mystical impulse that found
Dante
Aquinas and
in
a theological expression of considerable intellectual complexity
took a more purely affective and devotional character in the central
European
lay population.
Intellectuality ot threat subtlety played a role
here too in the person of Meister Eckhart, the movement's leading teacher,
whose metaphysical
vision derived philosophical support from
Aquinas and Neoplatonism, and whose
original
formulations ot the
mystical experience sometimes appeared to threaten the limits ot ortho-
doxy: "The eye with which
my
God
sees
me
eve and his are one." Yet the impact
is ofl
the eye with which his widely
I
see
him;
sermom
heard
Johann Taulei and Heinrich Suso, was
ot the teachings ot his disciples
not primarily intellectual or rational but moral and
reli
e all,
their concern was with direct religious illumination an
tified lite
hue and service. But with such an emphaMs on
of Christian
than on the need
for
internal
communion
the Church's institutionalized
collective forms of worship, the
Church
itself
was
with
(
fad, rathei
The Transformation of
198
for the spiritual enterprise.
With advanced
and bishop were no longer regarded Similarly,
spiritual activity.
much
rationalist
development
as to clergy,
as necessary
the
mediators of
the relative unimportance of words and
reason in the context of the soul's relationship to
Church doctrine seem
now
religious experience
perceived as directly available to lay people as priest
Medieval Era
the
ot theology
superfluous.
God made
and the contentious
From the opposite
from Scholasticism, but with identical
the highly
subtleties of
side of the issue
reason and faith were
effect,
growing ever further apart.
Of greater immediate
import was the growing divergence between the
ideal of Christian spirituality
In the view of the
new
and the
Church.
reality of the institutional
mystical preachers and lay brotherhoods, personal
piety took precedence over ecclesiastical office, just as internal experi-
ence superseded external observance. The true Church, the body of Christ, was faithful
now
increasingly identified with the
souls of the
and the graciously illuminated, rather than with the
sanctioned Church hierarchy.
God's
humble
Word
A
new
as the basis of that true
institutional Church's stress
officially
on the Bible and faith in Church began to displace the
stress
on dogma and papal
sovereignty.
A
life
of
renunciation and simplicity was upheld as the authentic path to God, in contrast to the
life
of wealth and power enjoyed by the privileged
officeholders of the ecclesiastical establishment.
All of these widely experienced dichotomies suggested a potential
break from the traditional structure of the medieval Church. Yet that break did not occur. Those involved were devout Christians ally
who
recognized no need for active rebellion against the Church.
gener-
Where
reform and renewal were sought, as these were by several major religious
movements in the later Middle Ages, it was still generally within the existing Church framework. But a seed was sown. The life of Christ and the apostles was acknowledged as the paradigm of spiritual existence, but that
life
appeared to be neither represented nor mediated by the contem-
porary structures of the Catholic Church.
my embraced by the Rhineland and the Low Countries, tended
And
the
new
spiritual
autono-
mystics, as well as by others in England to place the
in the realm of authentic spirituality.
Church
Already
in a secondary role
at the turn of the thir-
teenth century, Joachim of Fiore had set forth his influential mystical vision of history as divided into three eras of increasing spirituality
Age
of the Father (the
Old Testament), the Age of the Son
Testament and Church), and
a
coming Age oi the
Spirit,
—the
(the
New
when
the
Further Developments
m
the
hhgh WuLUe Ages
199
whole world would be Bufiused with the divine and the Church would no longer be necessary.
With
the
new emphasis
mstitution.il
given to the individual's direct and private
relation to God, the elaborate institutional tonus and regulations of the Church were devalued at the same moment th.it the secularization ot the Church made its spiritual mission appeal increasing open to question.
As the medieval
era reached
alwavs present in
Church
more
final stages, the earnest cries tor reform,
history,
found Strong voice
— Dante, — and became, from
diversity of figures
Wyclitte, Jan
it>
Hus
heretical in character.
in
Marsilius of Padua, Dietrich of
a
growing
Niem, John
the hierarchy's perspective, ever
Critical Scholasticism
While one
and Ockham's Razor
cultural stream, represented by the
new
lay mysticism,
toward religious autonomy, the Scholastic stream continued
Western
able development of the
And role
if
less so.
On
now ambiguous,
the one hand, the
whole academic enterprise
the other hand,
enterprise under control, either by
intellectual
where Christian doctrine
in the universities,
On
its
Church was supporting the
was explicated with unprecedentedly rigorous creasingly greater scope.
moved
remark-
under Aristotle's tutelage.
intellect
the Church's spiritual role was
was no
its
logical
it
method and
in-
attempted to keep that
condemnation and suppression, or by
giving doctrinal status to certain innovations such as those of Aquinas as
if
to say,
"This far and no further." But within this ambivalent
atmosphere, the Scholastic inquiry went on, with increasingly weighty implications.
The Church had
largely accepted Aristotle.
interest in Aristotle did
But the culture's new
not stop with the study of his writings, for that
interest signified a broader,
and ever-broadening,
interest in the natural
world and a growing confidence in the power of Aristotelianism in the late Middle Ages was more
the developing scientific
such
as
spirit in
human
reason.
symptom than cause of
Europe. Already Scholastics in England
Robert Grosseteste and his pupil Roger Bacon were performing
concrete scientific experiments (moved in part by esoteric traditions such as
alchemy and
astrology), applying the
mathematical principles held
supreme by the Platonic tradition to the observation of the physical world recommended by Aristotle. This new focus on direct experience
and reasoning was beginning
to
undermine the Church's exclusive
vestment in the authoritativeness o{ the ancient texts as well as biblical
own
and
terms, in specifics
patristic. Aristotle if
—now
Aristotelian
was being questioned on
not in overall authority.
Some
in-
his
of his principles
were compared with experience and found lacking, logical
fallacies in his
proofs were pinpointed, and the corpus of his works was subjected to
minute examination.
The
Scholastics' exhaustive critical discussions o( Aristotle
and
often shrewd suggestions of alternative hypotheses were forging a intellectual spirit, increasingly perceptive, skeptical,
and open
their
new
to fun-
ami OdJiam'j
Critical Scholasticism
damental change.
In
201
K.
tellectual climate that not only
and quantitative view
accommodate the moving the
their probings
particular,
encouraged
m
more empirical, mechanis*
a
hut would in tune
nature,
ot
were creating an
more
easily
radical shift of view necessary tor the conception
*>t
.1
Earth. By the fourteenth century, a leading Scholastic such as
Parisian
scholar and
bishop Nicole d'Oiesme could defend the
theoretical possibility o( a rotating Earth (even while personally rejecting
out ot >heer logical vigor proposing ingenious arguments against
it),
Aristotle concerning optical
would
that
heliocentric theory. ot
projectile
To
and
felling
arguments
bodies
the
solve difficulties presented hy Aristotle's theory
motion, Oresme's teacher, Jean Bundan, developed an
impetus theory, applying
which would
relativity
he used by Copernicus and Galileo to support
later
lead directly to Galileo's
and
phenomena, mechanics and Newton's first law
to both celestial
it
terrestrial
of motion. Aristotle continued to provide the terminology, the logical method,
and the increasingly empiricist But ironically,
philosophy.
it
spirit
overthrow. size
it
developing
was contributing
inviting such intense examination,
And
the
o\
Scholastic
was Aristotle's very authority
that,
by
to his eventual
was the meticulous and energetic attempt
to synthe-
Aristotelian science with the indubitable tenets of Christian revela-
tion that was bringing forth
all
the critical intelligence that would
ultimately turn against both the ancient and the ecclesiastical authorities.
In retrospect, Aquinas's
medieval mind toward
summa had been one
^^
^Sfc
This new autonomy was portentously asserted tury in the paradoxical figure
strangely priest
modern and
born soon
ot'
William
of
vet altogether medieval.
after
ot the final steps ot the
intellectual independence.
full
Aquinas's death,
fourteenth cen-
in the
Ockham,
A
Ockham
man
a
he emploved both empiricism.
Yet
a
in
Parisian secularists,
competence Although
o\
highly developed the w.ike ot
Ockham
the natural
his intentions
were
to be the pivotal thinker
m
»>t
looked
.it
matters with .it
sh.irplv
upholding Christian revelation,
logical
method and an augmented
the Church's
strove above
human
once
British philosophei
the same passion for ration, il precision as Aquinas, but arrived different conclusions. In the service
-it
reason
condemnation limit
all
to
to
Lirasp
entirely to the conrr.irv,
the late medieval
umvcrs.il (
t
the presu
Vkham
the
med
truths. pr
movement toward
the
The Transformation of
202
modern outlook. And although the
modem mind
dismiss the intellectual conflicts that concerned
itself
him
would
modern thought could
establish
its
largely
as the insignificant
quihhlings of a decadent and overwrought Scholasticism, precisely those recondite conceptual battles that
Medieval Era
the
had
would be
it
to be fought before
radical revision of
human knowledge
and the natural world.
The
central
Ockham's thought, and the most con-
principle of
sequential, was his denial of the reality of universals outside of the
human mind and human
Driving Aristotle's
language.
on the
stress
ontological primacy of concrete particulars over Platonic Forms to logical extreme,
Ockham
its
argued that nothing existed except individual
beings, that only concrete experience could serve as a basis for knowl-
and that universals existed not
edge,
only as mental concepts. In the
as entities external to the
last analysis,
what was
mind but was the
real
particular thing outside the mind, not the mind's concept of that thing.
Since
knowledge had
all
on the
to be based
and since
real,
all real
existence was that of individual beings, then knowledge must be of particulars.
Human
yond concrete
concepts possessed no metaphysical foundation be-
particulars,
between words and
and there existed no necessary correspondence
things.
Ockham
to the philosophical position of sion),
which held that
and not
would play
it
sical
new
(in
its
names
had argued
was from the time of
force
and
vitality
conceptualist ver-
or mental concepts
a similar position in the
Ockham
a central role in the evolution of the
that nominalism
Western mind.
Ockham, another prominent Scholastic Duns Scotus, had already modified clas-
In the generation before
known
nominalism
universals were only
real entities. Roscellinus
eleventh century, but
thereby gave
as the "subtle doctor,"
Form
theories in the direction of the concrete individual by assert-
ing that each particular
which possessed
had
its
own
a positive reality of
participation in the universal
—
or,
individual "thisness" (haeccitas),
its
more
own
precisely, apart
in a
common
saw
as necessary to allow the individual
from
its
sharing
nature. This added formal quality of individuation Scotus
terms, apart from
would be
apart from the particular's
its
an
intelligibility
on
its
own
universal form (otherwise the individual in itself
unintelligible, perhaps
even to the divine mind).
He
also
saw
this principle of individuation as a necessary recognition of the in-
dividual
human
free will
and
especially of God's
freedom to choose
he created each individual, rather than God's or
how
man's being bound by
the determinism of eternally fixed universals and necessary emanations
Critical Scholasticism
from the
—
20
ft
\
Cause. These modifications away from fixed universale and
First
determinism periment
and Qcfchom'a
turn
in
encouraged
attention
and ex-
observation
to
to study the unpredictable creation ot a free
)od and heightened the distinction between rational philosophy and religious i.e.,
(
truth.
But \vherea> ScOtUS,
had assumed
and metaphysical
of his
predecessors hack tO AugUStine,
human concept
correspondence between
real
Ockham
existent,
Only concrete
gether.
most
like
and
a direct
denied that correspondence
Individual being! were real, and
common
alto-
natures
(Scotus), intelligible species (Aquinas and Aristotle), or transcendent
Forms (Plato) were conceptual
A
universal tor
Ockham
fictions derived
was
a
from that primary
reality.
term signifying some conceptualized
aspect ot a real, concrete individual being, and did not constitute
metaphysical entity
A
in itself.
separate,
independent order of
moved
Forms
to eliminate the last vestige ot Platonic
reality
Ockham
populated by universals or Forms was expressly denied.
in
a
thus
Scholastic
thought: Only the particular existed, and any inference about real universals,
whether transcendent or immanent, was
with such force did
Ockham
are not to be multiplied
So often and
spurious.
use the philosophical principle that "entities
beyond necessity" (non
Inacter necessitatem) that the principle
came
sunt multipUcanda cniia
to be
known
as
"Ockham's
razor
Hence, according mind, not basis of
They
in reality.
its
empirical observations of more or
are not
dividuals, for
pleased. issue
Ockham, universals exist only in the human They are concepts abstracted by the mind on the
to
Only
less similar
God's pre-existing Ideas governing
God
was absolutely
free to create
individuals. ot
his creation
anything
in
in-
any way he
Ockham, rhe how ephemeral
his creatures exist, not Ideas of creatures. For
was no longer the metaphysical question
as
to
came from real transcendent Forms, hut the epistemological question as to how abstract universal concepts came from real individuals. "Man" as a species signified not a distinct real entity in itself, but a shared similarity in many individual human beings -is recognised by the mind. It was a mental abstraction, nor a real entity. The problem of individuals
universals was therefore a marrer of epistemology, ^niimur, and log
not of metaphysics or ontoL
Ockham,
again following
possibility of
moving from
-
le
a
lished by Scotus,
all
rational apprehension oi rhe tiers
world to any necessary conclusions about
(
'her relig
I
(
»t
rhe this
The Transformation of
204
the
Medieval Era
The world was utterly contingent on God's omnipotent and indefinable will. Hence man's only certainty derived from direct sensory observation or from self-evident logical propositions, not from rational speculations
about invisible
realities
and universal essences. Because
create or determine things according to his will, any
God was free human claim
to to
certain knowledge of the cosmos as a rationally ordered expression of
transcendent essences was altogether relativized.
way he
things in any
such
as
created
without the use of intermediaries
Thomism. of God, given by
the celestial intelligences of Aristotelianism and
There were two revelation,
realities
and the
Beyond
ence.
arbitrarily wished,
God could have
given to man: the reality
given by direct experi-
reality of the empirical world,
those, or
between them,
man
could not legitimately claim
cognitive access, and without revelation he could not
could not empirically experience
God
material object in front of him. Since
on the sensory
all
know
of God.
known
by reason.
Man
same way he could the
human knowledge was founded
intuition of concrete particulars, something
senses, such as the existence of
could not be
in the
beyond the
God, could only be revealed by
The concept
faith,
it
of an absolute divine being
was only a subjective human construction, and could not therefore serve as a secure
In
foundation for theological reasoning.
Ockham's understanding, the determinism and necessary causes of
Greek philosophy and
science,
which Aquinas sought
to integrate with
Christian faith, placed arbitrary limits on God's infinitely free creation,
and
this
Ockham
vigorously opposed.
human
nize the real limits of
Such
a philosophy failed to recog-
rationality. For
Ockham,
all
knowledge of
nature arose solely from what comes through the senses. Reason was a
powerful tool, but ter
its
power
with the concrete
sessed
could
no divine
light, as
move beyond
lay only in relation to the empirical
facts of "positive" reality.
encoun-
The human mind
Aquinas taught, by which the active
pos-
intellect
the senses to a valid universal judgment grounded in
absolute being. Neither the
mind nor the world could be
said to be
ordered in such a coherently interconnected fashion that the mind
knows the world by means of real universals that govern both knower and known. Because only particulars demonstrably exist, and not any transcendent relation or coherence between them, speculative reason and metaphysics lacked any real foundation.
Without
interior illumination or
some other means of epistemological
certainty such as Aquinas's light of the active intellect, a newly skeptical attitude toward
human knowledge was both
inevitable
and mandatory.
Critkd
Scholasticism
and Ockham's Razor
Since onlv dn
I
knowledge, and since the**
individual exigents provided a ba>
nringen-
e
nipotence that knew no determined boil
anvthing was possible t
God
tor
and empirical, and was.
:e at all.
sal k:
human
;tv
—then human knowledge was tinallv.
limited to
not necessarv and univer-
was not limited bv the structures of
will
rationality-, tor his ibtjolutt volitional
freedom and omnipotence
could allow him to make what was evil good, and vice vers, wished. There was no mandators relation between God's freelv created
human
universe and the
I
a world of rational intelligibility
oi probability were legitimate.
could make
strict
logical
demonstrations on the
K
nmediate
-anlv relativized the absolute certaintv oi the logic.
Ockham's ontoloj
At
The human mind
ng contingent on God's free
experience, but that expene:
.
And
will,
because
emr
vdusivelv of concrete individuals, the
world had to be viewed from an exclusivelv phvsical standpoint. The metaphvsical organizing pnnciples ot Anstotle or Plato could not be
denved from immediate experience.
Ockham
therefore attacked the earlier Scholastics' speculative theo-
logical rationalism as
inappropnate to logic and science (empl
unvenfiable and superfluous entities beings),
and
like the
Forms to explain individual
dangerous to religion (presuming to
to put limits of order
know Gods
and intermediate causes onto
reasons or
hi
n
creation, while elevating pagan met::
He
therebv severed the units so painstakinglv constn-
For
Ockham,
faith). inas.
there was one truth described bv Christian reveL
which was both bevond doubt and bevond
rational comprehension,
and
there was another truth comprising the observable particular fac
senbed bv empincal science and rational philosophv. The two truths were not necessanlv continuous. In a sense,
ment
Ockham
both opposed and
oi the previous century.
fulfilled
He forcefullv
the seculanstic
proclaimed a nc
double-truth universe, with a religious truth and a so. effectively cutting the link earlier secularists
when
it
-uth,
between theologv and philosophv. But the
had argued
for
unwilling to restrict Greek and position
n.
such a division because
tr
nate
philosor
conflicted with Christian belief.
Ockham, bv
contrast,
—
wished to preserve the preeminence oi Christian docmne God's absolute freedom and omnipotence as Creat
especiallv
rung
206
The Transformation of
the limits of the natural reason. In doing so, however,
the
Medieval Era
Ockham
negated
Aquinas's confidence that God's creation would be warmly open to
human
efforts at universal
ham, the human mind had
understanding. For both Aquinas and Ockto
accommodate
its
intellectual aspirations to
the fact that God's reality and man's rational knowledge were infinitely distant from each other. But
where Aquinas
left
room
for a rational
knowledge that approached the divine mystery and enhanced theological understanding, limit.
A
Ockham saw
the necessity of defining a more absolute
positivist reason could
be carefully and modestly employed in
approaching the empirical world, but only revelation could illuminate the greater realities of God's will, his creation, and his gratuitously
bestowed salvation. There was no humanly
intelligible continuity be-
tween the empirical and the divine.
Ockham's
logical rigor
was matched by
worldly magnificence of the
his
moral
rigor.
Avignon papacy, he endorsed
Against the a life of total
poverty for true Christian spiritual perfection, following the example of Jesus,
the apostles, and Francis of Assisi. For
fervent Franciscan, whose religious conviction
excommunication by the pope with Christian truth. In a
Ockham not only
the
latter's policies
series of fateful
himself a
seemed
to risk
to conflict
encounters with the papacy,
upheld radical poverty against the secular wealth of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy,
tax
if
Ockham was
moved him even
Church property
he
also
defended the right of the English king to
(as Jesus, in
to temporal authority),
"rendering unto Caesar," had submitted
condemned the Church's infringement on
in-
dividual Christian freedom, denied the legitimacy of papal infallibility,
and outlined the various circumstances ly
in
which
deposed. In the personal drama between
a
pope could be
Ockham and
the
rightful-
Church
were foreshadowings oi an epochal drama to come. But
it
was on the philosophical
most immediately potent,
level that
for in his
Ockham's impact was
to be
emphatic assertion of nominalism,
the growing medieval tension between reason and faith began to snap. Paradoxically, the very intensity of
Ockham's
allegiance to God's
om-
nipotent freedom, combined with his acute sense of logical precision, led
him to formulate a philosophical position remarkable for its modernity. In Ockham's view, one could not assume that man's mind and God's were fundamentally connected. Empiricism and reason could give a limited knowledge of the world in
edge of God, for which only God's
its
particulars, but
Word
no
certain knowl-
could be a source. Revelation
offered certainty, but could be affirmed only through faith
and grace, not
Critical Scholasticism
and Ockham's
ft
through natural reason. Reason ihould rightly toois on nature rathei than God, because only nature provided the senses with concrete data
upon which reason could ground
knowledge.
its
Ockham left no bridge between human reason and divine revelation, between what man knows and what he believes. Yet his uncompromising emphasis on the individual concrete things
power
human
ol
world, Ins mist in the
of this
reason and logic Do ascertain necessary entities and to
differentiate evidence
and degrees
and
ol probability,
his skeptical atti-
tude toward traditional and institutionally sanctioned ways all
encouraged the
directly
scientific
thinking
oi
Indeed, from such
enterprise.
duahstic starting point, science could be tree to develop along lines
with
less fear of
potential doctrinal contradiction
entire COStnOtOgy was called into question.
both Buridan and Oresme, two
ot
It
—
own
its
at least until the
was not accidental that
the most original scientific thinkers
the late Middle Ages, worked in the Parisian nominalist school
Ockham had been
a central influence.
.1
Although Ockham's
*
>t
which
in
interests lay
principally in philosophy rather than natural science, his elimination ot
the fixed correspondence between reality,
and
his assertion that all
tence, helped
human concept and
metaphysical
genuine existence was individual
open the physical world
to fresh analysis.
Now
exis-
direct
contact with concrete particulars could overcome the metaphysical
mediation
by
universals.
abstract
Significantly,
as
the
Ockham's
alliano
nominalism and empiricism represented
in
through the universities
century (despite papal cen-
sure),
in the fourteenth
Ockham's way of philosophy was known
contrast to Aquinas's and Scotus's via antiqua. enterprise,
committed
as the via
The
ideas
moderns,
tradition.il
to joining faith with reason,
s|
in
& holastk
was coming
to
an
end.
Thus with the fourteenth century, the bng~a8sumed metaphysical unity of concept and bein^ began to break down. The assumption that the
human mind knows
things by intellectually L^raspmL: their Inherent
— whether through
interior illumination bv transcendent
forms
and Augustine,
in Plato
immanent
r
particulars, as in AristotL
universals from
—was now challenged
Aquinas ical
Kle-
through the active intellect's abstracts
In the
absence
oi rh.ir
I
presupposition, the ambitiously comprehensive systems consa
bv the thirteenth-century Scholastics were no bnger possible. With die Jation by empirical e
displacement
knowledge, the
earlier
metaphysical
im-
The Transformation of
208
plausible. lian
The underlying medieval world view
—continued
thereby undoing
arose,
intellectual pluralism. In
more
but new,
intact,
Medieval Era
—Christian and
Aristote-
interpretations
critical
the earlier synthesis
many
the
and engendering
a
now new
matters, probability replaced certainty, as
empiricism, grammar, and logic began to supersede metaphysics.
Ockham's
vision prefigured the path subsequently taken by the West-
ern mind. For just as he believed the rated from the secular world
Church must be
for the integrity
and
politically sepa-
rightful
freedom of
both, so he believed God's reality must be theologically distinguished
from empirical
Only thus would Christian
reality.
truth preserve
its
transcendent sacrosanctness, and only thus would the world's nature be
comprehended on
properly
its
own
terms, in
full particularity
its
contingency. Herein lay the embryonic foundations
and metaphysical
as well as religious
Western world view
in the
so
it
was that
consummation ent
spirit
of a
in the
just
for
coming changes
wrought by the Reformation, the
the medieval vision had attained
as
work of Aquinas and Dante, the altogether
new epoch began
had achieved the
—
political
and the Enlightenment.
Scientific Revolution,
And
to be
and
and
—epistemological
its
differ-
to arise, propelled by the very forces that
earlier synthesis.
The
great medieval masterworks
had
culminated an intellectual development that was starting to break into
new
territories,
even
if
that
meant stepping out of the Church's
tablished structure of education and belief. But
modernism was
new
era
still
ahead of
would receive
its
its
es-
Ockham's precocious
time. Paradoxically, the culture of this
major initiating impulse not from the line of
medieval Scholasticism, natural science, and Aristotle, but from the other pole of classical Humanism, belles just as
Aquinas had
so did
Dante have
lettres,
and
a revived Plato. For
his contrasting philosophical successor in
Ockham,
his contrasting literary successor in Petrarch,
born in
the same decade Dante began writing La Divina Commedia, at the start of the fourteenth century.
The Rebirth
Humanism
of Classical
Petrarch
It
\va>
a
moment
pivotal
Western
in
cultural
experienced that entire period
diminishment
Petrarch
Rome and
an< lent
ol
human
as a decline o\
and moral excellence,
o\ literary
when
history
looked back on the thousand yean since the decline
greatness
itself,
a
impoverishment, Petrarch beheld the immense cultural wealth
to this
Greco-Roman
human
civilization, a
rediscovering and
gradually
seeming golden age
For centuries,
expansiveness.
.1
"dark" age. In contrast
oi creative
of
genius and
medieval schoolmen had been
integrating
works,
the ancient
Petrarch radically shifted die focus and rone
but
now
Instead
oi that integration.
of Scholasticism's concern with logic, science, and Aristotle, and with
the constant imperative of Christianizing the pagan conceptions, Petrarch
and
his followers
saw value
in all the literary classics of antiquity
poetry, essays, letters, histories and biographies, philosophy in the form of elegant Platonic dialogues rather
embraced these on tion, but as
their
own
— and
terms, not as needing Christian modifica-
noble and inspirational
classical civilization.
than dry Aristotelian treatises
they stood in the radiance
just as
Ancient culture was
of
a source not just for scientific
knowledge and rules for logical discourse, bur tor the deepening and enrichment of the
human
spirit.
The
classical texts
provided
a
new
foun-
dation for the appreciation of man; classical scholarship constituted rhe
"humanities." Petrarch
set
about the task
of
the great works of anc lent culture—Virgil and
Homer
and Plato— not
masters, but to
instill in
just to inculcate
a
(
rinding and absorbing )icero,
and Petrarch called
was being established,
a
1
trace
and Livy, flu-
himself the same moral and imaginative
they had so superbly expressed. Europe had forgotten heritage,
1
Sterile imitation of
tor
its
recollection.
A
its
past
tire th.»t
noble da
n
earch
much
lost
of
its
in
thus signified
thought With orthodoxy,
Ockham,
Buridan, Oresme,
modema
via
original impetus. By the fifteenth century,
a
tresh
The influx
failing.
the universities trapped in
a Platonic
Academe
halt ot the fifteenth century,
under the patronage
and the leadership
^nd
of Ficino,
in the
second
CostmO de Medu
oi
became the
this
intellectual
oi
Florence
in
ti.idi
European
revitalizing
backwater
a
founded
w.is
ItseU
Scholar
Planum
the
of
umd
and expansive
win
metaphysical
In
the fourteenth century, the
deism's intellectual net\e was
tkm
moderna
via
and the concern with
ontkfua'a interest
after the brilliance oi
and their contemporaries had
via
he
I
|
such minute controversy,
to
terminological accuraq
tor
And
iterilc subtleties.
was especially prone
formal logic displaced the prehensivenes>.
ova
I
flourishing centei
i
oi
the Platonic revival. In Platonism
and Neoplatonisrn the Hum. mists discovered
Christian spiritual tradition possessing
seemingly comparable to that corpus implied the existence it\
a religious
of Christianity
non-
.
Socrates as to
Humanists' suddenly expanded reading
lists
wrote saini
.»
gave evidence
ot
of learning, ofintellectu.il. spiritual, and imaginative insight,
expression not only in the history
—
in the
chissic.il
Hermetic corpus,
m
Kaballah, in Babylonian ,md Egyptian texts— that bespoke a Logos that manifested
With
the influx ot this tradition
and the divine.
m
itself
came
a
,1
I
tli.it
found
civilised
the
Hebrew
cross-cultural revelation
continually and universally.
new
vision ot
in. in.
nn
mism, based on Plotinus's cotia
I
he
tradition
,i
Greeks hut throughout
Zoroastrian oracles,
his
*>t
I
the
world as an emanation from the transcendent On.
permeated by planets,
divinity,
light,
plants.
noble expression
s
as Christ
bathed
was the
.i
possessing
divme
attributes.
verse ordered according
intense renewal ot
iffl
light -t
light oi the world,
,md with d
in divinitv
the
c
Neoplatonist Humanists declared the
God,
oi
t(
»
The
itself,
the
with
World SouL
5
numinous d imension to he the light
Sun .ill
creation th
ot
tb
lite,
l,m
ancient Pyd
transcendent mathernatJi
..t
-^
I
*
214
The Transformation of
the
Medieval Era
by a mystical intelligence whose language was number and geometry.
The garden
of the world was again enchanted, with magical powers and
transcendent meanings implicit in every part of nature.
The Humanists' Neoplatonic conception
of
man was
equally exalted.
man was capable of discovering within himself He was a noble microcosm of the divine asserted in his Platonic Theology that man not only
Possessing a divine spark,
the image of the infinite deity.
macrocosm. Ficino
was "the vicar of God" in the great extent of his earthly powers, but was of "almost the same genius as the his intelligence.
The devoutly
Author of the heavens"
Christian Ficino even went on to praise
man's soul for being capable "by means of the those twin Platonic wings
.
.
.
in the range of
intellect
of becoming in a sense
all
and
will, as
things,
by
and even
a god."
With man now attaining, in the light of the revivified classical past, a new consciousness of his noble role in the universe, a new sense of history arose as well. The Humanists embraced the ancient Greco-
Roman
conception of history
as cyclical, rather
traditional Judaeo-Christian vision;
than only linear
they saw their
own
as in the
period as a
rebirth out of the barbarian darkness of the Middle Ages, a return to
ancient glory, the
dawn
Neoplatonic Humanists,
of another golden age. In the vision of the this
world was not so fallen
as
it
had been
for
Moses or Augustine, and neither was man. Perhaps the young and brilliant Pico della Mirandola best this
new
spirit
summed up
of religious syncretism, broad scholarship, and optimistic
reclamation of man's potential divinity. In 1486, at the age of twentythree,
Pico announced his intention to defend nine hundred theses
derived from various Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic writers, invited scholars from
composed
all
for the
over Europe to
Rome
for a public disputation,
event his celebrated Oration on
the Dignity of Man.
Pico described the Creation using both Genesis and the Timaeus as sources, but then
went
further:
When God
and In
it
initial
had completed the creation
of the world as a sacred temple of his divine wisdom, he at last considered
the creation of man, whose role would be to reflect on, admire, and love the immense grandeur of God's work. But types remaining with
which
to
God
found he had no arche-
make man, and he
therefore said to his
last creation:
Neither an established place, nor a form belonging to you alone, nor any special function have
We
given to you,
O Adam,
and
for
The
Rebirth uf Classical
this reason, thai
liuvuimsm
you may have and possess, according
and judgment, whatever tions you shall desire.
been determined, You, your
hand
is
The
nature
have placed you.
We
I
have
you
set
mac more
that from there you
world.
other creatures, which hat
ot
confined within the hounds prescribed
who are confined hv no limits, own nature, in accordance with I
to youi desire
and whateva tmu
place, whatever form,
shall
your
determine
own
ol
m
whose
the world, so
survey whatever
easily
I
yourself
fbi
tree will,
the center
at
In
Is
in
the
have made you neither heavenly nor earthly, neither
mortal nor immortal. so that, more freely and more honorahh the
molder and maker form you
you may fashion youneli
ot yourself,
You
shall prefer.
shall he able to
in
whatewi
descend among the lower
forms o\ being, which are hrute beasts; you shall he ahle CO he reborn out o\ the judgment
which
your
ot
own
soul into the higher beings,
are divine.
To man had been
given freedom, mutability, and the power
of lelf
man God had
transformation: thus Pico affirmed that, in the ancient mysteries,
had been symbolized
man
bestowed to universe,
breast of
tor
own
of
glory,
spiritual elevation
a biblical Original Sin,
man's
leemingly
was now emerging aneu
m
in-
un-
the
Western man.
Imagination
of attaining knowledge of the universe was differei
now
Through the
disciplined
capacity
its
use ot
Thus could the mind recover
its
to render metaphysical
Imagination
consciousness those transcendenr living
own
Forms
man th.ir
Eact,
communicating metaphysical and psychological observant for the hidden Mgnifi
pagan gods
1
Neoplatonk Humai
the
chetypal meaning in each concrete
N
could bring to his
deepest OfgBTlU
with the
r-usm's
integral
in the hierarchy of re.ilr
employing the pantheon
of
pl.meMr.
i
in
truth.
ordered the uni\
*ith their
ing empiricism and concretises,
Following
on the epistemologi'
rose to the highest position
cal spectrum, unrivaled in
itself
Prometheus.
union with the supreme
full
sense oi man's
powers and capacity
The new mode well.
figure of
ascending to
ot
classical Greeks'
contaminated by
mythic
the ability to determine freely his position in the
even to the point
God. The tellectual
as the great
reunite in. •••
ar
2
1
c
The Transformation of
line.
nalist
Prominent Scholastics such
Oresme
Humanists'
Academy,
as the
the
Medieval Era
fourteenth-century nomi-
had Opposed astrologers' predictive claims, but with the astrology
influence
in royal courts
God now
|udaeo-Christian
still
an J goddesses were
Horoscopes abounded,
—
reigned supreme, but the
new
given
the
in
Florentine
The Greco-Roman gods
aristocratic circles, in the Vatican.
and
life
and value
and references
became ubiquitous.
zodiacal symbols
flourished
again
It is
in the
scheme of things.
the planetary powers and
to
true that mythology, astrology,
and esotericism had never been absent from even orthodox medieval culture: allegories
and
artistic
images, the planetary
names
the week, the classification of the elements and humors, aspects o\
the
presence. But
liberal arts
now
and sciences
all
The
and many other
reflected their continuing
they were rediscovered in a
revivify their classical status.
for the days of
new
light that served to
gods regained a sacred dignity, their
forms portrayed in paintings and sculptures with a beauty and sensuousness resembling that of the ancient images. Classical mythology began to
be regarded as the noble religious truth of those as a
theology in
pietas.
so that
its
study
lived before Christ,
became another form of
The pagan Venus, goddess of beauty, was restored
spiritual beauty, soul's
itself,
who
awakening
as the
an archetype in the divine Mind that mediated the to divine love
—and
as
such could be identified
alternative manifestation of the Virgin Mary. Platonic images trines
docta
symbol of
as
an
and doc-
were reconceived in Christian terms, the Greek deities and
daimones seen
as Christian angels, Socrates's teacher in the
Diotima, recognized
as inspired
by the Holy
Spirit.
Symposium,
A flexible syncretism
was emerging, encompassing diverse traditions and perspectives, with Platonism espoused as a new gospel.
Thus while Scholasticism had energetically forwarded the rational mind in the Aristotelian tradition, and while the evangelical orders and Rhineland mystics had nurtured the Christian tradition,
oi the Platonic tradition, different
spiritual heart
Humanism now evoked all
in the primitive
the imaginative intelligence
of these developments directed in their
ways toward reestablishing man's relation to the divine.
Humanism gave man new dignity, nature new meaning, and new dimensions and yet less absoluteness. Indeed, man,
—
the classical heritage were
which provoked rid
a radical
all
divinized in the
expansion of
human
Christianity nature,
and
Humanist perception, vision
and
activity far
the medieval horizon, threatening the old order in ways the
Humanists did not
fully anticipate.
The
111
afCbsskd Humanism
Rebirth
For with the rediscovery
of
such
a sophisticated
and viable
Christian spiritual tradition, the absolute uniqueness
ot
yet
non-
the Christian
revelation was relativized and the Church's spiritual authority implicitly
undermined. Moreover, the
hounds
1
lumanists' celebration ot inferiority and the
human
riches ot the individual
imagination overstepped the dogmatic
the Church's traditional forms ot spirituality, which abjured an
ot
unrestrained private imagination as dangerous in favor oi institutionally
detmed
ritual,
and meditation on the mysteries
prayer,
doctrine. Similarly, Neoplatonism's assertion o\ the o\
all
of Christian
immanent
divinity
nature confronted the orthodox Judaeo-Christian tendency to
uphold God's absolute transcendence,
was revealed only distant
biblical
his utterly
in special places like
And
past.
Mount
unique divinity which
Sinai or Golgotha in a
especially disturbing
were the polytheistic
implications or Neoplatonic Humanist writings, in which references to
Venus, Saturn, or Prometheus seemed to signify something more than allegorical conveniences.
Equally uncongenial to conservative theologians was the Neoplatonic belief in the
uncreated divine spark in man, whereby divine genius could
overtake the
human
personality
and exalt man
While
illumination and creative power.
this
to the
summits of spiritual
conception, as well as the
ancient polytheistic mythologies, provided a foundation and stimulus for the emerging Renaissance artistic genius (Michelangelo, for example,
was Ficino's student
in Florence),
tional limitation of divinity to stitutions oi the
it
God
also undercut the
Church's
tradi-
alone and to the sacramental in-
Church. The elevation of
man
to a God-like status, as
described bv Ficino and Pico, seemed to contravene the more strictly
defined orthodox Christian dichotomy between Creator and creature,
and the doctrine of the that
man
Fall. Pico's
statement in the Oratio to the effect
could freely determine his being at any level of the cosmos,
including union with God, without any mention of a mediating savior,
could easily be interpreted as a heretical breach of the established sacred hierarchy. It
is
not surprising, then, that a papal commission
ot Pico's propositions, or that the
condemned
several
pope forbade the international public
Rome largely especially as men like
assembly Pico had planned. Yet the Church hierarchy in tolerated
and even embraced the
Church
resources to
made
classical revival,
way into papal power and began using underwrite the enormous artistic masterworks of the
the Florentine Medici
their
Renaissance (establishing indulgences, for example,
to
help
\\\
i j
The Transformation of
g
the
Medieval Era
them). The Renaissance popes were sufficiently enamored of the new of life, that cultural movement, with its classical and secular enrichments souls the Church's spiritual guardianship of the larger body of Christian often leemed altogether neglected. It was the Reformation that would
on orthodox Christian dogma that the Humanist movement was encouraging nature as immanent divinity, :m:e
all
the infringements
—
pagan lensuousnett and polytheism,
:
(
hristianity. Yet the Protestants
nme
1
1
lumanists criticisms of the
institutional
deification, universal reli-
therefore call a halt to the Renaissance's Hellenization
gion— and would i
human
The new
reform.
revitalised the spiritual life of
would simultaneously build on those
Church and demands
for spiritual
religious sensibility of the
Western
culture just as
it
and
Humanists
was decaying
under the secularization oi the Church and the extreme rationalism of the late medieval universities. Yet by emphasizing Hellenic
Christian religious values,
it
and
trans-
was also to provoke a purist Judaeo-
Christian reaction against this pagan intrusion into the traditional sacrosanct religion based solely
The
on
biblical revelation.
scientific ramifications of the Platonic revival
were no
less signifi-
The Humanists' anti-Aristotelianism strengthmovement toward intellectual independence from the
cant than the religious.
ened the
culture's
increasingly dogmatic authority of the Aristotelian tradition dominating
the universities. ot
More
particularly, the influx of the
Pythagorean theory
mathematics, in which quantitative measurement of the world could
reveal a
numinous order emanating from the supreme
would
intelligence,
directly inspire
Copernicus and his successors through Galileo and
ton
efforts
in
their
to
penetrate
nature's
mysteries.
New-
Neoplatonist
mathematics, added to the rationalism and nascent empiricism of the late Scholastics,
provided one of the final components necessary for the
emergence of the Scientific Revolution.
It
was Copernicus's and Kepler's
tenacious Neoplatonic faith that the visible universe conformed to and
was illuminated by simple, precise, and elegant mathematical forms that mi pel led them to overthrow the complex and increasingly unworkable centric system of Ptolemaic astronomy.
The development
of the Copernican hypothesis was also influenced by
the Neoplatonists' sacralization of the Sun, as celebrated by Ficino in particular.
The
intellectual force that
Copernicus and especially Kepler
brought to bear on transforming the Earth-centered universe received an important impetus from their Neoplatonic apprehension of the reflecting the central
Sun
as
Godhead, with the other planets and the Earth
The
Rebirth of Classical
revolving around Plato's Republic
219
Humiinism
(or as Kepler put
it
it,
moving
adoration around
in
had declared that the Sun played the same
visible
realm
realm.
Given the boundless
as did the
from the Sun, the most
supreme Idea
o\ the
gifts ot light, lite,
brilliant
Good
it).
role in the
transcendent
in the
and warmth that emanated
and creative entity
in the
other body seemed equally appropriate tor the role
ot
heavens, no
center of the
universe. Moreover, in contrast to the finite Aristotelian universe, the
Neoplatonic supreme Godhead, and
Infinite nature ot the
its
infinite
fecundity In creation, suggested a corresponding expansion of the universe that further mediated the break from the traditional architectural structure ot the medieval cosmos. Accordingly, Nicholas of Cusa, the
erudite
Chinch
cardinal and Neoplatonic philosopher-mathematician oi
the mid-titteenth century, proposed a (or
omnicentered)
And
infinite
moving Earth
so the Humanists' Platonic revival extended
the creation ot the
modern
era,
not only through
Renaissance proper
—with
the
latter's
sophical syncretism, and cult of direct
as part of a centerless
Neoplatonic universe.
and indirect consequences
With
Revolution.
artistic
human for the
genius
momentously into
its
inspiration of the
achievements,
—but
philo-
also through
its
Reformation and Scientific
the recovery of the direct sources of the Platonic line,
the medieval trajectory was in a sense complete. Something like the
ancient Greek balance and tension between Aristotle and Plato, be-
tween reason and imagination, immanence and transcendence, nature
and
spirit,
external world and interior psyche, was again emerging in
Western culture Christianity fertile
—
itself
a
polarity
with
its
own
further complicated internal dialectic.
balance would issue forth the next age.
and
From
intensified
by
this unstable but
At
the Threshold
had occurred
In the course of the long medieval era, a potent maturation
within the Christian matrix on every front ical,
religious,
Ages, this matrix.
ample
political,
scientific,
—
philosophical, psycholog-
By the
artistic.
high Middle
later
development was beginning to challenge the
limits of that
Extraordinary social and economic growth had provided an
basis for
such cultural dynamism, which was further provoked by
the consolidation of political authority by the secular monarchies in
competition with that of the Church. Out o{ the feudal order had grown towns, guilds, leagues, states, international commerce, a class, a
mobile peasantry, new contractual and
ments, corporate
liberties,
and
new merchant
legal structures, parlia-
and repre-
early forms o{ constitutional
sentative government. Important technological advances were
made and
disseminated. Scholarship and learning progressed, both in and out of
the universities.
Human
experience in the West was reaching
new
levels
of sophistication, complexity, and expansiveness.
The
on
character of this evolution was visible
Aquinas's affirmation of the
human
a philosophical level in
being's essential
and of the value of
of the natural world's ontological significance, empirical knowledge,
divine mystery.
More
all as intrinsic
generally,
dynamic autonomy,
elements in the unfolding of the
was evidenced in the Scholastics' long
it
and polemical development of naturalism and rationalism, and
in their
encyclopedic summae integrating Greek philosophy and science into the Christian framework.
It
was
visible in the unparalleled architectural
achievement of the Gothic cathedrals and epic.
It
was conspicuous
Bacon and Grosseteste,
in Dante's great Christian
in the early experimental science in
Ockham's
assertion of
bifurcation of reason and faith, and in Buridan's
advances in Aristotelian science. mysticism and private society
and the
arts,
religiosity, in
It
advanced by
nominalism and the
and Oresme's
could be seen in the
the
new
in the secularization of the sacred
sensibilities
aesthetically refined as that of Petrarch,
critical
o{ lay
realism and romanticism in
found in the
celebration of redemptive amor by the troubadors and poets.
measured by the emergence o(
rise
as
It
could be
complex, subtle, and
and especially
in his articulation
of a highly individualized temperament at once religious and secular in
At
221
the Threshold
orientation.
It
was evident
their recovery of the
Europe tall o\
was
ot
the
visible in the
Ficino.
Platonic
an autonomous
Roman
A new
in the
Humanists' revival
tradition,
and
theil establishment
secular education tor the
And
Empire.
ot classical letters,
first
perhaps most tellingly,
new Promethean image
ot
th.it
man proclaimed
and growing independence
o\
spirit
in
time since the evolution
by Pico and
was everywhere
apparent, expressed in often divergent hut always expanding directions. Slowly, painfully, but wondrously and with ineluctable torce, the West-
mind was opening to The medieval gestation
ern
threshold, beyond
which
a
oi it
new
universe.
European culture had approached a
structures. Indeed, the thousand-year maturation of the
Bert itself in a series ot give birth to the
modern
critical
would no longer be containable by the old
enormous
world.
West was about
cultural convulsions that
would
V The Modern World View The
modern world view was the outcome of an extraordinary
convergence of events,
ideas,
and
figures
which, for
all
their
conflicting variety, engendered a profoundly compelling vision o\ the universe
and of the human being's place
novel in character and paradoxical in factors also reflected,
ern character.
mind, we
known tion.
shall
and wrought,
a
its
in
it
—
a vision radically
consequences. Those same
fundamental change in the West-
To understand the historical emergence now examine the complexly intermingled
as the Renaissance, the
of the
modern
cultural epochs
Reformation, and the Scientific Revolu-
The Renaissance much
in the sheer diversity
expressions as in their unprecedented quality.
Within the span of a
The phenomenon of
its
of the Renaissance lay as
single generation, Leonardo, Michelangelo,
New
mastenvorks, Columbus discovered the against
and Raphael produced
their
World, Luther rebelled
the Catholic Church and began the Reformation, and Coperni-
cus hypothesized a heliocentric universe and
Revolution.
Compared with
his
commenced
the Scientific
medieval predecessors, Renaissance
appeared to have suddenly vaulted into virtually superhuman
was now capable of penetrating and reflecting nature's
status.
man
Man
secrets, in art as
well as science, with unparalleled mathematical sophistication, empirical precision,
the
He had immensely expanded discovered new continents, and rounded the globe. He
and numinous aesthetic power.
known world,
could defy traditional authorities and assert a truth based on his own,
judgment. feel
new
He
could appreciate the riches of classical culture and yet also
himself breaking beyond the ancient boundaries to reveal entirely realms. Polyphonic music, tragedy
architecture,
and sculpture
all
achieved
and comedy, poetry, painting,
new
levels of
complexity and
beauty. Individual genius and independence were widely in evidence.
domain of knowledge,
creativity, or exploration
No
seemed beyond man's
reach.
With
the Renaissance,
human
life
in this
world seemed to hold an
immediate inherent value, an excitement and existential significance, that balanced or even displaced the medieval focus spiritual destiny.
Man no
God, the Church, activity, Pico's
on an
afterworldly
longer appeared so inconsequential relative to
or nature.
On many fronts,
in diverse realms of
proclamation oi man's dignity seemed
fulfilled.
human
From
its
beginnings with Petrarch, Boccaccio, Bruni, and Alberti, through Eras-
mus, More, Machiavelli, and Montaigne, to
its
final expressions
in
Shakespeare, Cervantes, Bacon, and Galileo, the Renaissance did not
new paragons of human achievement. Such a prodigious development of human consciousness and culture had not been seen
cease producing
since the ancient
Greek miracle
at the very birth of
Western man was indeed reborn.
Western
civilization.
225
The Renaissance
Yet
would be
it
Renaissance as
a
deep misjudgment to perceive the emergence of the
and splendor,
all light
for
it
of unmitigated disasters and thrived in the midst
Beginning
in
mid-fourteenth
the
through Europe and destroyed
a
fatally undermining the balance
ot
had sustained the high medieval wrath
ot
God had come upon
wake
arrived in the of
continuous upheaval. black
the
century,
plague
swept
third ot the continent's population,
economic and
cultural elements that
Many believed that the The Hundred Years' War
civilization.
the world.
between England and Erance was an interminably ruinous Italy
of a series
conflict, while
was ravaged by repeated invasions and internecine struggles.
rates, bandits,
and mercenaries were ubiquitous. Religious
strife
Pi-
grew to
international proportions. Severe economic depression was nearly universal tor decades.
Europe through
The
universities
ports
its
worship tlourished,
were
and took
as did
sclerotic.
New
diseases entered
Black magic and devil
their toll.
group flagellation, the dance of death in
cemeteries, the black mass, the Inquisition, tortures and burnings at the stake. Ecclesiastical conspiracies
were routine, and included such events
backed assassination
in front of the Florentine cathedral altar
as a papally at
High Mass on Easter Sunday. Murder,
daily realities,
threatened to
famine and pestilence annual
overwhelm Europe
And
pectations abounded. cultural institution, tion, this
its
rape,
seemed
the to
at
Church
many
perils.
itself,
pillage
were often
The Turkish hordes
any moment.
Apocalyptic ex-
the West's fundamental
the very center of decadent corrup-
and purpose devoid of spiritual
structure
and
integrity. It
was against
backdrop of massive cultural decay, violence, and death that the
"rebirth" oi the Renaissance took place.
As with
the medieval cultural revolution several centuries earlier,
technical inventions played a pivotal role in the making of the
Four in particular
(all
new
era.
with Oriental precursors) had been brought into
widespread use in the West by this time, with immense cultural ramifications: the
magnetic compass, which permitted the navigational
opened the globe
to
feats that
European exploration; gunpowder, which contrib-
uted to the demise of the old feudal order and the ascent of nationalism; the mechanical clock, which brought about a decisive change in the
human
relationship to time, nature, and work, separating and freeing the
structure o{
human
and the printing ing,
made
activities
press,
from the dominance of nature's rhythms;
which produced
a
tremendous increase
available both ancient classics
in learn-
and modern works
to
an
The
226
Modem
World View
ever-broadening public, and eroded the monopoly on learning long held by the clergy. All o( these inventions were powerfully modernizing and ultimately secularizing in their effects.
The
artillery-supported rise oi separate but
internally cohesive nation-states signified not only the overthrow of the
medieval feudal structures but also the empowerment of secular forces against the Catholic Church.
With
parallel
effect
in
the realm of
thought, the printing press allowed the rapid dissemination of often revolutionary ideas throughout Europe. tion would have been limited to a relatively a
Without
it,
new and
the Reforma-
minor theological dispute
remote German province, and the Scientific Revolution, with
dependence on international communication among many
in its
scientists,
would have been altogether impossible. Moreover, the spread of the
new cultural ethos noncommunal forms of
printed word and growing literacy contributed to a
marked by increasingly individual and
private,
communication and experience, thereby encouraging the growth of
in-
dividualism. Silent reading and solitary reflection helped free the individual from traditional ways of thinking, and from collective control of
thinking, with individual readers
Similarly progressive in
now having
private access to a multi-
and forms of experience.
plicity of other perspectives its
consequences was the development of the
mechanical clock, which with
its
precisely articulated system of wheels
and gears became the paradigm of modern machines, accelerating the advance of mechanical invention and machine building of
kinds.
all
new mechanical triumph provided a basic conceptual model and metaphor for the new era's emerging science indeed, for the entire modern mind profoundly shaping the modern view of the cosmos and nature, of the human being, of the ideal society, even of God. Likewise, the global explorations made possible by the magEqually important, the
—
—
netic compass greatly impelled intellectual innovation, reflecting and
encouraging the new scientific investigation of the natural world and further affirming the West's sense of being at the heroic frontier of civilized history.
By unexpectedly revealing the
errors
and ignorance of
the ancient geographers, the discoveries of the explorers gave the
ern intellect a
new
sense o{
its
own competence and even
the previously unsurpassed masters of antiquity plication, all traditional authorities.
Among
mod-
superiority over
—undermining,
by im-
these discredited geogra-
phers was Ptolemy, whose status in astronomy was therefore affected as well.
The
navigational expeditions in turn required more accurate astro-
227
The Renaissance
nomical knowledge and more proficient astronomers, out of whose number would emerge Copernicus. Discoveries oi new continents brought
new
economic and
possibilities tor
European
radical transformation ot
came
coveries
social structures.
encounter with new cultures,
also the
introducing into the European awareness
ot lite,
relativism concerning the absoluteness of
The
tions*
expansion, and hence the
political
political
West's horizons
— were changing
—
its
own
those dis-
religions,
new
a
With
and ways
spirit o\ skeptical
traditional assump-
geographical, mental, social, economic,
and expanding
in
unprecedented ways.
Concurrent with these advances was an important psychological de-
velopment
in
which the European character, beginning
and cultural atmosphere
political
of
Renaissance
unique and portentous transformation. fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
—were
and others
many ways
in
The
— Florence,
in the peculiar
underwent
Italy,
a
Italian city-states of the
Milan, Venice, Urbino,
the most advanced urban centers in
Europe. Energetic commercial enterprise, a prosperous Mediterranean
and continual contact with the older
trade,
civilizations of the East
presented them with an unusually concentrated inflow of economic and
weakening of the
cultural wealth. In addition, the
struggles with the incohesive
Holy
Roman
Roman Empire and
papacy in
its
with the rising
nation-states of the north had produced a political condition in Italy of
marked
The
fluidity.
independence
Italian city-states' small size, their
from externally sanctioned authority, and their commercial and cultural vitality all
creative,
provided a political stage upon which a
and often
new
spirit
ruthless individualism could flourish.
earlier times, the life of the state
o{ bold,
Whereas
in
was defined by inherited structures of
power and law imposed by tradition or higher authority, now individual and deliberate
ability
weight.
The
action and thought carried the most
was seen
as
state itself
manipulated bv
making the
political
human
will
and
something to be comprehended and
intelligence, a political understanding
Italian city-states forerunners of the
modern
state.
This new value placed on individualism and personal genius reinforced a similar characteristic of the Italian
Humanists, whose sense of personal
worth also rested on individual capacity, and whose that of the emancipated tian ideal in
which personal
lective Christian
mode
man
body
protean
self
identity
was
ideal
was similarly
The medieval
Chris-
largely absorbed in the col-
of souls faded in favor of the
— the individual man
ot the
of many-sided genius.
as adventurer, genius,
was best achieved not through
more pagan heroic
and
rebel. Realization
saintly withdrawal
from
The
228
the world but through a
unity: activity in the
devotion to
artistic activity, in
commercial enterprise and
Old dichotomies were now comprehended
social intercourse.
World View
of strenuous action in the service of the
life
and
city-state, in scholarly
Modem
in a larger
world as well as contemplation of eternal truths;
state, family,
and
self as well as to
God and Church;
physical
pleasure as well as spiritual happiness; prosperity as well as virtue.
Forsaking the ideal of monastic poverty, Renaissance
enrichments of
and
life
afforded by personal wealth, and
the
artists flourished in
commercial and
new
man embraced
the
Humanist scholars
cultural climate subsidized by the Italian
aristocratic elites.
The combined
influences of political dynamism,
broad scholarship, sensuous
art,
eastern Mediterranean cultures
and all
economic wealth,
a special intimacy with ancient
and
encouraged a new and expansively
secular spirit in the Italian ruling class, extending into the inner
sanctum
o{ the Vatican. In the eyes of the pious a certain paganism and amorality
was becoming pervasive in
Italian
life.
Such was
visible
not only in the
calculated barbarities and intrigues of the political arena, but also in the
unabashed worldliness of Renaissance man's edge, beauty, and luxury for their in the
dynamic
ity,
sakes.
knowl-
was thus from
origins
It
its
culture of Renaissance Italy that there developed a
new Western
distinctive
own
interests in nature,
personality.
Marked by
individualism, secular-
strength of will, multiplicity of interest and impulse, creative innova-
tion,
and a willingness
this spirit
of the
Roman
activity,
soon began to spread across Europe, providing the lineaments
modern
Yet for
on human
to defy traditional limitations
all
character.
the secularism of the age, in a quite tangible sense the
Catholic Church
itself
attained a pinnacle of glory in the Re-
naissance. Saint Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the Stanza della
Segnatura in the Vatican
Church's
final
Here the
full
articulated,
moments
all
as
to the
grandeur of the Catholic Church's self-conception was
encompassing Genesis and the
ceiling), classical
drama (the
biblical
Greek philosophy and science (the School
poetry and the creative arts (the Parnassus),
theology and supreme pantheon of
Roman
all
Sistine
of Athens)
,
culminating in the
Catholic Christianity (La
Disputa del Sacramento, The Triumph of the Church). centuries,
monuments
stand as astonishing
undisputed sovereign of Western culture.
The
procession of the
the history o{ the Western soul, was here given immortal
embodiment. Under the guidance of the inspired unpriestlike
Pope
Julius
II,
protean
artists like
albeit
thoroughly
Raphael, Bramante, and
229
The Renaissance
Michelangelo painted, sculpted, designed, and constructed works of unsurpassed beauty and power
of art
the majestic Catholic
to celebrate
Thus the Mother Church, mediatrix hetween God and man, matrix of Western culture, now assembled and integrated all her diverse elements: Judaism and Hellenism, Scholasticism and Humanism, Platovision.
nism and Aristotelianism, pagan myth and Renaissance
artistic
imagery
as
its
written, integrating the dialectical
transcendent synthesis.
was
It
as
if
With
biblical revelation.
language, a
new
components
of
pictorial
Summa was
Western culture
in a
the Church, subconsciously aware
the wrenching fate about to befall
it,
called forth from itself
of
most
its
exalted cultural self-understanding and found artists of seemingly divine stature to incarnate that image.
Yet this efflorescence oi the Catholic Church in the midst of an era that was so decidedly embracing the secular
and the present world was
the kind of paradox that was altogether characteristic of the Renaissance.
For the unique position in cultural history held by the Renaissance as a
whole derives not
many
least
from
simultaneous balance and synthesis of
and pagan, modern and
opposites: Christian
sacred, art
its
and science, science and
Renaissance was both an age to
and modern,
it
was
still
itself
classical, secular
and politics. The At once medieval
religion, poetry
and
and
a transition.
highly religious (Ficino, Michelangelo, Erasmus,
More, Savonarola, Luther, Loyola, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross), yet
undeniably
worldly
(Machiavelli,
taigne, Bacon, the Medici
At the same time
and Borgias, most of the Renaissance popes).
that the scientific sensibility arose and flourished,
religious passions surged as well,
The Renaissance
and often
in inextricable
combination.
integration of contraries had been foreshadowed in
the Petrarchian ideal of docta
pietas,
scholars like Erasmus and his friend
and was now
literate
the Christian
restraint, worldly activity
classical erudition served the Christian cause in
A
fulfilled in religious
Thomas More. With
Humanists of the Renaissance, irony and
had not witnessed.
Mon-
Castiglione,
Cellini,
and
ways the medieval era
and ecumenical evangelism here seemed
replace the dogmatic pieties of a
more primitive
age.
A
to
critical religious
intellectuality sought to supersede naive religious superstition.
The
phi-
losopher Plato and the apostle Paul were brought together and synthesized to produce a
But perhaps era's contraries
it
new
was the
and
philosophia Christi.
art of the
Renaissance that best expressed the
unity. In the early Quattrocento, only
paintings could be found with a nonreligious subject.
A
one
in
twenty
century
later,
The Modern World View
230
Even
there were five times as many.
nudes and pagan deities
now
inside the Vatican, paintings of
faced those of the
Child. The human body was celebrated
and proportion, yet often
in
Madonna and
Christ
beauty, formal harmony,
its
in the service of religious subjects or as a
revelation of God's creative wisdom. Renaissance art was devoted to the
exact imitation of nature, and was technically capable of an unprece-
dented naturalistic realism, yet was also singularly effective in rendering
and mythic beings and even
a sublime numinosity, depicting spiritual
contemporary human
figures
with a certain ineffable grace and formal
perfection. Conversely, that capacity for rendering the
numinous would
have been impossible without the technical innovations mathematization of space, linear perspective, atomical knowledge,
sfumato
chiaroscuro,
striving for perceptual realism
—
aerial perspective,
an-
that developed from
the
and empirical accuracy. In
achievements in painting and drawing propelled in
—geometrical
later scientific
anatomy and medicine, and foreshadowed the
global mathematization of the physical world.
turn, these
advances
Scientific Revolution's
It
was not peripheral to
the emergence of the modern outlook that Renaissance
art
depicted a
world of rationally related solids in a unified space seen from a single objective viewpoint.
The Renaissance maintaining no
thrived
on
a determined "decompartmentalization,"
divisions
strict
between
realms of
different
knowledge or experience. Leonardo was the prime exemplar mitted to the search for knowledge as for beauty,
who was
artist
of
human
— as
com-
many mediums
continuously and voraciously involved in scientific research of
wide range. Leonardo's development and exploitation of the empirical eye for grasping the external world with fuller awareness and cision were as
much
new
pre-
in the service of scientific insight as of artistic
representation, with both goals jointly pursued in his "science of painting." His art revealed an
uncanny
spiritual expressiveness that
accom-
panied, and was nurtured by, extreme technical accuracy of depiction.
was uniquely characteristic of the Renaissance that
who
it
produced the
not only painted the Last Supper and The Virgin of
also articulated in his
the Rocks,
It
man but
notebooks the three fundamental principles-
empiricism, mathematics, and
mechanics— that would dominate modern
scientific thinking.
So too did Copernicus and Kepler, with Neoplatonic and Pythagorean motivations, seek solutions to problems in astronomy that would satisfy aesthetic imperatives, a strategy
which
led
them
to the heliocentric
231
The Renaissance
No
universe.
less significant
was the strong religious motivation, usually
combined with Platonic themes, impelling most the Scientific Revolution through Newton. activities
Bge
was the halt-inarticulate notion
when
known
things had been
all
>tate ot
significance*
And
and myth
equally
Garden
Mankind's
Greek
so
ot
these
all
Eden, ancient
from
tall
this primal
a drastic
loss
of
knowledge was therefore endowed with
religious
Athens the
religion,
once again,
ot the ancient spirit ot
in
mythical golden ot
enlightenment and grace had brought about
knowledge. Recovery art,
For implicit in
ot a distant
— the
classical times, a pa>t era ot great sages.
major figures
ot the
just as in classical
Greeks met and interacted with the new and
rationalism and science, this paradoxical conjunc-
tion and balance was attained in the Renaissance.
Although the Renaissance was the rich and burgeoning
many
in
culture ot the
senses a direct outgrowth of
high Middle Ages, by
all
ac-
counts, between the mid-fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, an
unmistakable quantum leap was made in the cultural evolution of the
West. The various contributing factors can be recognized in retrospect
and listed— the rediscovery of antiquity, the commercial city-state personality, the technical inventions, all
and so
vitality, the
forth.
But when
these "causes" of the Renaissance have been enumerated, one
still
senses that the essential thrust o{ the Renaissance was something larger
them combined. Instead, the there was concurrently on many fronts an
than any of these factors, than historical record suggests
emphatic emergence oi
a
all
oi
new consciousness— expansive,
rebellious,
energetic and creative, individualistic, ambitious and often unscrupulous,
committed
curious, self-confident,
to this
and
life
world,
this
open-eyed and skeptical, inspired and inspirited— and that this emer-
gence had
its
own
raison d'etre, was propelled by
subsuming force than any combination of
some
greater and
more
political, social, technological,
religious, philosophical, or artistic factors.
It
was not accidental to the
character of the Renaissance (nor, perhaps, unrelated to
its
new
sense oi
artistic perspective) that,
while medieval scholars saw history divided
into two periods, before
and
vaguely separated from the
medieval,
modern— thus
with their
own
era of Christ's birth, Renaissance
new
perspective on the past: history was
first
time as a tripartite structure— ancient,
sharply differentiating the classical and medi-
eval eras, with the Renaissance itself at the vanguard of the
The
time only
Roman
historians achieved a decisively
perceived and defined for the
after Christ,
new
age.
events and figures converged on the Renaissance stage with
The Modern World View
232
amazing
even simultaneity. Columbus and Leonardo were both
rapidity,
born in the same half decade the Gutenberg press, the oi
Greek scholars
fall
(
1450-55) that brought the development of
of Constantinople with the resulting influx
and the end of the Hundred Years'
to Italy,
through which France and England each forged ness.
The same
two decades
Academy's Neoplatonic revival
(1468-88) at
its
its
that
War
national conscious-
saw
the
Florentine
height during the reign o{ Lorenzo
the Magnificent also saw the births of Copernicus, Luther, Castiglione,
Raphael, Diirer, Michelangelo, Giorgione, Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia, Zwingli, Pizarro, Magellan, and More. In the same period, Castille were joined by the marriage of Ferdinand
and
Aragon and
Isabella to
form
the nation of Spain, the Tudors succeeded to the throne in England,
Leonardo began
his artistic career
Verrocchio's Baptism of Christ, Botticelli painted Primavera
with his painting of the angel in
then his
and The
Theologia Platonica and published the in the
own
Adoration of the Magi,
Birth of Venus, first
Ficino wrote the
complete translation of Plato
West, Erasmus received his early Humanist education in Holland,
and Pico
della
Mirandola composed the manifesto of Renaissance
Humanism, the Oration on operative here.
A
the Dignity of
Man. More than "causes" were
spontaneous and irreducible revolution of conscious-
ness was taking place, affecting virtually every aspect of Western culture.
Amidst high drama and painful convulsions, modern man was born the Renaissance, "trailing clouds of glory."
in
The Reformation lr
was when the
theology and the
spirit of
Renaissance individualism reached the realm
of
person
o(
religious conviction within the
German Augustinian monk Martin
Europe the momentous
accommodated both
Church,
Luther, that there erupted in
Protestant Reformation.
classical culture
in the
The Renaissance had
and Christianity
in
one expansive
unsystematic vision. But the continued moral deterioration in the
south
north.
The
now encountered
new
a
of
it
the papacy
surge of rigorous religiosity in the
relaxed cultural syncretism displayed by the Renaissance
Church's embrace
mense expense
ot
ot
Greco-Roman pagan
culture (including the im-
patronage this embrace demanded) helped precipitate
the collapse of the Church's absolute religious authority.
Armed
with the
thunderous moral power or an Old Testament prophet, Luther defiantly
Roman
confronted the
Catholic papacy's patent neglect of the original
Christian taith revealed in the Bible. Sparked by Luther's rebellion, an insuperable cultural reaction swept through the sixteenth century, decisively reasserting the Christian religion while simultaneously shattering
the unity ot Western Christendom.
The proximate
cause of the Reformation was the papacy's attempt to
finance the architectural and artistic glories of the High Renaissance by the theologically dubious means of selling spiritual indulgences. Tetzel, the traveling
friar
whose
of indulgences in
sale
Germany provoked
Luther in 1517 to post his Ninety-five Theses, had been so authorized by the Medici Pope Leo
An
X
to raise
money
for building Saint Peter's Basilica.
indulgence was the remission of punishment for a sin after guilt had
been sacramentally forgiven
—
a
Christian Germanic custom of
crime to a money payment.
To
Church
practice influenced by the pre-
commuting the
physical penalty for a
grant such an indulgence, the
Church
drew from the treasury of merits accumulated by the good works of the saints,
and
in return
the recipient
made
a
contribution to the Church.
A
Church
to
voluntary and popular arrangement, the practice allowed the raise
At
money
tirst
tor financing crusades
and building cathedrals and
applied only to penalties imposed by the
Luther's time indulgences were being granted to
by
God
in
Church
hospitals.
in this
lite,
by
remit penalties imposed
the afterlife, including immediate release from purgatory.
The Modern World View
234
With indulgences penance
itself
even the remission of
effecting
sins,
the sacrament of
was seemingly compromised.
But beyond the matter of indulgences lay more fundamental sources of the Protestant revolution
the
Church
ing
it
piety
— the
long-developing political secularism of
hierarchy, undermining
and military
in diplomatic
and poverty among the Church
irreligious but socially
spiritual integrity
its
while embroil-
struggles; the prevalence of faithful,
both deep
in contrast to
and economically privileged
an often
clergy; the rise of
monarchical power, nationalism, and local Germanic insurgency against the universal ambitions of the
Roman
Roman
papacy and the Habsburgs' Holy
Empire. Yet the more immediate cause, the Church's expensive
patronage of high culture, does illuminate a deeper factor behind the
Reformation
—namely,
the
anti-Hellenic
sought to purify Christianity and return tion. For the
Reformation was not
spirit
to
it
its
with which
Luther
pristine biblical founda-
least a purist "Judaic" reaction against
Roman) impulse of Renaissance culture, of Scholastic and of much postapostolic Christianity in general. Yet per-
the Hellenic (and
philosophy,
haps the most fundamental element in the genesis of the Reformation
was the emerging particularly
spirit
of rebellious, self-determining individualism, and
growing
the
dependence, which had
impulse
intellectual
for
now developed
and
spiritual
to that crucial point
in-
where
a
potently critical stand could be sustained against the West's highest cultural authority, the
Roman
Luther desperately sought of so
much
Catholic Church.
for a gracious
God's redemption in the face
evidence to the contrary, evidence both of God's damning
judgment and of Luther's own himself or in his
own
sacraments, not in papal indulgences.
He
works, nor did he find
its
It
sinfulness.
it
failed to find that grace in
in the
ecclesiastical hierarchy,
Church
—not
and assuredly not
in
its
in
its
was, finally, the faith in God's redeeming power as
revealed through Christ in the Bible, and that alone, which rendered Luther's experience of salvation, and his
new church
upon
that exclusive rock he built
of a reformed Christianity. Erasmus, by contrast, the
devoutly critical Humanist, wished to save the Church's unity and mission by reforming in other matters,
it
from within. But the Church hierarchy, absorbed
remained intransigently insensitive to such needs,
while Luther, with equal intransigence, declared the necessity of complete schism
and independence from an
seat of the Antichrist.
institution
he now viewed
as the
235
The Reformation
X
Pope Leo
considered Luther's revolt merely another "monk's quar-
and long delayed any response adequate
rel,"
When,
to the problem.
almost three years atter the Ninety-five Theses were posted, Luther
he publicly burned
finally received the papal bull to submit,
ensuing meeting of the imperial Diet, the Habsburg Holy or C'harles in
Y
declared himself certain that a single
denying the validity
Wishing
years.
triar
it.
At the
Roman Emper-
could not be right
during the previous thousand
ot all Christianity
to preserve the unity ot the Christian religion, yet
heed on
with Luther's obstinate refusal to recant, he placed an imperial ban
Luther
German
But empowered by the rebellious
as a heretic.
princes
and knights, Luther's personal theological insurgency rapidly expanded to
an international upheaval.
In
the post-Constantinian
retrospect,
welding of the Christian religion to the ancient to be a
ascendance and to maintained
now
Roman
state
had proved
two-edged sword, contributing both to the Church's cultural
in
its
Europe
eventual decline. tor a
The overarching
union
cultural
thousand years by the Catholic Church was
irrevocably split asunder.
But
it
was Luther's personal
religious
dilemma that was the
sine qua
non of the Reformation. In his acute sense of alienation and terror before the Omnipotent, Luther saw
it
needed God's forgiveness, not
was the whole
just particular sins that
be erased by proper Church-defined actions.
symptoms of healing.
One
a
man who was
more fundamental
The
corrupt and
one by one could
particular sins were but
sickness in man's soul that required
could not purchase redemption, step by step, through good
works or through the legalisms of penance or other sacraments, not to
mention the infamous indulgences. Only Christ could save the whole
man, and only man's
faith in Christ could justify
man
thus could the terrible righteousness of an angry God,
before
who
God. Only
justly
damns
sinners to eternal perdition, be transformed into the merciful righteous-
ness of a forgiving
As Luther
God, who
exultantly discovered in Paul's Letter to the
not earn salvation; rather,
The
freely rewards the faithful
God
gave
it
with eternal
bliss.
Romans, man did
freely to those
who have
faith.
source of that saving faith was Holy Scripture, where God's mercy
revealed
itself in Christ's
Christian
Church
believer
—with
its
find
crucifixion for mankind.
the
means
to
his
There alone could the
salvation.
The Catholic
cynical marketplace practice of claiming to be dispens-
ing God's grace, distributing the merits of the saints, forgiving men's sins,
and releasing them from debts owed
in the afterlife, in return for
236
The
money garnered
for
its
ing papal infallibility
own
Modem
World View
often irreligious purposes, meanwhile claim-
—could only be an
longer be reverenced as the sacred
The Church could no
impostor.
medium
of Christian truth.
Roman Church
All the accretions brought into Christianity by the that were not found in the
New
Testament were now solemnly ques-
tioned, criticized, and often expelled altogether by the Protestants: the centuries' accumulation of sacraments,
rituals,
and
organizational structures, the priestly hierarchy and ity,
the complex
art,
its
spiritual author-
the natural and rational theology of the Scholastics, the belief in
purgatory, papal infallibility, clerical celibacy, the eucharistic transubstantiation, the saints' treasury of merits, the popular worship of the
Virgin Mary, and finally the Mother Church herself. All these had
become
antithetical to the individual Christian's primary
need
for faith
The
in Christ's redemptive grace: Justification occurred by faith alone.
Christian believer had to be liberated from the obscuring clutches of the old system, for only by being directly responsible to to experience God's grace. lay in the literal
The only
meaning of
God
could he be free
source of theological authority
Scripture.
The complicated
now
doctrinal de-
velopments and moral pronouncements of the institutional Church were irrelevant. After centuries of possessing relatively indisputable spiritual
authority, the
Roman
Catholic Church, with
all its
accoutrements, was
suddenly no longer considered mandatory for humanity's religious wellbeing.
In defense of the
Church and
its
continued unity, Catholic theolo-
gians argued that the Church's sacramental institutions were both valuable
and necessary, and that
and elaborated the
Church
its
in the present
tion of the
less
Church
God's
Word would
understood by the Christian
Holy
which interpreted
certainly
inherent sanctity and validity were
tradition, they held,
world and
doctrinal tradition,
original revelation, held genuine spiritual authority.
Moral and practical reforms made, but
its
faithful.
still
be
less
had preceded the
New
Church
in
Testament, produced
its it,
potent in the
Through the
Spirit invested in the institutes of the
to be
sound. Without
inspira-
Church, the
could draw out and affirm elements of Christian truth not the biblical text. For indeed, the
needed
latter
fully explicit in
earliest apostolic stages
and
later
canonized
it
as
God's inspired Word. But the reformers countered that the Church had replaced faith in the person of Christ with faith in the doctrine o( the Church. vitiated the potency of the original Christian revelation
It
had thereby
and placed the
The Reformatum
£37
Church opaquely
in the
middle
(A
man's relation to God. Only direct
human
soul direct contact with
true Christianity
was founded on "faith
contact with the Bible could bring the Christ. In
the Protestant vision,
alone,"
"grace
Church agreed religion)
alone,"
and "Scripture alone." While the Catholic
that those indeed were the fundaments oi the Christian
maintained that the institutional Church, with
it
its
sacra-
ments, priestly hierarchy, and doctrinal tradition, was intrinsically and
dynamically related to that foundation
— and
in Scripture
—
faith in
God's
L^race as
revealed
served the propagation ot that faith. Erasmus also
argued against Luther that man's tree will and virtuous actions were not he entirely discounted as elements in the process o\ salvation.
to
Catholicism held that divine grace and
human
merit were both in-
strumental in redemption and did not have to be viewed in opposition,
with exclusively one or the other operative. Most important, the Church argued, institutional tradition and the Scripture-based faith were not in
opposition.
On
the contrary, Catholicism provided the living vessel for
the Word's emergence in the world.
But tor the reformers, the Church's actual practice too ideal, its
hierarchy was too manifestly corrupt,
remote from the original revelation. ture
To
its
much
belied
doctrinal tradition too
reform such a degenerate struc-
trom within would be both practically
futile
and theologically
erroneous. Luther argued persuasively for God's exclusive role in vation,
man's
institutional
spiritual
helplessness,
its
the
moral
sal-
bankruptcy of the
Church, and the exclusive authority oi Scripture. The
Protestant spirit prevailed in half of Europe, and the old order was
broken. Western Christianity was no longer exclusively Catholic, nor monolithic, nor a source oi cultural unity.
The
peculiar paradox of the Reformation was
character, for
it
was
at
once
its
essentially
ambiguous
a conservative religious reaction
radically libertarian revolution.
The
and
a
Protestantism forged by Luther,
Zwingli, and Calvin proclaimed an emphatic revival oi a Bible-based
Judaic Christianity
— unequivocally
monotheistic,
affirming
Abraham and Moses as supreme, omnipotent, "Other," with man as fallen, helpless, predestined ot
salvation, and, in the case oi the latter, fully tor
his
redemption.
the
God
transcendent, and for
damnation or
dependent on God's grace
Whereas Aquinas had posited every
creature's
The Modern World View
238
participation in God's infinite
and
free essence,
and asserted the
positive,
God-given autonomy of human nature, the reformers perceived the absolute sovereignty of light,
God
over his creation in a more dichotomous
with man's innate sinfulness making the independent
inherently ineffective and perverse.
human
will
While Protestantism was optimistic
concerning God, the gratuitously merciful preserver of the
elect,
was
it
uncompromisingly pessimistic concerning man, that "teeming horde of infamies" (Calvin). sisted
Human
freedom was so bound to
merely in the ability to choose
the reformers, lay solely in
autonomy suggested
obedience to God's
among
apostasy.
will,
could bring
him
Man's
true
and the capacity
closer to salvation.
it
con-
different degrees of sin. For
arose solely from God's merciful gift o{ faith.
own
evil that
freedom and joy such obedience
for
Nothing man did on
Nor could
his
his illumination be
achieved through the rational ascents of a Scholastic theology con-
Only God could provide genuine
taminated by Greek philosophy. illumination,
and only Scripture revealed the authentic
Against
truth.
the Renaissance's dalliance with a more flexible Hellenized Christianity,
with pagan Neoplatonism and tion,
its
universal religion
and human
deifica-
Luther, and more systematically Calvin, reinstituted the more
strictly defined,
morally rigorous, and ontologically dualistic Augustinian
Judaeo-Christian view.
Moreover,
this reassertion of "pure" traditional Christianity
was given
further impetus throughout European culture by the Catholic Counter-
Reformation when, beginning in the mid-sixteenth century with the
Council of Trent, the Catholic Church vigorously reformed itself from within.
finally
awakened
to the crisis
The Roman papacy
religiously motivated, often austerely so,
and
again became
and the Church restated the
basics of Christian belief (while maintaining the Church's essential
structure
and sacramental authority)
as the Protestants
it
in the Catholic south
and the Protestant north, orthodox Christianity
was energetically reestablished in
a
conservative religious backlash
against the Renaissance's pagan Hellenism, naturalism,
Yet for against the culture
the
all
the Reformation's conservative character,
as a successful social
first
and
its
act in
rebellion
Western
political insurgency against
papacy and ecclesiastical hierarchy, with the reformers sup-
ported by the secular rulers o{ but
and secularism.
Church was an unprecedentedly revolutionary
—not only
Roman
dogmatic terms
in just as militantly
opposed. Thus on both sides of the European divide,
and foremost
as
Germany and
other northern countries,
an assertion of the individual conscience against
239
The Reformation
the established
Church framework
ot
belief,
fundamental question
structure. For the
ritual,
of the
and organizational
Reformation concerned
the locus ot religious authority. In the Protestant vision, neither the pope
nor the Church councils possessed the spiritual competence to define Christian
belief.
Luther taught instead the "priesthood
religious authority rested finally
and
solely in
of all believers":
each individual Christian,
reading M\d interpreting the Bible according to his
own
private con-
The
science in the context of his personal relationship to God.
ence
Holy
the
ot
noninstitutional
in
Spirit,
all
was
freedom,
its
to
quenching constrictions
agginst the
liberating,
be
affirmed
o\ the
in
pres-
inspirational,
directly
Christian
every
Roman Church. The
in-
dividual believer's interior response to Christ's grace, not the elaborate ecclesiastical
machinery
of the Vatican, constituted the true Christian
experience.
For
was the very unflinchingness of Luther's individual confronta-
it
tion with
God
The two
contraries characteristic of Protestantism, independent
self
that
had revealed both God's omnipotence and
his mercy.
human
and all-powerful Deity, were inextricably interconnected. Hence the
Reformation marked the standing forth of the individual
in
two senses
alone outside the Church, and alone directly before God.
impassioned words before the imperial Diet declared a
Luther's
new manifesto
of
personal religious freedom:
Unless
I
am convinced
by Scripture and plain reason
—
I
do not
accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other
God.
I
cannot and
conscience
is
— my
I
conscience
a
captive to the
is
Word
of
not recant anything, for to go against
neither right nor
The Reformation was dividualism
will
safe.
new and
God
help me.
Amen.
decisive assertion of rebellious in-
—
of personal conscience, of "Christian liberty," of critical
private
judgment against the monolithic authority of the
Church
—and
o\ the
medieval Church and medieval character. Although the con-
as
such further propelled the Renaissance's
institutional
movement out
servative Judaic quality of the Reformation was a reaction against the
Renaissance in the
latter's
Hellenic and pagan aspects, on another level,
the Reformation's revolutionary declaration of personal as a if
continuation of the Renaissance impulse
partially antithetical,
autonomy served
—and was thus an
intrinsic,
element of the overall Renaissance phenom-
The Modern World View
240
enon.
An
era that
saw both Renaissance and Reformation was revolu-
and
tionary indeed,
it
was perhaps on account of
this
Promethean
the force of Luther's rebellion rapidly amplified far past what
Zeitgeist that
he had anticipated or even desired. For in the end, the Reformation was but
one
salient
particularly
expression
of a
transformation taking place in the Western *i^
much
mind and
larger
cultural
spirit.
^% " —
Here we encounter the other extraordinary paradox of the Reformation. For while religious,
its
ultimate
its
and
secularizing,
essential character effects
was so intensely and unambiguously
on Western
culture
were profoundly
in multiple, mutually reinforcing ways.
By overthrow-
ing the theological authority of the Catholic Church, the internationally
recognized supreme court o( religious dogma, the Reformation opened the
way
and
finally a
West
in the
then religious skepticism,
for religious pluralism,
complete breakdown in the until then relatively homoge-
neous Christian world view. Although various Protestant authorities
would attempt
to reinstitute their particular
form of Christian belief
the supreme and exclusively correct dogmatic truth, the
—the priesthood of
Luther's reform
all
believers
Once
the
infallible insight
—
necessarily
new orthodoxies. new claims to legitimate. The immediate
efforts to
Mother Church had been
premise of
first
and the authority of the
individual conscience in the interpretation of Scripture
undercut the enduring success of any
as
enforce
behind, no
left
could long be regarded as
consequence of the liberation from the old matrix was
a manifest libera-
tion of fervent Christian religiosity, permeating the lives of the
new
Protestant congregations with fresh spiritual meaning and charismatic
power. Yet as time passed, the average Protestant, no longer enclosed by the Catholic
womb
of grand ceremony, historical tradition, and sac-
ramental authority, was
left
somewhat
of private doubt and secular thinking. belief
less
From Luther on, each
was increasingly self-supported; and the Western
faculties
leaving
believer's
intellect's critical
were becoming ever more acute.
Moreover, Luther had been educated
and
protected against the vagaries
him
faith
in the nominalist tradition,
distrustful of the earlier Scholastics'
attempt to bridge reason
with rational theology. There was for Luther no "natural
human reason in its cognition and Like Ockham, Luther saw the natural
revelation," given by the natural analysis of the natural world.
human
reason as so far from comprehending God's will and gratuitous
The
241
Reftyrrrkitum
salvation that the rationalist attempts to do SO by Scholastic theology
No
appeared absurdly presumptuous. secular
mind and Christian
truth was possible, tor Christ's sacrifice
the cross ums foolishness to the
could provide
man ,\nd
significant
its
The Reformation's against
a
wisdom
ot
ot
God's ways.
and unanticipated consequences
apprehension restoring ot
on
the world. Scripture alone
with the certain and saving knowledge
These assertions held
modern mind
genuine coherence between the
tor
the
ot the natural world. a
predominantly biblical theology
theology helped to purge the modern mind
Scholastic
ot
Hellenic notions in which nature was permeated with divine rationality
and
Protestantism thus provided a revolution of theological
final causes.
context that solidified the outlook
ot classical
new
of a
movement begun by Ockham away from
Scholasticism, thereby supporting the development
science o\ nature.
The
increased distinction
reformers between Creator and creature
and man's
finite intelligence,
world's contingency
with
a
new
the
—between God's
made by the
inscrutable will
and between God's transcendence and the
— allowed the modern mind
sense oi nature's purely
mundane
to
approach the world
character, with
its
own
ordering principles that might not directly correspond to man's logical
assumptions about God's divine government. the
human mind
site for
to a this-worldly
created the world, fully distinct from his
now
reformers' limiting of
knowledge was precisely the prerequi-
the opening up of that knowledge.
that world could
The
God had graciously and freely own infinite divinity. Hence
be apprehended and analyzed not according to
assumed sacramental participation
manner of Neoplatonic and
in static divine
its
pattemings, in the
Scholastic thought, but rather according to
own distinct dynamic material processes, God and his transcendent reality. its
devoid of direct reference to
By disenchanting the world of immanent divinity, completing the process initiated by Christianity's destruction of pagan animism, the
Reformation better allowed
The way was then cosmos, moving
for
its
radical revision by
first
to the
Even the Reformation's renewal of the as
science.
remote rationalist Creator of Deism, and
finally to secular agnosticism's elimination of
man's dominion
modern
clear for an increasingly naturalistic view of the
found
in
any supernatural
reality.
biblical subjection of nature to
Genesis contributed to this process,
encouraging man's sense of being the knowing subject against the object oi nature, and of being divinely authorized to exercise his sovereignty
over the natural
— hence nonspmtual — world.
As God's magnitude and
The Modern World View
242
distinctness relative to his creation was affirmed,
magnitude and distinctness
so too was man's
relative to the rest of nature.
Subduing
nature for man's benefit could be seen as a religious duty, eventually taking
on
a secular
autonomy, and course of the
A
further
momentum of its own
modern
era.
similarly
modern mind involved deepest truths were these then
Church
ambiguous
new
a
effect of the
Reformation on the
attitude to truth. In the Catholic view, the
divinely revealed as recorded in the Bible,
first
became the
tradition
man's sense of self- worth and
powers of dominion, continued to increase in the
his
and
as
basis for a continuing
and
growth of truth through
—
each generation of Church theologians inspired by
the Holy Spirit, creatively acting upon that tradition and forging a more
profound Christian doctrine. sense impressions and from
Much
Aquinas's active intellect took
as
them formed
intelligible concepts, so did the
Church's active intellect take the basic tradition and from penetrating formulations of spiritual truth. perspective, the truth lay finally
God, and
and objectively
fidelity to that unalterable truth
certainty. In this view, the
Roman
it
render more
But from the Protestant in the revealed
Word
of
alone could render theological
Catholic tradition was a long and
ever-worsening exercise in subjective distortion of that primal truth.
Catholic "objectivity" was nothing other than the establishment of
demands of the Catholic mind,
doctrines conforming to the subjective
not to the external sacrosanct truth of the Word.
had become
especially distorted by
its
And the Catholic mind Greek
theological integration of
philosophy, a system of thought intrinsically alien to biblical truth. Protestantism's reclamation of the unalterable
Bible thus fostered in the emerging
need to discover unbiased objective distortions of tradition. scientific mentality.
subject
all beliefs
To
It
Word
modern mind truth, apart
a
God
in the
stress
on the
of
new
from the prejudices and
thereby supported the growth of a critical
confront entrenched doctrines courageously, to
to fresh criticism
and
direct testing, to
come
face-to-
face with objective reality unmediated by traditional preconceptions or
vested authorities
—such
a passion for disinterested truth
informed the
mind and thence the modern mind generally. But in time, the Word itself would become subject to that new critical spirit, and secularProtestant
ism would triumph. Indeed, the very foundation for the reformers' appeal to objective truth
would provoke
its
meaning of Scripture
dialectical collapse. Luther's stress
as the exclusive reliable basis for
on the
literal
knowledge of
The Reforrruitum
243
God's creation was tension as
it
present the
to
incongnient
with an impossible
confronted the distinctly unbiblical revelations soon to be
established hv secular science.
and one
modem mind
—
truths
scientific.
had
The
to be
Two
apparently contradictory
— or
at least
maintained simultaneously, one religious
fundamentalist's Bible was to hasten the long-
developing schism between faith and reason experienced by the Western
mind
as
attempted to accommodate science. The Christian
it
too deeply ingrained to be readily sloughed
tar
oft
was
faith
altogether, but neither
could the scientific discoveries be denied. Eventually the latter would
outweigh the former
m
far
both intellectual and practical significance.
In
the process of that shift, the West's "faith" would itself be radically
realigned and transferred to the victor. In the long term, Luther's zealous
reinstatement
of a
Scripture-based religiosity was to help precipitate
its
secular antithesis.
The Reformation had another dividual's religious response
would lead gradually but inevitably
modern mind's sense of the
As time
role
in
relevance of ideas, as increasingly
determining truth
passed, the Protestant doctrine of
individual's faith than it
on Christ
—on
the personal
were, rather than on their external validity.
became the measure of
things, self-defining
philosophy and Romantic philosophical idealism
philosophical pragmatism and existentialism of the late
The Reformation was loyalties.
general,
Previously, the if
secularizing too in
Roman
its
of secular nationalism and
rise
Roman
least
The
resulting
Kantian
modern
the
era.
virtually all Europeans.
because
German
it
coincided with
rebelliousness against
Empire, especially against the
attempts to assert a European- wide authority. universal ambition and
to
to, finally,
realignment of personal
sometimes controversial, allegiance of
the papacy and the Holy
defeated.
self-
Catholic Church had maintained the
But the Reformation had succeeded not the potent
and
The
Truth increasingly became truth-as-experienced-by-the-self.
Thus the road opened by Luther would move through Pietism critical
to the
through the individual's faith in Christ seemed to place
more emphasis on the
legislating.
to
the final
inferiority of religious reality,
and the pervasive
individualism o( truth,
played by the personal subject.
self
on the modern mind contrary
For Luther's appeal to the primacy of the in-
Christian orthodoxy.
justification
effect
With
the Reformation, the
dream of the Catholic imperium was
empowerment
latter's
finally
of the various separate nations and
The Modern World View
244
states of
now
Europe
displaced the old ideal unity of Western Christen-
dom, and the new order was marked by intensely aggressive competition. There was now no higher power, international and individual states were responsive.
spiritual, to
which
all
Moreover, the individual national
languages, already spurred forward by the Renaissance literatures, were further strengthened against Latin, the previously universal language of
the educated, by the compelling
above
Bible,
new
vernacular translations of the
German and
Luther's translation into
all
The
committee's into English.
the King James
now became the authority. The medieval
individual secular state
defining unit of cultural, as well as political,
Catholic matrix unifying Europe had disintegrated.
No
were
significant
less
political-religious dynamics,
With
state.
complex
effects
on
both within the individual and within the
now
secular rulers
Reformation's
the
defining the religion of their territories,
moved power from church to state, just layman. And because many of the principal
the Reformation unintentionally as
did from priest to
it
monarchs chose
and absolutize
centralize allied
remain Catholic,
to
—
—
continuing attempts to
power caused Protestantism
political
with resisting bodies
their
cities
that sought to maintain or increase their separate
Hence
the cause of Protestantism
self-responsibility
growth of
became
and the priesthood of
political liberalism
all
and individual
sense of personal religious believers also abetted the rights.
At
the same time,
the religious fragmentation o{ Europe necessarily promoted a tellectual
and
religious diversity.
From
all
liberties.
associated with the cause of
The Reformation's new
political freedom.
to be
aristocrats, clergy, universities, provinces,
new
in-
these factors ensued a succes-
sion oi increasingly secularizing political and social consequences:
first
the establishment of individual state-identified churches, then the division of church and state,
dominance of the dogmatic
secular society.
religiosity of the
ralistic tolerant liberalism
The Reformation had secularizing effects.
man's inherent world
new
toleration,
religious
Out
and
finally
the pre-
of the exceedingly
illiberal
Reformation eventually emerged the plu-
oi the still
modern other
era.
unexpected and paradoxically
Despite the reformers' Augustinian demotion of
spiritual
power, they had also given
significance in the Christian
scheme of
human
things.
life
in this
When
Luther
eliminated the traditional hierarchical division between clerical and and, in blatant defiance of Catholic law, decided to
and father
a family,
he endowed the
activities
lay,
marry a former nun
and relationships oi
The Reformation
ordinary
245
with a religious meaning not previously emphasized by the
life
Catholic Church. Holy matrimony replaced chastity
Domestic
ideal.
life,
tasks of daily existence
which the
areas within
work
ot
were now upheld more spirit
Christian the
explicitly as important
could grow and deepen.
Now
occupational
every variety was a sacred calling, not just monasticism as in the
Middle Ages. With Calvin,
a Christian's worldly
pursued with spiritual and moral fervor
vocation was to be
in order to realize the
on earth. The world was to be regarded not
God
as the
mundane work, and
the raising ol children,
expression ot God's
to be passively
will,
hut rather as the arena in
as
God's social
and cultural
of
the inevitable
accepted in pious submission,
which man's urgent
was to
religious duty
through questioning and changing every aspect
will
Kingdom
of life,
fulfill
every
institution, in order to help hring about the Christian
commonwealth. Yet in time this religious uplifting of the secular was to take on an
autonomous, nonreligious character. Marriage,
for
example, freed from
Church control as a Catholic sacrament and now regulated by civil law, in time became an essentially secular contract, more easily entered into or dissolved, more easily subject to losing its sacramental character. On a larger social scale, the Protestant call to take this world more seriously, to revise society
and to embrace change, served
religious antipathy
the
both to
this
embryonic modern psyche the
restructuring
ism in
many
it
to
overcome the
traditional
world and to change, and thereby gave religious
sanction
and internal
required to propel the progress of modernity and liberal-
spheres, from politics to science. Eventually, however, this
powerful impulse to
make over
becoming independent of
its
the world became autonomous, not only
originally religious motivation, but finally
turning against the religious bulwark
itself as
yet another,
and especially
profound, form of oppression to be overcome.
Important social consequences of the Reformation also became evident in
its
complex relationship
northern European nations.
The
to the
pline and the holy dignity o{ one's
combined with whereby the
economic development of the
Protestant affirmation of moral disci-
work
in the
world seems to have
a peculiarity in the Calvinist belief in predestination,
striving (and anxious) Christian, deprived of the Catholic's
recourse to sacramental justification, could find signs ui his being
the elect
if
among
he could successfully and unceasingly apply himself to
ciplined work and his worldly calling.
the fruit of such effort, which,
dis-
Material productivity was often
compounded by
the Puritan
demand
for
246
The Modern World View
ascetic renunciation of seltish pleasure
and frivolous spending, readily
lent itself to the accumulation oi capital.
Whereas
threatening to the religious
as directly as
traditionally the pursuit of
commercial success was perceived life,
mutually beneficial. Religious doctrine
now
the two were recognized
itself
was
at times selectively
transformed or intensified in accord with the prevailing social and eco-
nomic temper. Within
few generations, the Protestant work ethic,
a
along with the continued emergence of an assertive and mobile individualism, had played a major role in encouraging the growth of an
economically flourishing middle
class tied to the rise of capitalism.
already developing in the Renaissance Italian city-states, was
latter,
further propelled by
from the
New
ulations,
new
nizations
numerous other
factors
—the accumulation
new developments
financial strategies,
and technologies. In time, much of the
secular concerns,
its
of wealth
World, the opening up oi new markets, expanding pop-
and on the material rewards
religious zeal yielded to
economic
in industrial orga-
originally spiritual
become focused on more
orientation of the Protestant discipline had
Thus
The
realized by
its
productivity.
which pressed forward on
vigor,
own. *^
The Counter-Reformation,
for
Wm
^m
its
part,
on un-
similarly brought
foreseen developments in a direction opposite from that intended.
Catholic Church's crusade to reform Protestantism took practical reforms
many
itself
and oppose the spread of
forms, from the revival of the Inquisition to the
and mystical writings of John of the Cross and Teresa of
Avila. But the Counter-Reformation was spearheaded above Jesuits, a
to the
Roman
The
Catholic order that established
itself as
all
by the
militantly loyal
pope and attracted a considerable number of strong-willed and
intellectually sophisticated
men.
Among
their various activities in the
secular world designed to accomplish their Catholic mission,
which
ranged from heroic missionary work overseas to assiduous censorship and Byzantine political intrigue in the courts o{ Europe, the Jesuits took on the responsibility of educating the young, especially those of the ruling class,
to forge
celebrated
a
new Catholic
teachers
elite.
Jesuits
soon became the most
on the Continent. Their educational
strategy,
however, involved not only the teaching oi the Catholic faith and theology, but also the
full
humanistic program from the Renaissance and
The Reformation
247
— Latin and Greek science and mathematics, And fencing —
classical era
ethics,
acting
letters, rhetoric,
all In
and metaphysics,
logic
music, even the gentlemanly arts of
the service oi developing a scholarly "soldier
of Christ": a morally disciplined, liberally educated, critically intelligent
man
Christian
ing the great
Hundreds
capable
Western ot
ot
outwitting the Protestant heretics and further-
tradition ot Catholic learning.
educational
institutions
were founded by the Jesuits
throughout Europe, and were soon replicated by Protestant leaders simmindful or the need to educate the
ilarly
on the Greek
tradition based
tic
faithful.
peddeio
The
classical
humanis-
was thereby broadly sustained
during the following two centuries, offering the growing educated class of
Europeans ity,
with
a
new
source of cultural unity just as the old source, Christian-
was fragmenting. But its
pagan
exposure
ot
consequence of such
as a
many
students to
as well as Christian,
critical rationality, there
and with
a liberal program,
eloquently articulate viewpoints, its
disciplined inculcation of a
could not but emerge in educated Europeans a
decidedly nonorthodox tendency toward intellectual pluralism, skepticism, and even revolution. cartes, Voltaire
And
It
and Diderot
was no accident that Galileo and Des-
all
received Jesuit educations.
here was the final and most drastic secularizing effect of the
Reformation. For with the revolt of Luther, Christianity's medieval matrix
split
into two,
then into many, then seemingly commenced
new divisions battled each other throughout Europe with unbridled fury. The resulting chaos in the intellectual and cultural lite ot Europe was profound. Wars of religion reflected violent destroying
disputes
itself as
the
between ever-multiplying
of absolute truth would prevail.
religious sects over
The need
whose conception
for a clarifying
and unifying
vision capable of transcending the irresolvable religious conflicts was
urgent and broadly
felt.
It
was amidst
this state of acute
metaphysical
turmoil that the Scientific Revolution began, developed, and finally
triumphed
in the
Western mind.
The
Scientific Revolution
Copernicus The
Scientific Revolution was both the final expression of the Renais-
sance and
its
definitive contribution to the
Poland and educated Renaissance.
Though
was destined to become an unquestioned princi-
it
modern psyche, the
inconceivable to most Europeans in his other single factor,
it
in
Copernicus lived during the height o( the
in Italy,
ple of existence for the
modern world view. Born
central tenet of his vision was
own
More than any
lifetime.
was the Copernican insight that provoked and
symbolized the drastic, fundamental break from the ancient and medieval universe to that o( the
Copernicus sought planets:
means
how
modern
new
a
era.
solution to the age-old problem of the
to explain the apparently erratic planetary
of a simple, clear, elegant
mathematical formula.
the solutions proposed by Ptolemy and
all
movements by
To
recapitulate,
his successors, solutions based
on the geocentric Aristotelian cosmos, had required the employment increasingly
minor
numerous mathematical devices
epicycles, equants, eccentrics
—
—
of
major and
deferents,
attempt to make sense of
in the
the observed positions while maintaining the ancient rule of uniform circular motion.
planet
When
a planet's
movement
move
did not appear to
in a
another, smaller circle was added, around which the
perfect circle,
hypothetically
moved while
it
moving
continued
around
the larger circle. Further discrepancies were solved by compounding the circles, displacing their centers, positing yet
another center from which
motion remained uniform, and so on. Each new astronomer, faced with newly revealed tempted
that contradicted the basic scheme,
irregularities
to resolve
them by adding more refinements
at-
—another minor
epicycle here, another eccentric there.
By the Renaissance, the Ptolemaic cus's words,
"monster"
a
which, despite to
account
accuracy.
longer
all
for
The
— an
had produced,
in
or predict
Moreover,
Coperni-
inelegant and overburdened conception
the complicated ad hoc corrective devices,
still
failed
observed planetary positions with reliable
original conceptual
existed.
strategy
economy
different
o( the Ptolemaic model no
Greek,
Arabic,
and
European
The
24 c >
Revolution
Scientific
used
astronomer!
methods and
different
principles,
com
different
now existed based on Ptolemy. The science ol
binations ot epicycles, eccentrics, and equants, so thai there a
confusing multiplicity
lystems
ol
astronomy, lacking any theoretical homogeneity, waft riddled with uncertainty. Further, the accumulation ol
Ptolemak predictions,
10
that
it
new modification
unlikely that .un
continued maintenance
ot the
many
centuries
ol
observations
more and worse divergences from the seemed to Copernicus Increasingly
lince Ptolemy's time had revealed
of that
system would be tenable.
ancient assumptions was making
it
The im-
astronomers to compute accurately the actual movements
possible tor
heavenly bodies. Copernicus concluded that
classical
ol
astronomy must
contain, or even he based upon, some essential error.
Renaissance Europe
Church,
tor
urgently
needed
a
better
which the calendar was indispensable
liturgical matters,
undertook
its
calendar,
and the
in administrative
reform. Such reform depended on
and
astro-
nomical precision. Copernicus, asked to advise the papacy on the problem, responded that the existing confused state of astronomical science-
precluded any immediate effective reform. Copernicus's technical proficiency as
an astronomer and mathematician enabled him
to recognize
the inadequacies of the existing cosmology. Yet this alone would not
have forced him
to devise a
new
system. Another, equally competent
astronomer might well have perceived the problem of the planets intrinsically insoluble, too
system to comprehend.
It
complex and
as
refractory for any mathematical
would seem
above
to be
all
Copernicus's
participation in the intellectual atmosphere of Renaissance Neoplato-
nism
— and
specifically his
embrace of the Pythagorean conviction
thai
nature was ultimately comprehensible in simple and harmonious mathematical terms of a transcendent, eternal quality
—
that pressed and guided
him toward innovation. The divine Creator, whose works were where good and
orderly, could not
every-
have been slipshod with the heavens
themselves.
Provoked by such considerations, Copernicus painstakingly reviewed all
the ancient scientific literature he could acquire,
recently
become
available in the
Humanist
Greek manuscripts from Constantinople several
revival
to the
much
of
and the
West.
which had transfer
He found
t
that
Greek philosophers, notably of Pythagorean and Platonist backa moving Earth, although none had developed the
ground, had proposed
astronomical
and mathematical conclusions. Hence
Aristotle's geocentric conception
had not been the only judgment of the
hypothesis to
its full
250
The Modern World View
revered Greek authorities.
Armed
with
this sense of kinship
with an
ancient tradition, inspired by the Neoplatonists' exalted conception of the Sun, and further supported by the university Scholastics' critical o{ Aristotelian
appraisals
physics,
Copernicus hypothesized a Sun-
centered universe with a planetary Earth and mathematically worked out the implications.
Despite the innovation's apparent absurdity,
its
application resulted in
a system Copernicus believed to be qualitatively better than Ptolemy's.
The
heliocentric
model
readily explained the apparent daily
of the heavens and annual motion of the rotation
on
its
axis
The appearance
and
of the
its
Sun
as
movement
due to the Earth's daily
annual revolution around the central Sun.
now be recognized as own movements. The great celestial
moving Sun and
deceptively created by the Earth's
stars
could
motions were then nothing but a projection of the Earth's motion in the opposite direction.
To
would be disruptive
to itself
the traditional objection that a moving Earth
and objects on
it,
Copernicus countered that
the geocentric theory necessitated an even swifter
movement by
the
immensely greater heavens, which would constitute a patently worse disruption.
Many
particular problems that
tion seemed
had long haunted the Ptolemaic
more elegantly solved by
a heliocentric system.
The
tradi-
appar-
ent backward and forward movements of the planets relative to the fixed stars,
and
their varying degrees o{ brightness, to explain
which astrono-
mers had employed innumerable mathematical contrivances, could be understood more simply
as the result of
—which would produce the
moving Earth
viewing those planets from a retrograde appearances with-
out the hypothetical use of major epicycles. automatically terrestrial
make
A
moving Earth would
regular planetary orbits around the
observer as irregular
now
movements around the
Sun appear to the Earth. Nor were
equants any longer necessary, a Ptolemaic device that Copernicus found especially objectionable
on
aesthetic grounds because
of uniform circular motion. Copernicus's
new
it
violated the rule
ordering of the planets
—Mercury, Venus, Earth and Moon, Mars, Earth-centered —replaced the
outward from the Sun ter,
and Saturn
order,
traditional
Jupi-
and
provided a simple and coherent solution to the previously ill-resolved
problem of why Mercury and Venus always appeared close
The explanation
for these
problems and others
like
them
to the Sun.
strongly sug-
gested to Copernicus the superiority oi the heliocentric theory over the
Ptolemaic system.
The appearances were
saved (albeit
still
approximate-
The
251
Scientific Revolution
and with greater conceptual elegance. Despite the obvious com* monsense evidence to the contrary, not to mention almost two millennia ly),
of scientific tradition, Copernicus was convinced the Earth truly moved.
Having
down
set
Commcntanolus, Copernicus circulated
Two
1514.
was given
decades
later, a lecture
Rome
in
manuscript, the
a first version of his thesis in a short it
among
his friends as early as
on the principles
who
hetore the pope,
o\ his
new system
approved. Subsequently, a
formal request to publish was made. Yet throughout most ot his
Copernicus held hack from
publication oi his extraordinary idea.
De
Revolutionibus, dedicated to the pope,
(Later, in his preface to the
Copernicus confessed
his reluctance to reveal publicly his insight into
nature's mysteries lest
it
Pythagorean practice of
and particularly finally
life,
tull
be scorned by the uninitiated
— invoking
the
secrecy in such matters.) But his friends
strict
his closest student, Rheticus, prevailed
upon him, and
Rheticus was allowed to take the completed manuscript from
Poland to Germany to be printed.
On
the
last
day of his
life,
in the year
1543, a copy of the published work was brought to Copernicus.
But on that day, and even during the following several decades, there
was
little
indication in Europe that an unprecedented revolution in the
Western world view had been
new conception was false,
as
initiated. For
most who heard of
it,
the
so contradictory to everyday experience, so patently
not to require serious discussion.
But
as
few proficient
a
astronomers began to find Copernicus's argument persuasive, the opposition began to
mount; and
it
was the
religious implications of the
new
cosmology that quickly provoked the most intense attacks.
The In
the beginning,
that opposition did not
Church. Copernicus was dral
Religious Reaction
a
canon
and an esteemed consultant
in
come from
good standing
to the
Church
at a
in
the Catholic
Catholic cathe-
Rome. His
friends
urging publication included a bishop and a cardinal. After his death,
Catholic universities did not avoid using the De Revolutionibus in astron-
omy
classes.
Moreover, the new Gregorian calendar instituted by the
Church was based on was
this
calculations according to Copernicus's system.
Nor
apparent flexibility altogether unusual, for throughout most of
the high Middle Ages and Renaissance,
Roman
Catholicism had allowed
considerable latitude in intellectual speculation. Indeed, such latitude
252
The Modern World View
was
a
major source of Protestant criticism of the Church. By tolerating
and even encouraging the exploration of Greek philosophy, science, and secular thinking, including the Hellenistic metaphorical interpretation
the
of Scripture,
Church had,
allowed pristine
in Protestant eyes,
Christianity and the literal truth oi the Bible to be contaminated. It
most
was antagonism from the Protestant reformers that arose forcefully,
and understandably
tradicted several passages in
so:
Holy Scripture concerning the
fixity of
Earth, and Scripture was Protestantism's one absolute authority.
by
biblical revelation questioned
and
first
the Copernican hypothesis con-
human
the
To have
science was just the kind of
Hellenizing intellectual arrogance and interpretive sophistry the reformers
most abhorred
in Catholic culture. Protestants
Copernican astronomy and condemn the
to recognize the threat of
impiety.
were therefore quick
Even before the publication of the De
called Copernicus an "upstart astrologer"
who
Revolutionibus,
Luther
wished to reverse
foolishly
the entire science of astronomy while flagrantly contradicting the Holy Bible. Luther
was soon joined by other reformers
Calvin, some of whom
recommended
like
Melanchthon and
that stringent measures be taken to
suppress the pernicious heresy. Quoting a passage from the Psalms, "the
world also
is
established, that
it
cannot be moved," Calvin asked:
will dare to place the authority of
Spirit?"
When
"Who
Copernicus above that of the Holy
Rheticus took Copernicus's manuscript to Niirnberg to be
Even
published, he was forced by reformers' opposition to go elsewhere. in Leipzig,
where he
left
the book with the Protestant Osiander to
publish, the latter inserted an
anonymous preface without Copernicus's
knowledge, asserting that the heliocentric theory was merely a convenient computational method and should not be taken seriously as a realistic
The been
account of the heavens.
ploy
may have saved
the publication, but Copernicus had indeed
serious, as a close reading of the text revealed.
time in the early seventeenth century, a
renewed sense of the need
And
for doctrinal
orthodoxy
—
felt
take a definite stand against the Copernican hypothesis. earlier century,
by Galileo's
the Catholic Church
Aquinas or the ancient Church
fathers
—now with
compelled to
While
in
an
might have
readily considered a metaphorical interpretation of the scriptural passages in question,
thereby eliminating the apparent contradiction with
sci-
ence, the emphatic literalism of Luther and his followers had activated a similar attitude in the Catholic
Church. Both
sides of the dispute
now
The
Scientific Revolution
wished
2 5
an uncompromised
to secure
\
with respect to the biblical
solidity
revelation.
Moreover,
guilt by association
Copernicanism
in
had recently hurt the reputation of
the case o\ the mystical Neoplatonist philosopher
and astronomer Giordano Bruno. Bruno had widely promulgated an
advanced version of the heliocentric theory osophy, hut had
later
heen
tried
as part ot his esoteric phil-
and executed by the Inquisition
heretical theological views. Mis stated beliefs
followed tor religions
its
moral teachings rather than
and philosophies should coexist
derstanding, had received
its
astronomy, and that
in tolerance
at best,
and
refrac tory as his ideas
all
and mutual un-
enthusiasm trom the Inquisition. In the
little
heated atmosphere o\ the Counter-Reformation, such
unwelcome
tor
the Bible should he
th.it
in the case of
liberal
views were
Bruno, whose character was as
were unorthodox, they were scandalous. Certainly
man who
the tact that the same
held heretical views on the Trinity and
other vital theological matters had also taught the Copernican theory' did
not augur well for the
(though not
latter.
After Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600
for his heliocentric teachings),
more dangerous theory
—both
Copernicanism seemed
to religious authorities
and
a
to philosopher-
astronomers, each tor their different reasons.
Yet not only did the
now
new
theory conflict with parts of the Bible,
was
apparent that Copernicanism posed a fundamental threat to the
entire Christian
framework of cosmology, theology, and morality. Ever
since the Scholastics and Dante had embraced
dowed
it
Greek science and en-
with religious meaning, the Christian world view had become
inextricably
The
it
embedded
essential
in
an Aristotelian-Ptolemaic geocentric universe.
dichotomy between the
celestial
and
terrestrial realms, the
Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, the
great cosmological structure of
circling
planetary spheres with angelic hosts, God's empyrean throne above the moral drama of
human
heavens and corporeal Earth ed altogether by the
life
—
new
all
pivotally centered
would be
theory.
between
cast into question or de-
Even discounting the elaborate
medieval superstructure, the most basic principles of the Christian gion were
now hem, the reputation ot Copernican astronomy was further enhanced. Yet major theoretical problems
For Copernicus was
revolutionary
a
tional assumptions that
->r
1
remained.
1 1
who had maintained
worked against the immediate
mflny tradi-
mil cess 0
nificance; they did
meaning
to his
life.
not exist
They were
whose character and morions were
man,
tor
to light
straightforwardly material entirely
the
mechanistic principles having no special relation either to
product
human
oi
exis-
288
The Modern World View
tence per se or to any divine
reality.
All specifically
human
world were
qualities formerly attributed to the outer physical
or personal
now
recog-
nized as naive anthropomorphic projections and deleted from the objec-
were similarly recognized
tive scientific perception. All divine attributes as the effect of primitive superstition
removed from
and wishful thinking, and were
The
serious scientific discourse.
universe was impersonal,
not personal; nature's laws were natural, not supernatural. The physical
world possessed no intrinsic deeper meaning. not the visible expression of (7)
With
It
was opaquely material,
spiritual realities.
the integration of the theory of evolution and
of consequences in other fields,
its
multitude
the nature and origin of
man and
the dynamics oi nature's transformations were
now
understood to be
exclusively attributable to natural causes and empirically observable processes.
What Newton had
accomplished
for the physical
cosmos,
Darwin, building on intervening advances in geology and biology (and later aided
nature.
5
by Mendel's work in genetics), accomplished for organic
While the Newtonian theory had
and extent of the universe's established
mension
new
the
—both
its
spatial
structure
new
established the
structure
dimension, the Darwinian theory
and extent of nature's temporal
great duration
and
its
transformations in nature. While with
di-
being the stage for qualitative
Newton
planetary motion was
understood to be sustained by inertia and defined by gravity, with Darwin biological evolution was seen as sustained by
defined by natural selection.
As
random
variation and
the Earth had been removed from the
center of creation to become another planet, so
now was man removed
from the center of creation to become another animal.
Darwinian evolution presented vindication,
continuation,
a
seemingly final
o{ the intellectual impulse established in the Scientific
Revolution, yet classical
a
it
also entailed a significant break
from that revolution's
paradigm. For evolutionary theory provoked a fundamental
harmony
shift
away from the regular, orderly, predictable Newtonian world in recognition of nature's ceaseless and indeterminate change, struggle, and development. In doing
so,
of the Cartesian-
Darwinism both
fur-
thered the Scientific Revolution's secularizing consequences and vitiated that revolution's
compromise with the
traditional Judaeo-Christian per-
spective. For the scientific discovery o{ the mutability of species con-
troverted the biblical account of a static creation in deliberately placed at
certain that
its
which man had been
sacred culmination and center.
man came from God
It
was now
less
than that he came from lower forms o{
Modem
Foundations of the
289
World Vieu
The human mind was nor a divine endowment but a biolo The structure and movement o( nature was the result not ofGod's
primates. tool.
benevolent design and purpose, but
Nature
nOtOodora
itself,
an amoral, random, and brutal
which success went not
struggle tor survival in fit.
of
to the virtuous but to the
transcendent Intellect, was now the origin
of nature's permutations. Natural selection and chance, not Aristotle's teleological tonus or the Bible's purposeful Creation, governed the processes of
lite.
who had
The
initiated
world
ordered
modern concept
early
and then
— the
an impersonal
to itself a fully
modern science
deist
u
C
avator
formed and eternally
compromise between Judaeo-
cosmological
last
Christian revelation and
left
of
— now receded
an
in the face oi
evolutionary theory that provided a dynamic naturalistic explanation for the origin of species and plants, organisms, rocks
entire universe could
all
other natural phenomena. Humans, animals,
and mountains, planets and
now
the
stars, galaxies,
be understood as the evolutionary outcome
ol
entirely natural processes. In these circumstances, the belief that the universe
was purposefully
designed and regulated by divine intelligence, a belief foundational to
both the
classical
Greek and the Christian world views, appeared
creasingly questionable.
human
tervention in
The
history
Second Adam, the Virgin ing
—seemed
in-
Christian doctrine oi Christ's divine in-
— the Incarnation of the Son of God,
Birth, the Resurrection, the
the
Second Com-
implausible in the context of an otherwise straightforward
survival-oriented Darwinian evolution in a vast mechanistic
Newtonian
cosmos. Equally implausible was the existence of a timeless metaphysical
realm of transcendent Platonic Ideas. Virtually everything in the empirical
world appeared explicable without resort to a divine
modern universe was now an was
a secular
phenomenon
reality.
The
phenomenon. Moreover, changing and creating itself
entirely secular
that was
still
not a divinely constructed finality with eternal and
it
static structure, but
an unfolding process with no absolute goal, and with no absolute foundation other than matter
and
of evolutionary direction,
being
in nature,
(8)
Finally,
the
in
its
permutations.
With nature
and with man the only rational conscious
human
future lay emphatically in man's hands.
contrast with the medieval Christian world view,
modern man's independence
—
intellectual, psychological, spiritual
radically affirmed, with increasing depreciation cA
existential
am
— was
religious belief or
would
inhibit man's natural right
and poten-
autonomy and
individual self-expression.
While the
institutional structure that tial for
the sole source
290
The Modern World View
purpose of knowledge for the medieval Christian was to better obey
God's
will,
man's
will.
purpose for modern
its
The
man was
to better align nature to
on apocalyptic Second
Christian doctrine of spiritual redemption as based
the historical manifestation of Christ and his future
Coming was first reconceived as coinciding with the progressive advance of human civilization under divine providence, conquering evil through man's God-given reason, and then was gradually extinguished altogether man's natural reason and
in light of the belief that
ments would progressively
realize a secular
rational wisdom, material prosperity,
The Christian now receded
Utopian era marked by peace,
and human dominion over nature.
sense of Original Sin, the Fall, and collective favor of an optimistic
in
development and the eventual triumph of
human
ignorance, suffering, and social
While the
human
intellectual
and
man
affirmation of rationality
human human
guilt self-
and science over
evils.
Greek world view had emphasized the goal of
classical
reunification) of
spiritual activity as the essential unification (or
with the cosmos and
while the Christian goal was to reunite
modern
scientific achieve-
its
man and
divine intelligence, and
the world with God, the
goal was to create the greatest possible freedom for
nature; from oppressive political, social, or restrictive metaphysical or religious beliefs;
economic
—from
man
structures;
from
from the Church; from the
Judaeo-Christian God; from the static and finite Aristotelian-Christian
cosmos; from medieval Scholasticism; from the ancient Greek authorities;
from
all
primitive conceptions of the world. Leaving behind
tradition generally for the
modern man
set
principles of his
power of the autonomous human
intellect,
out on his own, determined to discover the working
new
universe, to explore
and further expand
its
new
dimensions, and to realize his secular fulfillment.
The above
description
is
necessarily only a useful simplification, for
other important intellectual tendencies existed alongside ran counter
to,
the dominant character of the
forged during the Enlightenment.
It will
of,
modern mind
and often that was
be the task of later chapters to
more complex, and more paradoxical portrait of the modern sensibility. But first we must examine more precisely the extraordinary dialectic that took place as the dominant modern world view just described formed itself out of its major predecessors, the classical and draw
a fuller,
the Christian.
Ancients and Moderns Greek thought had provided Renaissance Europe with most oi die theoretical equipment it required to produce the Scientific Revolu-
Classical
tion:
the Greeks' initial intuition of a rational order in the cosmos,
Pythagorean mathematics,
the
Platonically
problem
defined
the
ot
planets, Euclidean geometry, Ptolemaic astronomy, alternative ancient
COSmological theories with
a
moving
Earth, the Neoplatonic exaltation
of the Sun, the atomists' mechanistic materialism, Hermetic esotericism,
and the underlying foundation
and Presocratic empiri-
oi Aristotelian
cism, naturalism, and rationalism. Yet the character and direction oi the
modern mind were such
that the latter increasingly disavowed the an-
and depreciated
cients as scientific or philosophical authorities
their
and unworthy of serious consideration. The
world view
as primitive
intellectual
dynamics provoking
this discontinuity
were complex and
often contradictory.
One
of the most productive motives impelling sixteenth- and seven-
teenth-century European scientists to engage in detailed observation and
measurement of natural phenomena derived from the heated controversies
between orthodox Scholastic Aristotelian physics and the heterodox
revival of Pythagorean-Platonic mathematical mysticism.
It is
no small
irony that Aristotle, the greatest naturalist and empirical scientist oi antiquity,
whose work had served
as the sustaining
science for two millennia, was jettisoned by the
impetus oi a romantic Renaissance Platonism tive idealist
who most
new
— from
science under the Plato, the specula-
systematically wished to leave the world oi the
senses. But with Aristotle's transformation by the sities
impulse of Western
contemporary univer-
into a stultified dogmatist, the Platonism of the Humanists had
succeeded
in
opening the
intellectual adventure.
At
a
scientific
deeper
imagination to a fresh sense
level,
oi
however, Aristotle's empiricist
this-worldly direction was extended and fulfilled by the Scientific Revolution ad extremum;
that revolution,
it
rebellion by the
Yet
and although Aristotle himself was overthrown
could be said that this was no more than the Oedipal
modern science
just as decisively
deposed
in effigy
in
of
which he was the ancient
was Plato overthrown. Indeed,
while maintained in
spirit,
it
father.
Aristotle was
Plato was vindicated
in
292
The Modern World View
theory but altogether negated in
The
spirit.
Copernicus to Newton had depended upon and been inspired by a of strategies
and assumptions derived
from
Scientific Revolution
directly
series
from Plato, his Pythago-
rean predecessors, and his Neoplatonic successors: the search for perfect
phenomenal world, the a movements conformed to continuous and
timeless mathematical forms that underlay the priori belief that planetary
regular geometrical figures, the instruction to avoid being misled by the
apparent chaos of the empirical heavens, a confidence in the beauty and simple elegance of the true solution to the problem of the planets, the exaltation of the
Sun
as
image of the creative Godhead, the proposals of
nongeocentric cosmologies, the belief that the universe was permeated
with divine reason and that God's glory was especially revealed in the heavens. Euclid, whose geometry formed a basis both for Descartes's rationalist philosophy
and the entire Copernican-Newtonian paradigm,
had been a Platonist whose work was principles.
Modern
scientific
Galileo, was founded
method
fully
itself, as
on the Pythagorean
physical world was one of number,
constructed on Platonic
developed by Kepler and
faith that the language of the
which provided
a rationale for the
conviction that the empirical observation of nature and the testing of hypotheses should be systematically focused through quantitative
measurement. Moreover, Plato's
all
modern science
fundamental hierarchy of
reality,
changing material nature was viewed certain unifying laws
govern.
Above
ic belief
all,
as
in
implicitly based itself
which
a diverse
upon
and ever-
being ultimately obedient to
and principles that transcend the phenomena they
modern science was the
inheritor of the basic Platon-
in the rational intelligibility of the world order,
essential nobility of the
human
and
in the
quest to discover that order. But those
Platonic assumptions and strategies eventually led to the creation of a
paradigm whose thoroughgoing naturalism cal tenor of Platonic metaphysics.
patterns celebrated by
appeared,
the
left little
The numinosity
room
for the mysti-
o{ the mathematical
Pythagorean-Platonic tradition
now
dis-
regarded in retrospect as an empirically unverifiable and
superfluous appendage to the straightforward scientific understanding of
the natural world. It
is
true that the Pythagorean-Platonic claim for the explanatory
power of mathematics was being constantly vindicated by natural sciwhy should mathematics work so ence, and that this apparent anomaly
—
consistently and elegantly in the realm of brute material
caused some puzzlement
among
phenomena?
thoughtful philosophers of science. But
Ancients and Moderns
293
most practicing
for
scientists alter
Newton, such mathematical con-
were considered
sistencies in nature
to represent a certain
mechanical
tendency toward regular patterning, with no deeper meaning per
They were seldom seen
as revelatory
was comprehending the mind simply "in the nature of things,
ua> not interpreted
now
M
or in the nature oi the
The own on
spirit.
stood on their
oi
se.
man
God. Mathematical patterning was
in a Platonic light as giving
changeless world ot pure timeless,
ot
Forms by which the mind
human mind, and
evidence
oi
an eternal
laws oi nature, although perhaps a material foundation, dissociated
from anv divine cause.
Thus with the somewhat perplexing exception of mathematics, the Platonic stream oi philosophy generally ceased to be viewed as a viable
form
oi
thought
character was
left
modern context, and
the
in
science's quantitative
with an entirely secular meaning. In the face of the
indisputable success of mechanistic natural science and the ascendance
of positivistic empiricism and nominalism in philosophy, the idealist
claims of Platonic metaphysics reality
—the
the transcendent
eternal Ideas,
wherein resided true being and meaning, the divine nature of the
heavens, the spiritual government of the world, the religious meaning of science
—were now
primitive
dismissed as elaborately sophisticated products of the
imagination.
served as the sine qua
Paradoxically,
non
for a
the
Platonic
philosophy
had
world view that seemed directly to
controvert the Platonic assumptions. Thus "the irony of fate built the
mechanical philosophy of the eighteenth century and the materialistic philosophy of the nineteenth out of the mystical mathematical theory of the seventeenth."
A
6
further irony lay in the
Aristotle
—
and Plato
at the
modern
defeat of the classical giants
hands of the ancient minority
traditions. In
the course of the later classical and medieval periods, the mechanistic
and materialistic atomism oi Leucippus and Democritus; the heterodox (nongeocentric or nongeostatic) cosmologies of Philolaus, Heraclides,
and Aristarchus; the icus
—
all
radical Skepticism of Pyrrho
and Sextus Empir-
these had been overshadowed, almost trampled undertoor and
extinguished, by the culturally more powerful philosophical triumvirate of Socrates,
Plato,
and Aristotle and by the dominant Aristotelian-
Ptolemaic cosmology. ists
7
But the minority views' retrieval by the
Human-
during the Renaissance eventually served to reverse that hierarchy in
the world of science, with
many
of their tenets enjoying an unexpected
validation in the theoretical conclusions and philosophical tenor of the
294
The Modern World View
A
Scientific Revolution
and
come
whose secular humanism and
to the Sophists,
aftermath.
its
similar restoration
would
relativistic skepti-
cism found renewed favor in the philosophical climate o{ the Enlighten-
ment and subsequent modern thought. But the isolated and seemingly fortuitous insights of a few speculative theorists
were not
sufficient to offset
Nor was
of the ancient mind.
modern
science's critical evaluation
the utility of various premises from the
Platonic and Aristotelian traditions enough to counterbalance what were
The
seen as their misguided and insufficiently empirical foundations. retrospective
awe
by medieval and Renaissance thinkers toward the
felt
genius and achievements of the classical golden age luminaries no longer
seemed appropriate when on every practical
and
was useful
for
modern man was proving
side
intellectual superiority. Thus, its
present needs, the
culture in terms respectful of
its
his
having extracted whatever
modern mind reconceived
classical
and humanistic accomplish-
literary
ments, while generally dismissing the ancients' cosmology, epistemology,
and metaphysics
A
as
more sweeping
—
naive and scientifically erroneous. dismissal was given to the esoteric elements of the
—
had
also
been instrumental in the genesis of the
Scientific Revolution.
The
ancient birth of astronomy, and of science
itself,
ancient tradition
alchemy,
astrology,
Hermeticism
that
had been inextricably
tied to the primitive astrological understanding of the
heavens
carefully observed because of their symbolic import for
the ensuing centuries, astrology's the
latter's
that gave astronomy political
ties to
technical progress, for
and military
its
social
it
human
affairs.
In
astronomy had been essential
for
was the astrological presuppositions
and psychological relevance,
utility in
as a
movements
superior realm of divine significance, with the planetary
as well as its
matters of state. Astrological predictions
required the most accurate possible astronomical data, so that astrology supplied the astronomical profession with
its
most compelling motive
attempting to solve the problem of the planets.
It
prior to the Scientific Revolution the science of astronomy enjoyed
most rapid development precisely during those periods era, the
high Middle Ages, and the Renaissance
for
was no accident that
—the
—when
its
Hellenistic
astrology was
most widely accepted.
Nor
did the major protagonists of the Scientific Revolution
sever that ancient bond. Copernicus Revolutionibus
between astronomy and
jointly as "the
head of
all
made no
move
to
De them con-
distinction in the
astrology, referring to
the liberal arts." Kepler confessed that his
Ancients and Moderns
295
astronomical research was inspired by his search
tor the celestial
of the spheres." Although outspokenly critical
oi
contemporary
Holy
was
Kepler
astrology,
his
era's
and both he and Rrahe served
theoretician,
Roman
Emperor. Even Galileo,
like
"music
the lack o\ rigor in
foremost
astrolo
as royal astrologers to the
most Renaissance astrono-
mers, routinely calculated astrological birth charts, including one for his
patron the Duke o\ Tuscany in 1609, the year
Newton
ies.
reported that
it
was
his
own
o\ his telescopic discover-
early interest in astrology that
stimulated his epochal researches in mathematics, and he later studied
alchemy
at considerable
length.
termine the actual extent
alchemy, but the
demarcation
modem
It
is
sometimes
of these pioneers'
difficult
commitment
now
to de-
to astrology or
historian of science looks in vain for a clear
in their vision
between the
scientific
and the
esoteric.
For a peculiar collaboration between science and esoteric tradition was
norm of the Renaissance, and played an indispensable role in modern science: Besides the Neoplatonic and Pythagorean mathematical mysticism and Sun exaltation that ran through all the in tact the
the birth of
major Copernican astronomers, one finds Roger Bacon, the pioneer of experimental science whose work was saturated with alchemical and astrological principles;
championed an
who
laid early
Gilbert,
Giordano Bruno, the polymath
infinite
esotericist
who
Copernican cosmos; Paracelsus, the alchemist
foundations of modern chemistry and medicine; William
whose theory of the
Earth's
magnetism
rested
on
his proof that
who human
the world-soul was embodied in that magnet; William Harvey,
believed his discovery of the circulation of the blood revealed the
body to be
a
microcosmic reflection of the Earth's circulatory systems and
the cosmos's planetary motions;
Descartes's affiliation with
Rosicrucianism; Newton's affiliation his belief that
with the Cambridge
mystical
Platonists,
and
he worked within an ancient tradition of secret wisdom
dating back to Pythagoras and beyond; and, indeed, the law of univer-
modeled on the sympathies of Hermetic philosophy. The modernity of the Scientific Revolution was in main ways
sal
gravitation
itself,
ambiguous.
But the new universe that emerged from the Scientific Revolution was
room tor the reality of astrological or other explicitly esoteric principles. While the original revolutionaries themselves called no attention to the problems the new not so ambiguous, and appeared to leave
paradigm posed
little
for astrology, those contradictions
for others. For a planetary Earth
seemed
to
soon became apparent
undermine the very tounda-
296
The Modern World View
tion of astrological thinking, since the latter assumed the Earth was the
absolute central focus of planetary influences.
It
was
difficult to see
how
without the privileged position of being the fixed universal center, the Earth could continue to deserve such distinctive cosmic attention.
cosmography delineated from Aristotle through Dante
entire traditional
was shattered
The
moving Earth now
as the
previously defined as the exclusive
trespassed into celestial realms
domain of
specific planetary powers.
After Galileo and Newton, the celestial-terrestrial division could no
and without that primordial dichotomy, the
longer be maintained,
metaphysical and psychological premises that had helped support the astrological belief system
began to
to be prosaically material objects
archetypal symbols relatively
moved by
a cosmic intelligence.
who
astrology
considered
worth examining. Increasingly marginalized,
it
went underground, surviving only among small groups of 8
otericists
and the
sciences"
and the guide of emperors and kings
uncritical masses.
no longer
millennia, astrology was
With
There had been
who were not convinced of generation after Newton there were
few thinkers in the Renaissance
astrology's essential validity, but a
few
The planets were now known moved by inertia and gravity, not
collapse.
After being the classical "queen of for the better part of
the exception of the Romantics, the
mous dimension of
existence.
modern mind
also gradually as
an autono-
That the gods were nothing more than
pagan fantasy needed
Enlightenment on. Just
two
credible.
outgrew the Renaissance's fascination with ancient myth
colorful figments of
es-
as the Platonic
argument from the
little
Forms died out
in philosophy,
their place taken by objective empirical qualities, subjective concepts,
cognitive categories, or linguistic "family resemblances," so did the
ancient gods assume the role of literary characters,
metaphors without any claim to ontological
artistic
For modern science had cleansed the universe of spiritual properties previously projected
neutral, opaque,
possible thority. ically
images, useful
reality.
upon
it.
all those human and The world was now
and material, and therefore no dialogue with nature was
—whether through magic,
mysticism, or divinely certified au-
Only the impersonal employment of man's
critical
and empir-
based rational intellect could attain an objective understanding of
nature.
Although
in
fact
sources had converged to
immense
an astonishing variety of epistemological
make
possible the Scientific Revolution
—the
imaginative (and antiempirical) leap to the conception oi a
planetary Earth,
9
Pythagorean and Neoplatonic aesthetic and mystical
Modems
Ancients and
2 l >7
beliefs, Descartes's revelatory
ence and concept
own
his
dream and vision of a now universal sciit, Neuron's Hermetically Inspired
mission to forge
the serendipitous recoveries of the
ot gravitational attraction, all
ancient manuscripts
Archimedes,
(Lucretius,
Sextus
the
Empiricus,
Neoplatonists), the fundamentally metaphorical character of the various scientific theories
and explanations
nificant only in the context
— these were
viewed
all later
ot scientific discovery.
.is
sig-
In the context of
any hypothesis,
scientific justification, oi ascertaining the truth value of
only empirical evidence and rational analysis could he considered
legiti-
mate epistemological bases, and in the wake oi the Scientific Revolution these
modes dominated the
cretistic,
scientific enterprise.
and mystical epistemologies of the
elaborate metaphysical consequences, were Classical culture
The
too flexible, Byn-
classical period,
now
their
would long remain an exalted realm haunting the
West's imaginative and aesthetic creations.
modern thinkers with
It
would continue
events and personalities of ancient history would interest
to provide
and moral ideas and models.
inspiring political
Greek philosophy, the Greek and Latin languages and
modern mind avid
and
repudiated.
and scholarly
literatures, the
all still
evoke
in the
respect, often bordering
on
reverence. But the humanistic nostalgia for classicism could not disguise
the at
latter's
growing irrelevance
hand was
for the
a stringent philosophical
the classical world view, whatever er
its
and
claim for his
own
intellectual rigor
and
issue
scientific analysis of reality,
historical importance,
virtues in aesthetic or imaginative terms,
compare with the Yet
its
modern mind. For when the
efficacy
and whatev-
could not favorably
modern man could
justly
understanding.
for all that, the ancient
Greek mind
still
pervaded the modern. In
the virtually religious zeal of the scientist's quest for knowledge, in his often unconscious assumptions concerning the rational intelligibility of
the world and man's capacity to reveal
judgment and
his ambitious drive to
it,
in his critical
independence
ot
expand human knowledge beyond
ever more distant horizons, Greece lived on.
The Triumph
of Secularism
The Early Concord
Science and Religion:
The
fate of Christianity in the
wake of the
Scientific Revolution
was not
own
share of
dissimilar to the fate of classical thought, nor did
paradox.
lack
it
requisite for the Scientific Revolution, the Catholic
dogmatic
its
the Greeks had supplied most of the theoretical provisions
If
strictures,
Church,
for all
its
had provided the necessary matrix within which the
Western mind was able
to develop
The
derstanding could emerge.
and from which the
un-
scientific
nature of the Church's contribution was
both practical and doctrinal. From the beginning of the Middle Ages, the
Church had provided
in
its
monasteries the only refuge in the
West
within which the achievements of classical culture could be preserved
and
And from the turn of the first millennium,
their spirit continued.
Church had
officially
supported and encouraged the vast Scholastic
and education without which modern
enterprise of scholarship tellectuality
the
might never have
in-
arisen.
This momentous act of ecclesiastical sponsorship was
justified
by a
unique constellation of theological positions. The precise and profound
comprehension of Christian doctrine required,
in the medieval Church's
and
a corresponding capacity for logical clarity
evolving view, tellectual acuity.
Beyond
that rationale
emerged another,
for
in-
with the
increasing recognition of the physical world in the high Middle
Ages
there arose a corresponding recognition of the positive role a scientific
understanding could play in the appreciation of God's wondrous creation. For all
its
wariness of
mundane
life
and "the world," the Judaeo-
Christian religion nevertheless placed great emphasis on the ontological reality of that
world and
Christianity took this
its
life
ultimate relationship to a good and just God. seriously.
Therein
lay a significant religious
impetus for the scientific quest, which depended not only on a sense of the
human
on
being's active responsibility in this world, but also
in this world's reality,
its
order, and, at the start of
modern
a belief
science,
its
coherent relationship to an omnipotent and infinitely wise Creator.
Nor was
the contribution of the Scholastics merely an imperfect
Christianized recovery and sustaining of the Greek ideas. For
it
was the
The Triumph of Secularism
299
Scholastics' exhaustive examination and criticism oi those ideas, and their creation of
new
alternative theories and concepts
formulations ot inertia and
momentum,
treelv tailing bodies, hypothetical
modem
allowed forging
rudimentary
the uniform acceleration oi
—
moving Earth that science from Copernicus and Galileo onward to begin arguments
tor a
new paradigm. And perhaps most consequential was not
its
nature ot the Scholastics' theoretical innovations,
Specific
re\ itahzation ot
attitude
istential
the
nor their
Hellenic thought, but rather the more intangible ex-
medieval thinkers passed on to their modern de-
scendants: the theologically founded but decidedly robust confidence
God-given reason possessed the capacity, and the
that man's
comprehend the
duty, to
religious
natural world. Man's intellectual relation to the
creative Logos, his privileged possession of the divine light ot the active intellect
—Aquinas's
lumen intdlectUS
agentis
perspective precisely what mediated the
cosmos. Descartes's natural light of the
—was
human human
from the Christian
understanding of the reason was the direct
half-secularized inheritor of that medieval conception.
himself
who had
written in his
Summa
It
was Aquinas
Theolvgica that "authority
the
is
weakest source of proof," a dictum central for the protagonists ot the
modern mind's independence. Modern empiricism
all
had Scholastic
rationalism,
naturalism,
and
roots.
But the Scholasticism encountered by the sixteenth- and seventeenthcentury natural philosophers was a senescent structure of pedagogical
dogmatism that no longer spoke
to the
nothing fresh was emerging from within Aristotle, failure
marked
its
new its
spirit
of the age. Little or
confines.
Its
obsession with
oversubtle verbal distinctions and logical quibbles, and
to submit theory systematically to the test of experiment late
its
all
Scholasticism as an outmoded, ingrown institution whose
intellectual authority
had
to be
overthrown
lest
the brave infant science
be fatally smothered. After Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton, that authority had been effectively impugned, and Scholasticism's reputation
never recovered. From then on, science and philosophy could move forward without theological justification, without recourse to a divine light in the
human
intellect,
without the colossal supportinu superstruc-
ture of Scholastic metaphysics
and epistemoloL'y
Yet despite the unambiguously secular character of the modern science that eventually crystallized out o\ the Scientific Revolution, the original scientific revolutionaries
themselves continued to
act, think,
and speak
of their work in terms conspicuously redolent ot religiou* illumination.
300
The Modern World View
They perceived
their intellectual breakthroughs as foundational contri-
butions to a sacred mission. Their scientific discoveries were triumphant spiritual
awakenings to the divine architecture of the world, revelations
of the true cosmic order. Newton's joyful exclamation,
"O God,
think
I
thy thoughts after thee!" was only the culmination of a long series of such
epiphanies marking the milestones of modern science's birth. In the
De
more
di-
Revolutionibus, Copernicus celebrated
vine than human," closest to
God
upheld the heliocentric theory
astronomy
as a "science
in the nobility of
its
and
character,
grandeur
as revealing the true structural
and precision of God's cosmos. Kepler's writings were ablaze with
his
sense of being divinely illuminated as the inner mysteries of the cosmos
unfolded before his eyes.
most high
He
declared astronomers to be "priests of the
own
with respect to the book of nature," and saw his
role
honor of guarding, with my discovery, the door of God's temple,
as "the
in
God
10
which Copernicus
serves before the high altar." In Sidereus Nuncius,
Galileo spoke of his telescopic discoveries as grace enlightening his mind.
made
possible by God's
Even the worldly Bacon envisioned human-
progress through science in explicitly religious, pietistic terms, with
ity's
the material improvement o{
mankind corresponding
to
spiritual
its
approach to the Christian millennium. Descartes interpreted his vision
new
of the
universal science,
and a subsequent dream
in
which that
science was symbolically presented to him, as a divine mandate for his life's
work:
assured
him
God had shown him
the way to certain knowledge, and
of his scientific quest's ultimate success.
And with Newton's
achievement, the divine birth was considered complete.
had been written. As Alexander Pope declared Nature and nature's laws
God
said, "Let
Newton
A new Genesis Enlightenment:
for the
lay hid in night;
be," and
all
was
light.
For the great passion to discover the laws of nature that was scientific revolutionaries derived
not
least
the
lost in
the primal
human mind had comprehended God's working
eternal laws governing Creation, the divine handiwork
unveiled by science. Through science glory,
by the
from a sense that they were
recovering a divine knowledge that had been last
felt
man had
principles.
itself,
At The
Fall.
now
stood
served God's greater
demonstrating the mathematical beauty and complex precision,
the stupendous order reigning over the heavens and the Earth.
The
luminous perfection of the discoverers' new universe compelled
awe
their
KM
The Triumph of Secularism
before the transcendent intelligence which they attributed to the
(
Creator
of such a cosino>.
Nor was was
the religiosity of the major scientific pioneers
sentiment with
religious
little specific
as zealously absorbed in Christian theology
prophecy
Church from Inquisition,
m
he was
as
a
Newton
and studies
ol
biblical
Galileo was committed to saving his
physics.
error and,
despite his confrontation with
the
and
died a devout Catholic. tellectuallv pervasive,
generalized
steadfast in his Catholic piety. Descartes lived
costly
remained
.1
relation to Christianity.
And
their Christian presuppositions were in
embedded
in the very
tabnc
and
ot their scientific
philosophical theories. Roth Descartes and
Newton
cosmological systems on the assumption
God's existence. For Des-
cartes, the objective
the
world
ot
existed as a Stable reality
constructed their
because
stood in
it
mind of God, and human reason was epistemologically
reliable
because ot God's intrinsically veracious character. Similarly, for Newton,
matter could not he explained on
mover,
its
own
terms but necessitated a prime
supreme architect and governor. God had established
a creator, a
the physical world and
its
laws,
and therein
lay the world's
continuing
existence and order. Indeed, because of certain unresolved problems in his calculations,
Newton concluded
cally necessary to
that God's intervention was periodi-
maintain the system's regularity.
Compromise and
Conflict
But the early modern accord between science and Christianity was already
displaying
creationist ontology
universe
— with
planetary Earth
its
tensions still
and contradictions,
mechanical
—was
for
forces,
its
scientific
material heavens,
and
Any
maintained only by religious
belief,
new
central focus o( the
universe was
not by scientific evidence.
The
Earth
and mankind might be the metaphysical pivot of God's creation, but status could not be supported by a purely scientific understanding,
saw both the Earth and the Sun
moving through
its
not notably congruent with traditional Christian
conceptions of the cosmos.
others
the
from
apart
underpinning the new paradigm, the
a
as
merely two bodies
boundless neutral void.
"I
am
which
among COimtleM
terrified," said the
intensely religious mathematician Pascal, "by the eternal lllence infinite spaces." Intellectually sensitive Christiana
tb.it
oi
these
attempted to remter-
302
pret
The Modern World View
and modify
their religious understanding to
drastically different
accommodate
a universe
from that of the ancient and medieval cosmology
within which the Christian religion had evolved, but the metaphysical hiatus continued to widen. In the Enlightenment's
heaven and had
had
hell
Newtonian cosmos,
lost their physical locations, natural
phenomena
symbolic import, and miracles and arbitrary divine
lost their
human
terventions into
now
affairs
in-
appeared increasingly implausible,
contradicting the supreme orderliness of a clockwork universe. Yet the
deeply rooted principles of Christian belief could scarcely be negated altogether.
Thus
arose the psychological necessity of a double-truth universe.
Reason and
faith
came
to be seen as pertaining to different realms, with
Christian philosophers and scientists, and the larger educated Christian public, perceiving
and the
no genuine
integration between the scientific reality
religious reality. Joined together in the high
Middle Ages by the
Scholastics culminating in Aquinas, then severed in the late medieval
Ockham and
period by
nominalism, faith had moved in one direction
with the Reformation, Luther,
literal Scripture,
fundamentalist Protes-
tantism and Counter-Reformat ional Catholicism, while reason had
moved
in
another direction with Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Hume,
empirical science, rational philosophy, and the Enlightenment. At-
tempts to bridge the two generally failed to preserve the character of one or the other, as in Kant's delimiting of religious experience to the moral
impulse.
With both
science and religion simultaneously vital yet discrepant,
the culture's world view was by necessity bifurcated, reflecting a metaphysical schism that existed as
relevant
less
within the individual as within the
to the outer world than to the inner
contemporary afterlife,
much
Religion was increasingly compartmentalized, seen as
larger society.
spirit
less to
than
less
self,
to revered tradition, less to this
to the
than to the
life
everyday than to Sunday. Christian doctrine was
believed by most, and indeed, as
if
in reaction to the abstract
still
mechanical
universe of the Enlightenment's physicists and philosophers, a host of fervently emotional religious
ism in France,
Awakening
in
movements
—Pietism
in
Germany, Jansen-
the Quakers and Methodists in England,
America
—emerged and found broad popular
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. traditional Christian
mold continued
Devout
the Great
support in
religiosity
to be widespread; these
in the
were the
The Triumph
of Secularism
very years in which Western religious music reached
and Handel, both
bom
within months
wherein the
this pluralism,
and
scientific
apogee in Bach Newton's Prmcipia Bui amidst
o(
its
temperaments pursued
religious
their separate paths, the overriding cultural direction
was
rationalism was ineluetahlv on the ascent, demonstrating
Over ever-larger areas
human
of
Within rwo centuries outlook had icallv
fully established itself
proved
ientific
sovereignty
its
experience.
Newton, the
after
w
lean
^
seculaiitj
modern
the
of
Mechanistic materialism had dramai
explanatory power and utilitarian ettu,u\. Experiences
it>
and events that appeared
to detv accepted scientific principles
miracles and faith healings,
all
self-proclaimed religious revelations and
spiritual ecstasies, prophecies, symbolic interpretations of natural phe-
nomena, encounters with God
regarded as the effects of madness,
concerning the existence o\
God
devil—were now
or the
charlatanry,
increasingly
or both.
Questions
or a transcendent reality ceased to play
which was becoming the
a decisive role in the scientific imagination,
principal factor in defining the educated puhlic's shared belief system.
Already
tor
Pascal
religious doubts
in
the seventeenth century,
and philosophical skepticism, the leap
to sustain Christian belief
had become
leading edge of Western thought,
What, then, caused
this
shift
it
a wager.
seemed
equally
emphatic
secularism
of
main
tor
a losing bet. religiosity
Western
the
in
intellect
to
the
i>t
resulting from the attempt to
hold together such innately divergent systems and to force the issue in
the
of
and seventeenth centuries
the
two outlooks, the cognitive dissonance had
the
at
nineteenth and twentieth? Certainly the metaphysical incongruity
ly
own
of faith necessary
Now,
from the explicit
scientific revolutionaries o( the sixteenth
the
faced with his
one direction or the
sensibilities, eventual*
other.
The
character and
implications of the Christian revelation simply did not cohere well with
those of the scientific revelation. Essential to the
C
Ihristian faith
belief in Christ's physical resurrection after death, an event
apostolic witness
Christianity.
and
all
phenomena
foundational miracle, as well as
in all
terms
of
its
a virgin birth
the scientific
rhe other supernatural
recounted in the Bible, could no longer
savior,
of
regular natural
command
Raisings from the dead, miraculous healings
human
with
interpretation, had served as the very foundation of
But with the near-univers.il acceptance
explanation oi
th.it,
wis rhe
from h
laws,
that
phenomena
unquestioning i
m
belief.
divinewater,
304
The Modern World View
water from rocks, partings of seas to the
modern mind, bearing
—
all
appeared increasingly improbable
as they did too
many
similarities to other
mythical or legendary concoctions of the archaic imagination.
Damaging
criticism of the absolute truth of Christian revelation also
emerged from the new academic
which
discipline of biblical scholarship,
human
demonstrated Scripture's variable and manifestly
sources.
Both
the Renaissance Humanists and the Reformation theologians had pressed for a return to the original
led to a
more
critical
Greek and Hebrew sources of the
their historical authenticity
and
which
integrity. In the course of several gen-
erations of such scholarship, Scripture began to lose
divine inspiration.
Bible,
reading of the original texts and reevaluations of
The
its
sacral aura of
now be recognized less as the unand pristine Word of God than as a hetero-
Bible could
questionably authoritative
geneous collection of writings in various traditional
composed, collected, and
editorially modified
genres,
literary
many human hands
by
over the centuries. Soon biblical textual criticism was followed by
critical
dogma and the church, and by historical investigations into the life of Jesus. The intellectual skills developed for analyzing secular history and literature were now being applied to the
historical studies of Christian
sacred foundations of Christianity, with unsettling consequences for the faithful.
By the time such
studies were joined by the
Darwinian theory's
discrediting of the creation narrative found in Genesis, the validity of scriptural revelation
have been made
had become
in the
entirely problematic.
image of
God
if
he was
Man
could hardly
also the biological
descendant of subhuman primates. The thrust of evolution was not one of spiritual transfiguration but of biological survival.
Newton
While up through
the weight of science had tended to support an argument for the
existence of
God
based on evidence of design in the universe, after
Darwin the weight of science was thrown against that argument. The evidence of natural history seemed more plausibly comprehended in terms of evolutionary principles of natural selection and random mutation than in terms of a transcendent Designer.
Certainly some scientists of a Christian persuasion noted the affinity
between the theory of evolution and the Judaeo-Christian notion of God's progressive and providential plan of with the
New
history.
These drew
parallels
Testament's conception of an immanent evolutionary
process of divine incarnation in
man and
nature,
and even attempted
remedy some of Darwinism's theoretical shortcomings with
to
religious
The Triumph of Secularism
\Q$
explanatory principles. Yer
tor a culture generally
more
derstanding
its
between the
static original creation ot species In
Bible
winian evidence
ar
tor their
the
value,
face
accustomed
glaring
to un-
inconsistency
Genesis and the Dar-
transmutation ovei aeons
commanded
time
ot
the greater attention, ultimately encouraging massive agnostic defections
from the religious
told.
For at bottom, the Christian belid in
a
c
who
iod
acted through revelation and grace appeared wildlv incompatible with
common
everything
actually worked.
sense and science suggested about the way the world
With
Luther, the monolithic structure
ot
the medieval
Christian Church had cracked. With Copernicus and Galileo, medieval Christian cosmology itself had cracked. With Darwin, Christian world view showed signs ot collapsing altogether.
the
the
In an era so unprecedentedly illuminated by science and reason, the
"good news" ot Christianity became
less
less
The
psychologically necessary.
nexus
ot
less
ha\'e suddenly
and place only
historical time
single brief
on
become
convincing
metaphysi-
a
to build one's
lite,
and
sheer improbability o\ the whole
events was becoming painfully obvious
God would
nation,
and
upon which
cal structure, less secure a foundation
a particular
— that an
human
infinite eternal
being
in a specific
to be ignominiously executed.
That
a
taking place two millennia earlier in an obscure primitive
lite
a planet
now known
matter revolving about one
and impersonal universe
—
star
to be a relatively insignificant piece
among
billions in
that such an undistinguished event should
have any overwhelming cosmic or eternal meaning could no longei be compelling belief
d
an inconceivably vast
for reasonable
men.
a
was starkly implausible that the
It
universe as a whole would have any pressing interest in this minute part oi
its
the
immensity
—
if it
modern demand
statements of
What was
belief,
had any
own image
God was
a
and anthropomorphic projection
to assuage all the pain It,
intellect,
peculiarly durable combination
and
right
all
— made
the wrongs
in
man
by contrast, the unsentimental
reason could adhere closely to the concrete evidence, there was
necessity to posit the existence of such a Cjod, and
against
the spotlight ot
modern
probable, in the judgment of the critical
found unbearable in his existence.
no
Under
the essence of Christianity withered
o\ wish-fulfillment fantasy
human
all.
for public, empirical, scientific corroboration ot all
was that the Judaeo-Christian man's
"interests" at
it.
world and
The its
scientific data
1
much
that
overwhelmingly thar the natural
history were expressions of an impersonal pr
exactly what caused this complex
phenomen
both
306
The Modern World View
order and chaos, dramatic and yet evidently purposeless, out of control in
the sense of lacking divine government
—
to go so far as to posit
and
define what was behind this empirical reality had to be regarded as intellectually
unsound, a mere dreaming about the world. The ancient
concern with cosmic designs and divine purposes, with ultimate metaphysical issues, with the why's of
attention of scientists.
It
phenomena, now ceased
was patently more
to
fruitful to focus
engage the
on the
hou/s,
the material mechanisms, the laws of nature, the concrete data that
could be measured and tested.
Not
11
on the hard
that science perversely insisted
"narrower" vision out of simple myopia. Rather, the
empirical
and tangible
correlations
it
causes,
facts
and on
a
was only the how's, that
could be ex-
perimentally confirmed. Teleological designs and spiritual causes could
not be subjected to such testing, could not be systematically isolated, and therefore could not be
known
to exist at
It
all.
was better to deal only
with categories that could be empirically evidenced than to allow into the scientific discussion transcendent principles abstract
—
could a
God
the character and
was scarcely a testable
modus operandi
in the
no more be corroborated than
that in the final analysis could
fairy tale.
—however noble
entity.
And
in
any case,
of the Judaeo-Christian deity
ill
fitted
the real world discovered by science.
With
its
apocalyptic prophecies and sacred rituals,
hero and world savior motifs,
its
its
deified
human
miracle stories, moralisms, and venera-
tion of saints and relics, Christianity seemed best understood as a singularly successful folk
and order
—
inspiring
hope
meaning
in believers, giving
to their lives, but without ontological foundation. In such a
could be seen as well-meaning but credulous.
light, Christians
victory of
myth
Darwinism (and notably
in the
With
the
wake o{ the celebrated Oxford
debate in 1860 between Bishop Wilberforce and T. H. Huxley), science
had unequivocally achieved win, there seemed
little
its
independence from theology. After Dar-
further possibility of contact of any kind
between
science and theology, as science focused ever more successfully
on the
objective world, while theology, virtually incapacitated outside ever-
smaller
religious
intellectual
spiritual concerns. intelligible
circles,
Faced by the
final
focused exclusively on
inward
severance of the scientifically
universe from the old spiritual verities,
modern theology
adopted an increasingly subjective stance. The early Christian belief that the Fall and tire
cosmos,
a
Redemption pertained not
just to
man
but to the en-
doctrine already fading after the Reformation,
now
The Triumph of Secularism
\qq
disappeared altogether the process
ol salvation,
it
it
had any nu\im:
pertained solely to the personal relation between
all,
God and man.
inner rewards ol Christian faith were
now
continuity between the experience
Christ and that
God
world.
ot
was wholly other than man and
the religious experience.
The
stressed,
with
he
I
a radical dis-
the everyday
ot
this world, and therein lay
"leap ot faith," not the self-evidence ot the
created world or the objective authority ot Scripture, constituted
tin-
principal basis tor religious coin action.
Under such less
modern Christianity assumed
limitations,
encompassing intellectual
In
role.
its
a
new and
long«held capacity
explanatory paradigm tor the visible world and universal belief system
Western
culture, the Christian revelation
had
lost its
potency.
that Christian ethics were not so readily depreciated by the
atheists, the ot
many
For
sensibility.
non-Christians,
as
Word
ot
God
true
secular
admirable as those
any other ethical system. But the Christian revelation
infallible
Is
tor
even outspoken agnostics and
moral ideals taught by Jesus remained
miracles and so forth
It
new
tar
both
as
as a
— the
whole
in the Bible, the divine plan o\ salvation, the
—could
not be taken seriously. That Jesus was
simply a man, albeit a compelling one, seemed increasingly self-evident.
Compassion ideal,
A
but
its
humanity was
tor
basis
still
upheld
as a social
and individual
was now secular and humanistic rather than
religious.
humanitarian liberalism thereby sustained certain elements of the
Christian ethos without the
modern mind admired the
latter's
transcendent foundation. Just
loftiness of spirit
philosophy while simultaneously negating
its
as the
and moral tone oi Platonic metaphysics and epistemol*
ogy, so too Christianity continued to be tacitly respected, and indeed closely followed, for its
its
larger metaphysical It is
ethical precepts, while increasingly doubted tor
and
religious claims.
also true that in the eyes of not a few scientists
science
itself
and philosophers,
contained a religious meaning, or was open to
a religious
interpretation, or could serve as an opening to a religious appreciation ^\
the universe.
The beauty
of nature's forms, the splendor ot
its
variety,
human body, the evohl* human mind, the mathe-
the extraordinarily intricate functioning of the tionary development of the
human
eye or the
matical patterning of the cosmos, the unimaginable magnitude ^\ the
—
heavenly spaces
to
some these seemed
to require the existence
divine intelligence and power ot miraculous sophistication. Bur others argued that such phenomena were the Straightforward and tively
random
results of the
natural
laws
>>t
physics,
chemistry,
t
a
many rela-
and
308
The Modern World View
The human
biology.
psyche, longing for the security of a cosmic provi-
dence, and susceptible to personifying and projecting
its
own
capacity for
value and purpose, might wish to see more in nature's design, but the
understanding was
scientific
beyond such wishful an-
deliberately
thropomorphizing: the entire scenario o{ cosmic evolution seemed ex-
chance and necessity, the random
plicable as a direct consequence of
interplay of natural
had
plications
laws.
any apparent religious im-
In this light,
to be judged as poetic but scientifically unjustifiable
extrapolations from the available evidence.
hypothesis."
God was
"an unnecessary
12
Philosophy, Politics, Psychology developments in philosophy during these centuries reinforced
Parallel
the same secular progression. During the Scientific Revolution and the early
Enlightenment,
religion
continued
to
hold
its
own among
philosophers, but was already being transformed by the character of the scientific
mind.
preference
In
Enlightenment Deists
to
like Voltaire
or a "natural religion."
traditional
religions
Christianity,
Such would be appropriate not only
rational apprehension of nature's order sal first cause,
biblical
argued in favor of a "rational religion"
and the requirement of
to the
a univer-
but also to the West's encounter with other cultures'
and ethical systems
—an
encounter suggesting to many the
existence of a universal religious sensibility grounded in
common human
experience. In such a context, the absolute claims of Christianity could
not enjoy special privilege. Newton's cosmic architecture demanded a
cosmic architect, but the attributes of such a
God
could be properly
derived only from the empirical examination of his creation, not from the extravagant pronouncements of revelation. Earlier religious con-
ceptions
—
primitive,
biblical,
infantile steps to the
medieval
—could
now
be recognized as
more mature modern understanding of an im-
personal rational deity presiding over an orderly creation.
The rationalist God, however, soon began to lose philosophical support. With Descartes, God's existence had been affirmed not through faith but
through reason; yet on that basis God's certain existence could
not be indefinitely sustained,
as
Hume
and Kant, the culminating
philosophers of the Enlightenment, noted in their different ways. as
Ockham had warned
Much
four centuries earlier, rational philosophy could
The Tnumph of Secularism
not presume to pronounce on matters that so ically
based intellect At the
start of
far
transcended the empir-
the Enlightenment,
in
the late
seventeenth century, Locke had systematically pursued Bacon's empiricist
directive by rooting
all
knowledge
and subsequent reflection on the
ol
the world in sensor) experience
basis ot rbar experience.
Locke'fl
inclinations were Peist, and be retained Descartes's Certainty thai Ood'l
existence wa> logically demonstrable from self-evident intuitions. the empiricism be
championed
human
necessarily limited the
But
reason's
capacity tor knowledge tO that which could be tested by concrete experi-
ence.
As
successive philosophers drew
the empiricist basis, justifiably
make
it
became
no longer immortality and free-
clear that philosophy could
assertions about
dom, or otber propositions
more rigorOUS conclusions from
God, the
soul's
that transcended concrete experience.
In the eighteenth century,
Hume
and Kant systematically refuted the
traditional philosophical arguments tor God's existence, pointing out the
unwarrantahility of using causal reasoning to the supersensible.
Only the realm of
move from
possible experience, ot concrete
particulars registered in sensation, offered any
sophical conclusions. For
Hume, an
the sensible to
ground
for valid philo-
entirely secular thinker
unequivocal in his skepticism, the matter was simple:
To
and more
argue from the
problematic evidence of this world to the certain existence of the good
and omnipotent
God
of Christianity was a philosophical absurdity. But
even Kant, though highly
religious himself
and intent on preserving the
moral imperatives of the Christian conscience, nevertheless recognized that Descartes's laudable philosophical skepticism had ceased too abruptly
with his dogmatic assertions about God's certain existence derived
from the
cogito.
For Kant,
God was
an unknowable transcendent
thinkable, not knowable, only by attending to man's inner sense ot moral duty. Neither
human
reason nor the empirical world could give any
direct or unequivocal indication of a divine reality. in
God,
Man
could have faith
he could believe in his soul's freedom and immortality, but he
could not claim that these inner persuasions were rationally certain the rigorous
modern philosopher, metaphysical
Foi
certainties about
or the like were spurious, lacking as they did a sound basi> tor verification.
The
inevitable and proper
outcome of both empiricism and
crit icil
philosophy was to eliminate any theological substrate from modern philosophy.
At
the same time, the bolder thinkers of the French Enlightenment
increasingly tended toward not only skepticism but
m.iten-
310
The
Modem
World View
alism as the most intellectually justifiable consequence of the scientific Diderot, chief editor of the Encyclopedic,
discoveries.
the Enlighten-
ment's great project of cultural education, illustrated in his gradual transformation of a reflective
then to skepticism, and a deistic ethics.
who
portrayed
whose
man
man
The
the physician La Mettrie,
an organic machine
as a purely material entity,
an independent soul or mind was produced
its
physical components.
ethical consequence of such a philosophy, to advocate.
physicist
the
ambiguously joined with
finally to a materialism
simply by the interplay of
life
from religious belief to Deism,
More uncompromising was
illusion of possessing
own
Hedonism was the
which La Mettrie did not
Baron d'Holbach
terminisms of matter as the only intelligible
fail
similarly affirmed the dereality,
and declared the
absurdity of religious belief in the face of experience: given the ubiquity
of evil in the world, any justice
and compassion.
good and
evil
God must
On
be deficient either in power or in
the other hand, the
random occurrence of
accorded readily with a universe of mindless matter lacking
any providential overseer. Atheism was necessary to destroy the chimeras
human
of religious fantasy that endangered the
race.
Man
needed
to be
brought back to nature, experience, and reason. It
would be the nineteenth century that would bring the Enlighten-
Comte,
Mill,
Feuerbach, Marx, Haeckel, Spencer, Huxley, and, in a somewhat
differ-
ment's secular progression to
ent
The
Nietzsche
spirit,
all
Judaeo-Christian
that creation
Human
had
its
logical conclusion as
sounded the death knell of traditional
God was
man's
own
creation,
necessarily dwindled with man's
religion.
and the need
for
modern maturation.
history could be understood as progressing from a mythical
theological stage, through a metaphysical and abstract stage, to
its
and final
triumph in science, based on the positive and concrete. This world of
man and
matter was clearly the one demonstrable
reality.
Metaphysical
speculations concerning "higher" spiritual entities constituted nothing
more than and
its
idle intellectual fantasy,
present fate.
The
God, who was merely
and were
humanity
a disservice to
duty of the modern age was the humanization of
a projection of man's
own
inner nature.
One
could
perhaps speak of "an Unknowable" behind the world's phenomena, but that was the extent of what could be said with any legitimacy.
more immediately apparent, and more
modern world view, was comprehended,
that the world's
What was
positively contributive to the
phenomena were being
to humanity's inestimable benefit, by science,
superbly
and that
the terms of that comprehension were fundamentally naturalistic.
The
The Tnumph of Secularism
question remained o\ the
who, or what,
as to
hut
universe,
\
intellectual
precluded any certain con-
elusions or even progress in such an inquiry. illy
beyond man's ken and,
whole phenomenon
Initiated the
honesty
in the
1
bee
Its
answer L\ epistemo*
ot
more immediate and
beyond
attainable intellectual objectives, increasingly
his interest.
With
utes and Kant, the philosophical relation between Christian belief
and human
had grown ever more attenuated. By the
rationality
late
nineteenth century, with tew exceptions, that relation was effectively absent.
There were
many nonepistemological
also
economic, psychological tion ot the belief.
—
pressing toward this
modern mind and
Even before the
factors
its
political,
same end, the
social,
seculariza-
disengagement from traditional religious
Industrial Revolution
had demonstrated science's
superior utilitarian value, other cultural developments had
the scientific view over the religious.
The
recommended
Scientific Revolution
had
been born amidst the immense turmoil and destruction of the wars religion that followed the Reformation, wars that in the
name
vergent Christian absolutisms had caused over a century of Europe. In such circumstances
much doubt was
the Christian understanding, as well as upon ot relative
peace and security,
let
the increased fervor of religiosity vinist,
cast
its
upon the
di-
crisis
in
integrity ot
ability to foster a
world
alone of universal compassion. Despite
—whether Lutheran, Zwinglian, CalCatholic —experienced by the
Anabaptist, Anglican, Puritan, or
European populace
in the
wake of the Reformation,
that the culture's failure to agree
on
subjective and
more
rationally persuasive.
verifiable world
reception
among
it
was clear to many
a universally valid religious truth
created the need for another type of belief system,
ically
ot
ot
Thus the
less
had
controversially
neutral and empir-
view of secular science soon found an ardent
the educated class, offering a
conceptual framework that peacefully cut across boundaries. Just as the
last
commonly acceptable
all political
major convulsions
ot
and
religious
post'Reformational
bloodshed had been expended, the Scientific Revolution was approach'
The
ing completion.
final
decade of the Thirty Years' Wtr, 1638 48, law
the publication of both Galileo's Dialogue Concerning Tu
and Descartes's
Principles of Philosophy,
Circumstances of a more part in the
modern
existed a fateful
shift
Neu
as well as the birth of
Sciences
Newton.
specifically political nature wire also to play a
away from
religion.
For centuries, there had
association between the hierarchical
view and the established social-political structur
(
hristian world idal
Europe,
312
The Modern World View
centering on the traditional authority figures of God, pope, and king. By the eighteenth century,
advantageous.
The growingly apparent
injustices of the other
had become mutually
that association
combined
implausibilities of the
dis-
one and
to produce the image of a system
whose
senile oppressiveness demanded revolt for the larger good of humanity. The French philosophes Voltaire, Diderot, Condorcet and their successors among the French revolutionaries recognized the Church itself in
—
its
wealth and power
—
as a bastion of reactionary forces, allied inextricably
to the conservative institutions of the ancien regime.
To
the philo-
sophes, the power of the organized clergy posed a formidable obstacle to
the progress of civilization. In addition to the issue of economic and
atmosphere of censorship, intolerance, and
social exploitation, the
tellectual rigidity that the philosophes
rary intellectual
and vested
life
in-
found so abhorrent in contempo-
was directly attributable to the dogmatic pretensions
interests of the ecclesiastical establishment.
Voltaire had seen and admired firsthand the consequences of En-
which
gland's religious toleration, clarifications of
in turn,
with the superior intellectual
Bacon, Locke, and Newton, he enthusiastically pre-
sented to the Continent for emulation.
Armed with
empirical facts, the Enlightenment saw
itself as
science, reason,
and
engaged in a noble
struggle against the constricting medieval darkness of
Church dogma and
popular superstition, tied to a backward and tyrannical political structure of corrupt privilege.
13
The
cultural authority of dogmatic religion
was
recognized as inherently inimical to personal liberty and unhampered
and discovery. By implication, the
intellectual speculation
—except
sensibility itself
as antagonistic to
in rationalized, deistic
human
form
—could
religious
well be seen
freedom.
Yet one philosophe, the Swiss-born Jean-Jacques Rousseau, asserted a very different view. Like his fellows in the vanguard of the Enlighten-
ment, Rousseau argued with the weapons of critical reason and reformist zeal.
Yet the progress of civilization they celebrated seemed to him the
source of
much
of the world's
corrupt sophistications, of simplicity,
evil.
Man
sincerity,
equality,
kindness,
Moreover, Rousseau believed religion was tion.
He contended and
from
civilization's
his natural condition
and true understanding.
intrinsic to the
human
condi-
that the philosophes' exaltation of reason
neglected man's actual nature intuition
suffered
which alienated him from
spiritual
—
his feelings, his depths of impulse
hunger that transcended
all
had and
abstract formulae.
Rousseau certainly disbelieved in the organized churches and clergy, and
The Triumph of Secularism
\
thought absurd the orthodox Christian
belief that
one—the
the exclusively and eternally genuine
its
form
ol
1
\
worship was
only religion acceptable
to the Creator oi a world most t
hum, in observation.
344
The Transformation of
They
grounded epistemologically
are
the
in the nature of the
Modern Era
mind, not
ontologically in the nature of things. Because mathematical propositions
on
are based
direct intuitions o( spatial relations, they are "a priori"
constructed by the mind and not derived from experience are also valid for experience, priori
form of space.
It
is
entangled in contradiction as a
whole
—
to ascertain
in trying to decide
which
will
yet they
by necessity conform to the a
true that pure reason inevitably
becomes
attempts to apply these ideas to the world
if it
what
is
beyond
true
whether the universe
or space. But as regards the
—and
is
all
possible experience
infinite or finite either in
—
as
time
phenomenal world that man does experience,
time and space are not just applicable concepts, they are intrinsic
components of mandatory
for
all human experience human cognition.
of that world, frames of reference
Moreover, further analysis reveals that the character and structure of the
mind
are such that the events
subject to other a priori principles
it
perceives in space and time are
—namely,
the categories of the un-
derstanding, such as the law of causation. These categories in turn lend their necessity to scientific knowledge.
related in the world outside the
man
the world that predispositions,
it
Whether
mind cannot be
experiences
is
events are causally
all
ascertained, but because
necessarily determined by his mind's
can be said with certainty that events in the phe-
and science can so proceed. The
nomenal world
are causally related,
mind does not
derive cause and effect from observations, but already
experiences
observations in a context in which cause and effect are
presupposed
its
realities: causality in
experience but
As with
is
human
cognition
not derived from
is
brought to experience.
cause and effect, so too with other categories of the un-
derstanding such as substance, quantity, and relation. Without such
fundamental frames of reference, such a
human mind would
priori interpretive principles, the
be incapable of comprehending
its
world.
Human
experience would be an impossible chaos, an utterly formless and miscellaneous manifold,
except that the
human
sensibility
and under-
standing by their very nature transfigure that manifold into a unified perception, place
it
in a
framework of time and space, and subject
it
to
the ordering principles of causality, substance, and the other categories.
Experience
The
is
a construction of the
a priori forms
experience.
They
and
mind imposed on
sensation.
categories serve as absolute conditions of
are not read out of experience, but read into
are a priori, yet empirically applicable
—and
it.
They
applicable only empirically,
The
Self-Critique of the
H^
Modern Mind
not metaphysically. For the only world that world of phenomena,
man
extent that
or
on
construction.
its
We
the empirical
can know things
restricted to the sensible effects
is
and these appearances or phenomena
US,
la
"appearances," and that world exists only to the
participates in
only relative to ourselves. Knowledge of things
man knows
are,
as
it
were,
predigested Contrary to the usual assumption, the mind never experiences what
is
"out there" apart from the
mind
in
some
one
ot his
own making, and
the world in
itself
clear, undistOTted
man
mirroring of objective "reality." Rather, "reality" tor
is
necessarily
must remain something
one can only think about, never know.
The
man
perceives in his world
is
thus an order grounded not in
that world hut in his mind: the mind, as
it
were, forces the world to obey
its
own
the
order
organization. All sensory experience has heen channeled through
filter ot
human
Man
a priori structures.
can attain certain knowledge
of the world, not because he has the power to penetrate to and grasp the
world in
itself,
but because the world he perceives and understands
world already saturated with the principles of his tion.
This organization
is
what
is
own mental
is
a
organiza-
absolute, not that of the world in
itself,
which ultimately remains beyond human cognition. But because man's mental organization genuine certainty
is
— know, that
phenomenal world. Thus man does not receive knowledge
Kant assumed, man can know with
absolute, is,
all
the only world he can experience, the
his
knowledge from experience, but
in a sense already introduces itself into his
his
experience in the
process of cognition. Although Kant criticized Leibniz and the rationalists
for believing that reason alone
late the universe (for,
without sense experience can calcu-
Kant argued, knowledge requires acquaintance
with particulars), he also criticized Locke and the empiricists for believing that sense impressions alone, without a priori concepts of the
understanding,
could
ever
lead
knowledge
to
particulars
(for
are
meaningless without general concepts by which they are interpreted).
Locke was correct
to
deny innate ideas
tions o\ physical reality, but
wrong
thought without sensation
is
blind.
Only
in
to
in the sense of
mental representa-
deny innate formal knowledge. As
empty, so
is
sensation without thought
conjunction can understanding and sensibility supply
objectively valid knowledge of thing's.
For Kant, Hume's division of propositions into those based on intellect
pure-
(which are necessary but tautological) and those based on pure
sensation (which are factual but not necessary) required
a
third
and more
346
The Transformation of
Modern Era
the
important category, one involving the intimately combined operation of
both
faculties.
Without such
a
combination, certain knowledge would be
One cannot know something
impossible.
about the world simply by
thinking; nor can one do so simply by sensing, or even by sensing and
The two modes must be
then thinking about the sensations.
in-
terpenetrating and simultaneous.
Hume's
had demonstrated that the human mind could never
analysis
attain certain
knowledge of the world,
apparent order oi
for the
all
past
experience could not guarantee the order of any future experience. Cause
was not directly perceivable
and the mind could not
in the world,
penetrate beyond the veil of phenomenal experience o{ discrete particulars. It
was therefore clear to Kant that
if
we
received
o{ things from sensation alone, there would be
then moved beyond
Hume
no
our knowledge
all
But Kant
certainty.
because he recognized the extent to which
the history of science had progressed only
on the
basis of conceptual
predispositions that were not derived from experience, but were already
woven ton's
He knew
into the fabric of the scientific observation.
that
New-
and Galileo's theories could not have been derived simply from
observations,
for purely accidental observations
prearranged according to to a general law.
on nature
human
that have not been
design and hypothesis could never lead
Man can elicit from nature universal
like a pupil for answers,
laws not by waiting
but only, like an appointed judge, by
putting shrewd questions to nature that will be deliberately and precisely revealing. Science's answers derive from the
On
same source
as
its
questions.
the one hand, the scientist requires experiments to ascertain that his
hypotheses are valid and thus true laws of nature; only by sure there are
no exceptions and
o{ the understanding and not only imaginary. scientist also requires a priori hypotheses
observe and
test
the nature of
all
only that which
it
fruitfully.
human it
And
tests
can he be
that his concepts are genuine concepts
even
On to
the other hand, the
approach the world, to
the situation of science in turn reflects
experience.
The mind can know with
has in some sense already put into
Man's knowledge, then, does not conform to
conform to man's knowledge. Certain knowledge
its
objects, is
certainty
experience.
but objects
possible in a phe-
nomenal universe because the human mind bestows to that universe its own absolute order. Thus Kant proclaimed what has been called his "Copernican revolution":
movement
as
Copernicus had explained the perceived
of the heavens by the actual
movement
o( the observer, so
I
he sdi
i
'.ntuiuc
r/u-
>f
modem
Hie continuing
ambiguous. Ing
\$1
sense o( Intellectual progress, lea\
behind the ignorance and misconceptions
the fruits oi now
concrete technological
od past eras
wink- reaping
was again
results,
K
Even Newton had been corrected and Improved upon evolving,
sophisticated
increasingly
man) who had regarded determinism
materialistic
the
4
new
universe
as antithetical to
values, die
human
die
oi
seemed
will
to
subatomic particles were indeterminate,
it
spiritual
s
In*
given
application in
knowledge,
a
central role in the larger
and
science.
Human
scheme
with
phenomena encouraged
new
1
I
scientists
began
the smallest
to
new understanding
oi
holistic thinking about the world,
question modern science's pervasive,
measurable components
reductionist program,
oi
in
and
likely
to
reality
.ill
the physical world would In
the universe.
miss
th.it
to
I
he
many
which was most
the nature ot things.
Vet such inferences were neithei universal noi even widespread practicing physicists. interpretation,
often
it
effort to reduce
dominant since Descartes, now appeared
he myopically selective,
significant
more
i
he Jeep interconne< ted
eventually reveal that which was most fundamental
to
least
at
be given
oi
social, moral. anJ religious implications. Increasing numbers
unconscious, assumption that the intellectual to
to
things with the
oi
a
consciousness, oi
seemed
the subject's influence on the observed objec
oi
broadei
its
complementarity between mutually exclusive ways
liko religion
observation and interpretation,
mam
in
new
s
principle oi
11 u-
complementarity governing waves and particles suggested
ness oi
quantum
unexpected and welcome broach
perhaps more conducive to
to s reality
freedom
terptetation.
human
and
mechanistic
ol
human
the
to
intellectual possibilities. Matter's fbrmei hard substantiality
had given waj
foothold
the evei
modern mind. Moreover,
scientific
relativistk revolution represented an
bolsti
Modem
physics was perhaps open
hut did not necessarily
compel
it.
to
Nor was
.1
among
spiritual
the largei
population intimately conversant with the arcane conceptual ch
wrought by the new physics. Moreover, tu>n
m
m
[Musks did not
the other
natural
result
and
m
largely
cal physics. Nevertheless,
many
sciences,
felt
aspii
transformations
theii
theoretical
th.u the old materialistic world
offered possible opportunities
with man's humanistic
although
al
on the me< hanistk principles of classic
had been irrevocably challenged, and reality
several decades the revolu
comparable theoretic
social
programs ha J been based
tor
rh.it t.-i
.1
the new scientific timJ.imrnt.il
\
lew
models
oi
rapprochement
358
The Transformation of
Yet these ambiguous turbing factors.
To
possibilities
the
Modern Era
were countered by other, more
begin with, there was
dis-
now no coherent conception
of
the world, comparable to Newton's Principia, that could theoretically
complex variety of new
integrate the
any consensus
as to
how
to
Conceptual con-
respect to defining the ultimate nature o{ reality. tradictions, disjunctions,
evaded resolution."
come
data. Physicists failed to
the existing evidence should be interpreted with
and paradoxes were ubiquitous, and stubbornly
A certain irreducible irrationality
7 ,
already recognized
human psyche, now emerged in the structure of the physical world To incoherence was added unintelligibility, for the conceptions derived from the new physics not only were difficult for the layperson to in the
itself.
comprehend, they presented seemingly insuperable obstacles
human
intuition generally:
a
curved space,
the
to
unbounded; a
yet
finite
four-dimensional space-time continuum; mutually exclusive properties possessed by the same subatomic entity; objects that were not really things at
phenomena
but processes or patterns ot relationship;
all
that
took no decisive shape until observed; particles that seemed to affect
each other
at a distance
with no
known
fundamental fluctuations oi energy in Moreover,
for all the
to a less materialistic
change in the
and
essential
as to
still
Nor was
minutia.
a total
vacuum.
apparent opening of the scientific understanding less
mechanistic conception, there was no real
modern dilemma: The universe was
impersonal vastness in which sciousness was
causal link; the existence of
man
an ephemeral,
randomly produced
inexplicable,
there any compelling answer to the looming question
what ontological context preceded or underlay the "big-bang"
o{ the universe.
Nor
to
birth
did leading physicists believe that the equations of
quantum theory described the confined
an
still
with his peculiar capacity for con-
abstractions,
actual world. Scientific
mathematical
knowledge was not of the world
itself,
knowledge was
"shadows."
symbols,
Such
which now more than ever seemed
beyond the compass of human cognition.
Thus of the
in certain respects the intellectual contradictions
new
physics only heightened the sense oi
and obscurities
human
alienation growing since the Copernican revolution.
relativity
and
Modern man
was
being forced to question his inherited classical Greek faith that the world
was ordered
in a
the physicist P.
manner
W.
clearly accessible to the
human
intelligence. In
Bridgman's words, "the structure of nature
may
eventually be such that our processes of thought do not correspond to sufficiently to permit us to think about
it
at all.
.
.
.
The world
it
fades out
The
Crisis of
and eludes
Modem
us.
.
.
Sck
.
have reached the
We are confronted with something
We
truly ineffable.
limit o( the vision ci the great pioneers ot science, the
we
vision, namelv, that
sympathetic world
live in a
in that
com-
is
it
prehensible by our minds.'" Philosophy's conclusion was becoming ence's
M
can objectively
compounded
insecure relativism
man
ici«
may not he structured in am way the human mind discern. Thus incoherence, unintelligibility, and an
well: Reality
the earlier
modern predicament
of hu-
alienation in an impersonal cosmos.
When
relativity theory
and quantum mechanics undid the absolute
Newtonian paradigm, science demonstrated, in a way convinced Newtonian could never have anticipated, the
certainty of the that
Kant
BLS
a
validity of Kant's skepticism
certain
knowledge of the world
truth o\
human
Newtonian
science,
Because he was certain
in itself.
a basis for the
centurv physics, the bottom
damental Kantian
a prioris
longer applicable to after
all
Newton
Newtonian achievement,
—
in general.
o\ the ot
out of Kant's
fell
last certainty.
space, time, substance, causality
phenomena. The
to be universal
scientific
as well
But with twentieth-
The
fun-
—were no
knowledge that had
and absolute had
quantum mechanics
to be recognized
reveal in unexpected fashion the radical validity
ot Kant's thesis that the nature described by physics itself
tor
Bohr, and Heisenberg as limited and provisional. So too
atter Einstein,
did
mind's capacity
Kant had argued that the categories
man's epistemological competence
seemed
human
cognition congruent with that science were themselves absolute,
and these alone provided as for
concerning the
but man's relation to nature
i.e.,
was not nature
in
nature as exposed DO man's form
of questioning.
What had been
implicit
in
Kant's critique,
apparent certainty of Newtonian
physics,
obscured by the
but
now became
explicit:
Because
induction can never render certain general laws, and because scientific
knowledge
is
a
product ot
selves relative, variable, act ot observation in
human
interpretive structures
and creatively employed, and
rh.it
finally
some sense produces the objective
are
them-
because the
reality science
attempts to explicate, the truths of science are neither absolute nor unequivocally objective. In the combined wrake
philosophy and
twentieth-cenfurv science, the
of absolutes, but also disconcertingly tree
t
o(
eighteenth~century
modern mind was any
K>lid
ground
left
tree
360
The Transformation of
Modern Era
the
This problematic conclusion was reinforced by a newly
critical
approach to the philosophy and history of science, influenced above by the work of Karl Popper and of
Hume
Thomas Kuhn. Drawing on
all
the insights
and Kant, Popper noted that science can never produce knowl-
edge that
is
certain, nor
even probable.
Man
making imaginative guesses about
stranger,
He cannot approach
observes the universe as a
its
structure
and workings.
the world without such bold conjectures in the
background, for every observed fact presupposes an interpretive focus. In science, these conjectures
yet
however many
must be continually and systematically
tests are successfully passed,
more than an imperfectly corroborated conjecture. At any
viewed
as
time, a
new
possibility.
could
test
Even the
falsify
it.
is
scientific truth
is
immune
to such a
new framework. Man can never claim
to
the real essences of things. Before the virtual infinitude of the
world's
egy
No
basic facts are relative, always potentially subject to
a radical reinterpretation in a
know
tested;
any theory can never be
phenomena, human ignorance
itself is infinite.
The
wisest strat-
to learn from one's inevitable mistakes.
But while Popper maintained the rationality of science by upholding its
fundamental commitment to rigorous testing of theories,
its
fearless
neutrality in the quest for truth, Kuhn's analysis of the history of science
tended to undercut even that security.
knowledge required interpretive
Kuhn
agreed that
structures based
digms or conceptual models that allowed researchers to elaborate theories, and solve problems. But citing
all scientific
on fundamental
isolate data,
many examples
he pointed out that the actual practice of
history of science,
seldom conformed to Popper's
para-
ideal of systematic self-criticism
in the
scientists
by means
of attempted falsification of existing theories. Instead, science typically
proceeded by
seeking
confirmations
of
the
prevailing
paradigm
gathering facts in the light of that theory, performing experiments on basis,
extending
its
range of applicability, further articulating
its
its
struc-
ture, attempting to clarify residual problems. Far from subjecting the
paradigm it
itself to
constant testing, normal science avoided contradicting
by routinely reinterpreting conflicting data in ways that would support
the paradigm, or by neglecting such awkward data altogether.
To an
extent never consciously recognized by scientists, the nature of scientific practice
makes
as a lens
through which every observation
its
governing paradigm self-validating.
an authoritative bulwark by texts, scientific
common
is
filtered,
The paradigm
and
is
acts
maintained
as
convention. Through teachers and
pedagogy sustains the inherited paradigm and
ratifies its
The
MooV™
Crisis of
Science
\6
tending to produce
credibility,
1
firmness oi conviction and theoretical
a
rigidity not unlike an education in systematic theolo
Kuhn
turrher argued that
when
the gradual accumulation
ing data finally produces a paradigm crisis sis
and
ol conflict'
new imaginative synthe-
a
eventually wins scientific favor, the process by which that revolution
rakes place
is
from rational.
tar
depends
It
as
much on
the established
community, on aesthetic, psychological, and on the presence ot contemporary root metaphors and
ot the scientific
customs
sociological (actors,
on unpredictable imaginative
popular analogies,
and
leaps
M
gestah
switches," even on the aging and dying ot conservative scientists,
and arguments. For
disinterested tests
in tact the rival
and hence different
ot interpretation
creates
its
own
gestalt, so
different paradigms
common
seem
comprehensive that
falsification,
standard tor comparison. scientists
is
working within
Nor
What
that
all
there any
is
an important problem
is
upon
scientists agree for
not for another. Thus the history of science
linear rational progress
as a
one group ni
is
not one
o\
moving toward ever more accurate and complete
knowledge of an objective
roles.
differing
measure, such as problem-solving ability or theoretical coher-
ence or resistance to
which
scientists
on
Each paradigm
sets ot data.
to be living in different worlds.
s
paradigms are
seldom genuinely comparable; they are selectively based on
modes
l(
truth, but
a multitude oi nonrational
one of
is
radical shifts of vision in
and nonempirical
Whereas Popper had attempted
to
factors play crucial
temper Hume's skepticism by
demonstrating the rationality of choosing the most rigorously tested conjecture, Kuhn's analysis served to restore that skepticism.
With
4
these philosophical and historical critiques and with the revolu-
tion in physics, a
more
intellectual circles. Science
knowledge, but
became widespread
in
patently effective and powerful in
its
tentative view of science
scientific
senses, a relative matter.
was
still
knowledge was now regarded
The knowledge
as,
in several
science rendered was relative to
the observer, to his physical context, to his science's prevailing paradigm
and
his
own
theoretical assumptions.
It
was relative
to his culture's
prevailing belief system, to his social context and psychological predispositions, to his very act of observation.
might be overturned
at
any point
in
And
the face of
science's
first
principles
new evidence. Moreover,
bv the later twentieth century, the conventional paradigm structures of other science^, including the Darwinian theory ot evolution, were coming under increasing pressure from conflicting data and alternative theories.
Above
all,
the bedrock certainty ot the Cartesian-Newtonian world
362
The Transformation of
the
Modem
view, for centuries the acknowledged epitome and model of
knowledge and
still
tuitively accessible
human
pervasively influential in the cultural psyche, had
And
been shattered.
Era
the post-Newtonian world order was neither in-
nor internally coherent
— indeed,
scarcely an order
at all.
Yet for
science's cognitive status
all this,
would
still
have retained
unquestioned preeminence for the modern mind. Scientific truth
its
might be increasingly esoteric and only provisional, but truth, continually being
practical effects in the
its
it
was
a testable
improved and more accurately formulated, and form oi technological progress— in industry,
agriculture, medicine, energy production,
communication and
trans-
portation—provided tangible public evidence for science's claims to render viable
knowledge of the world. But
gible evidence that for
it
it
was, paradoxically, this same tan-
was to prove crucial
in
an antithetical development;
was when the practical consequences oi
no longer be judged to reevaluate
As
its
scientific
exclusively positive that the
knowledge could
modern mind was
early as the nineteenth century,
Emerson had warned that man's
technical achievements might not be unequivocally in his interests:
forced
previously wholehearted trust in science.
own
best
"Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." By the turn of the
century, just as technology was producing
mobile and the widespread application of
new wonders electricity,
began to sense that such developments might
signal
like the auto-
a few observers
an ominous reversal
human values. By the mid-twentieth century, modern science's brave new world had started to become subject to wide and vigorous criticism: of
Technology was taking over and dehumanizing man, placing him context of
artificial
in a
substances and gadgets rather than live nature, in an
unaesthetically standardized environment where
means had subsumed
ends, where industrial labor requirements entailed the mechanization of
human
beings,
where
all
problems were perceived
as soluble
by technical
research at the expense of genuine existential responses.
The
self-
propelling and self-augmenting imperatives of technical functioning were
man and uprooting him from his fundamental relation to the Human individuality seemed increasingly tenuous, disappearing
dislodging Earth.
under the impact of mass production, the mass media, and the spread of a bleak and problem-ridden urbanization. Traditional structures and values
were crumbling.
With an unending stream
of technological
inno-
The
Crisis of
Moden\
modem
vations,
\o
Science
life
was subject
was becoming
lived
an unprecedentedly disorienting
to
Gigantism and turmoil, excessive noise, speed, and
rapidity ot change.
human environment. The
complexity dominated the
man
as
impersonal as the COSRIOS
world
man's capacity to retain
humanity
his
technology seemed increasingly freedom,
of
mankind's
become
creation, had
In
e.
With
modem
oi
life,
An environment determined by
doubt.
in
ability to
which
In
kmh
s^
oi his
the pervasive anonymity, hollowness, and materialism
human
\
For many,
the question of
maintain mastery over
its
own
acute.
But compounding these humanistic critiques were more disturbingly concrete signs
tamination
of
untoward consequences. The
science's
ot the planet's water,
on animal and plant
effects
lite,
air,
and
soil,
critical
con-
the manifold harmful
the extinction ot innumerable species,
the deforestation ot the globe, the erosion ot topsoil, the depletion ot
groundwater, the vast accumulation of toxic wastes, the apparent exacerbation ot the greenhouse effect, the breakdown of the ozone layer in
the atmosphere, the radical disruption of the entire planetary ecosystern
—
all
these emerged as direly serious problems with increasing force
and complexity.
From even
a
human
short-term
perspective,
accelerating depletion of irreplaceable natural resources had
the
become an
alarming phenomenon. Dependence on foreign supplies of vital resources brought
New
a
new
precariousness into global political and economic
life.
banes and stresses to the social fabric continued to appear, directly
or indirectly tied to the advance of a scientific civilization
overdevelopment and overcrowding, cultural and
numbingly mechanical automobile and
social
— urban
rootlessness,
labor, increasingly disastrous industrial accidents,
air travel fatalities,
cancer and heart disease, alcoholism
and drug addiction, mind-dulling and culture-impoverishing
television,
growing levels of crime, violence, and psychopathology. Even science's
most cherished successes paradoxically entailed new and pressing problems, as rates,
when
the medical relief of human illness and lowering ot mortality
combined with technological
strides in
food production and trans-
portation, in turn exacerbated the thre.it ot global overpopulation. In
new
other cases, the advance of science presented in
those surrounding the unforeseeable future uses
More
generally, the scientifically
Faustian dilemmas, as ot genetic
untathomed complexity
variables— whether in global or local environments, in the
human body— made
the consequences
tion of those variables unpredictable
*
»t
engineering.
oi
in social
.ill
relevant
systems, or
technological manipula-
and often pernicious.
364
The Transformation of
the
Modern Era
All these developments had reached an early and ominous proleptic
when
climax
natural science and political history conspired to produce
the atomic bomb.
It
seemed supremely,
tragically,
if
ironic that the
Einsteinian discovery of the equivalence of mass and energy, by which a particle of matter could be converted into
energy
—
human
a discovery
by a dedicated
intellectual brilliance
and
an immense quantity of
pacifist reflecting a certain
creativity
—
apex of
precipitated for the
With
time in history the prospect oi humanity's self-extinction.
first
the
dropping of atomic bombs on the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
moral neutrality, not to say
faith in science's intrinsic
its
unlimited
powers of benign progress, could no longer be upheld. During the protracted and tense global schism oi the Cold
War
numbers of unprecedentedly destructive nuclear
that followed, the
missiles
multiplied until the entire planet could be devastated
relentlessly
many
times over.
now brought into peril by virtue of its own genius. The same science that had dramatically lessened the hazards and burdens of human survival now presented to human survival its gravest menace. The great succession of science's triumphs and cumulative progress was now shadowed by a new sense of science's limits, its dangers, and its culpability. The modern scientific mind found itself beleaguered on several fronts at once: by the epistemological critiques, by its own Civilization itself was
theoretical problems arising in a growing
number
of fields, by the in-
creasingly urgent psychological necessity of integrating the look's
human- world
divide,
and intimate involvement
and above
all
by
its
in the planetary crisis.
of scientific research with the political,
modern
out-
adverse consequences
The
military,
close association
and corporate
es-
tablishments continued to belie science's traditional self-image of de-
tached purity.
many
The
very concept of "pure science" was
as entirely illusory.
The
belief that the scientific
access to the tmth oi the world, that
it
now
criticized
by
mind had unique
could register nature like a perfect
mirror reflecting an extrahistorical, universal objective reality, was seen
not only as epistemologically naive, but also as serving, either consciously or unconsciously, specific political
and economic agenda, often
allowing vast resources and intelligence to be commandeered for pro-
grams of social and ecological domination. The aggressive exploitation of the natural environment, the proliferation of nuclear weaponry, the threat of global catastrophe
human
reason
itself,
—
now
destructive irrationality.
all
pointed to an indictment of science, of
seemingly
in
thrall
to
man's
own
self-
The
Crisis of
Modem
hypotheses were to be rigorously and disinterestedly
If all scientific
tested,
then
seemed
it
U>s
Science
thai the "scientific world view"
modern
ing metahypothesis oi the
deleterious and counterproductive consequences
The
which
enterprise,
scientific
cultural predicament -philosophical,
had now provoked
a biological
earlier
its
in
In the
simph by
time not in religion but
in
a
belief that the
advance and
engineering had been confounded. The West was again losing this
its
psychological
social,
scientific
by
empirical world.
emergency. The optimistic
world's dilemmas could he solved
falsified
had presented
itages
religious,
the govern-
itself,
was being decisively
era,
its
social faith,
human
science and in the autonomous
reason.
Science was its
still
valued, in
many
respects
untainted image as humanity's liberator.
It
had
claims to virtually absolute cognitive reliability. longer exclusively benign, with
its
and economic
ot scientific
also lost
With
Long'Secure
productions no
evident susceptibility
its
knowledge could no longer be affirmed.
— mixed with —seemed
Hume's
a relativized
On
the basis of these
radical epistemologi-
Kantian sense of a
publicly vindicated. After
tive structures
its
lost
bias, the previously unqualified trustworthiness
several interacting factors, something like cal skepticism
its
had
it
reductionist understanding of the
natural environment apparently deficient, with to political
revered. But
still
priori cogni-
modern philosophy's
acute epistemological critique, the principal remaining foundation for reason's validity
had been
its
empirical support by science.
The
philo-
sophical critique alone had been in effect an abstract exercise, without definite influence
continued
if
on the
larger culture or
the scientific enterprise had
equivocally positive in
its
practical
on
science,
itself
and would have so
continued being so un-
and cognitive
progress.
But with
science's concrete consequences so problematic, reason's last foundation
was now unfirm.
Many
thoughtful observers, not just professional philosophers, were
forced to reevaluate the status of
knows
human knowledge. Man might
things, scientifically or otherwise, but there
tee for this:
he had no
a
priori
rhink he
was clearly no guaran-
rational access to
universal
truths;
empirical data were always theory-soaked and relative to the observer;
and the previously
reliable scientific world
view was open to fundamental
question, for that conceptual framework was evidently K>rh creating and
exacerbating problems tor humanirv on
a global scale. Scientific
edge was stupendouslv effective, hut those
knowledge from
a limited perspective
effects suggested that
could he
a
knowl-
much
us rhin^.
Romanticism and The
Two
Its
Fate
Cultures
From the complex matrix
of the Renaissance had issued forth two
distinct streams of culture,
two temperaments or general approaches to
human
existence characteristic of the Western mind.
One emerged
in
the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment and stressed rationality, empirical science, and a skeptical secularism.
complement, sharing
Greco-Roman
common
The
other was
roots in the Renaissance
its
and
polar
classical
culture (and in the Reformation as well), but tending to
express just those aspects of human experience suppressed by the Enlight-
enment's overriding
spirit
of rationalism. First conspicuously present in
Rousseau, then in Goethe, Schiller, Herder, and this side of the
and
Western
sensibility fully
early nineteenth centuries,
emerged
in the late eighteenth
and has not since ceased
Western culture and consciousness
force in
German Romanticism,
—from Blake,
to be a potent
Wordsworth,
Coleridge, Holderlin, Schelling, Schleiermacher, the Schlegel brothers,
Madame
de Stael, Shelley, Keats, Byron, Hugo, Pushkin, Carlyle, Emer-
son, Thoreau,
Whitman, and onward
in
its
diverse forms to their
many
descendants, countercultural and otherwise, of the present era.
To
be sure, the Romantic temperament shared
much with
its
Enlight-
enment opposite, and their complex interplay could be said to constitute the modern sensibility. Both tended to be "humanist" in their high estimate of man's powers and their concern with man's perspective on the universe. Both looked to this world and nature as the setting of the
human drama and the
phenomena
structures.
values.
the focus for
of
human
Both found
human
endeavor. Both were attentive to
consciousness and the nature of
its
hidden
in classical culture a rich source of insight
Both were profoundly Promethean
—
and
in their rebellion against
oppressive traditional structures, in their celebration of individual hu-
man
genius, in their restless quest for
human
freedom, fulfillment, and
bold exploration of the new.
But in each o{ these commonalities there were deep differences. In contrast with the spirit oi the Enlightenment,
the Romantic vision
perceived the world as a unitary organism rather than an atomistic
Romanticism and
Its
>h,
Ffltt
machine, exalted the mettabilitv lightenment life
ot reason,
ot
inspiration
rather than
and affirmed the inexhaustible drama
the en-
Whereas
rather than the calm predictability of statu abstractions.
the Enlightenment temperament's high valuation ot
unequaled rational
powers
emotional depths,
his
ot individual self»expression
his
On
tor the
both
Romantic
sides, the
artistic
his
it
was
a
Newton,
Goethe,
a
a
and
Creativity
mk\ self-creation. The genius
brated by the Enlightenment temperament was
Nietzsche.
on
and its power to comprehend and exploit the Romantic valued man rather tor his Imaginative and
aspirations,
an Einstein, while
rested
intellect
laws ol nature, the spiritual
man
human
of
cele-
a Franklin, 01
Beethoven, or
autonomous world-changing
will
a
and mind
modern man were apotheosized, bringing the cult ot the hero, the men and their deeds. Indeed, on many fronts at once, the Western ego gained substance and impetus, whether in the titanic
ot
history ot great
self-assertions o\ the
French Revolution and Napoleon, the new
awareness of Rousseau and Byron, the advancing scientific Lavoisier and Laplace, the incipient feminist confidence of
self-
clarities ot
Mary Woll-
and George Sand, or the many-sided richness of human
stonecratt
experience and creativity realized by Goethe. But for the two tempera-
ments, Enlightenment and Romantic, the character and aims of that
autonomous
Whereas tor
self
were sharply
distinct. Bacon's Utopia
for the Enlightenment-scientific
observation
and experiment,
was not
Blake's.
mind, nature was an object
theoretical
explanation and
tech-
nological manipulation, for the Romantic, by contrast, nature was a live vessel of spirit,
a translucent source of mystery
and revelation. The
scientist too
wished to penetrate nature and reveal
method and
goal of that penetration, and the character of that revela-
tion,
its
mystery; but the
were different from the Romantic's. Rather than the distanced
object of sober analysis, nature for the Romantic was that which the
human
soul strove to enter
existential
and unite with
in
an overcoming
dichotomy, and the revelation he sought was not
cal law but o\ spiritual essence.
While the
ot
of
the
mechani-
scientist sought truth th.it
was
Romantic sought truth that wai inwardly transfiguring and sublime. Thus Wordsworth saw nature as
testable
and concretely
effective,
the
ensouled with spiritual meaning and beauty, while Schiller considered the impersonal mechanisms of science a poor substitute foe the Greek deities
who had animated
nature tor the ancients. Both modern tempera-
ments, scientific and Romantic, looked to present
human experience
and the natural world for fulfillment, hut what the Romantic sought and
The Transjoiination
\6S
(bund
domains
in those
o/
Modem
the
Era
reflected a radically different universe from that
oi the scientist.
Equally notable was the difference in their attitudes toward the phe-
nomena the
o\
human
ot
awareness.
The
mind was empirical and
Enlightenment-scientific examination epistemological,
becoming
gradually
focused on sense perception, cognitive development, and quantitative behavioral studies. Bv contrast, beginning with Rousseau's Confessions the
modem Romantic
—
sequel and response to the ancient Catholic
Confessions of Augustine
— the Romantics'
interest in
human
ness was fueled bv a newly intense sense of self-awareness
the complex nature of the
human
self,
conscious-
and
a focus
on
and was comparatively un-
constrained bv the limits ot the scientific perspective. Emotion and imagination, portance.
rather than reason and perception,
New
were
prime im-
of
concern arose not only with the exalted and noble but
with the contraries and darkness
demonic, and the
irrational.
in the
human
soul,
with
death, the
evil,
Generally ignored in the optimistic, clar-
ified light of rational science,
these themes
now
inspired the works of
Blake and Novalis, Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard, Hawthorne and Melville,
and
Poe
Baudelaire,
Dostoevskv
and
Nietzsche.
Romanticism, the modern eve was turned ever more inward
To
the shadows of existence.
moods and motives,
With
to discern
explore the mysteries o{ interioritv. ot
love and desire, fear and angst, inner conflicts and
contradictions, memories and dreams, to experience extreme and in-
communicable
states
consciousness,
of
be
to
unconscious into consciousness, to
know
inwardlv
human
epiphanic ecstasy, to plumb the depths of the
grasped
in
soul, to bring the
the infinite
—such
were the
imperatives of Romantic introspection. In contrast to the scientist's quest for general laws defining a single
objective reality, the Romantic gloried in the
ot
complex
each object, event, and experience presented to
his soul.
Truth discovered
in
on
in
his subjective awareness,
perspectives
divergent
monolithic and univocal ideal reality
multiplicity ot
in the
realities pressing
uniqueness
unbounded
ot
and
was valued above
the
empirical science. For the Romantic,
was symbolically resonant through and through, and was therefore
fundamentally multivalent,
a
constantly changing complex of many*
leveled meanings, even ot opposite*. For the Enlightenment-scientific
mind, bv contrast,
reality
was concrete and
literal,
univocal. Against this
view, the Romantic pointed out that even the reality constructed and
perceived bv the scientific
mmd
was
at
bottom symbolic, but
its
symbols
Romanticism anJ
Its
wore exclusively
MW
haw
d
a specific
and were interpreted by
kind—mechanistic,
material, impersonal
scientists eu uniquely valid.
From the Romantic's
perspective, the conventional scientific view oi reality was essentially jealous
The
"monotheism"
literalism o\ the
new modern in
clothes, wanting
mind was
scientific
mvopicalh worshiping an opaque object recognizing that object as
The
a
no other gods hetore
as the
.1
it.
form of idolatry
only reality, rather than
mystery, a vessel ot deeper realities.
search tor a unifying order and meaning remained central tor the
Romantics, hut
in that task the limits ot
human knowledge were
expanded beyond those imposed by the Enlightenment, and
human
range ot tion.
.1
(acuities
were considered necessary
Imagination m^\ feeling
deeper understanding
now
tor
radically a
lamer
genuine cogni-
joined sense and reason to render a
ot the world. In his
sought to experience the archetypal
morphological studies, Goethe
form or essence of each plant and
animal by saturating the objective perception with the content of
his
own
imagination. Schelling proclaimed that "to philosophize about na-
ture
means
meaning could he
to create nature," tor nature's true
pro-
duced only from within man's "intellectual imagination." The historians \ ico ical
and Herder took seriously modes of cognition such
had informed the consciousness of other
that
eras,
mytholog-
as the
and believed that
the historian's task was to feel himself into the spirit oi other ages
through an empathic "historical sense," to understand from within by
means of the sympathetic imagination. Hegel discerned overarching rational
and
spiritual
meaning
in the vast data oi history by
"logic of passion." Coleridge wrote that "deep thinking
by a
man
of deep feeling," and that the
imagination" gave to the entirety, to create
human mind
artist's
is
means of
a
attainable only
"esemplastic power of the
the ability to grasp things in their
and shape coherent wholes out of disparate elements.
Wordsworth recognized the numinous
vision of the natural child as pos-
sessing a deeper insight into reality than did the opaque, disenchanted
perspective of the conventional adult.
And
Blake recognized "Imagina-
tion" as the sacred vessel ot the infinite, the emancipator
human mind,
the
means by which
consciousness. Indeed, for
eternal realities
many Romantics,
came
imagination was
the whole of existence, the true ground ot bein^, the ties. It
the hound
ot
to expression
and
in
BOme sense
medium
ot all reali-
both pervaded consciousness and constituted the world.
Like imagination, the will too was considered
human knowledge, man and universe forward
the attainment of freely impelling
:
to
.\
necessary element in
receding knowledge and
new
levels ot creativity
370
The Transformation of
awareness. Here
was Nietzsche who,
it
Modern Era
the
in a uniquely powerful synthesis
of titanic Romantic spiritual passion and the most radical strain of
Enlightenment skepticism,
set forth the
concerning the relation of
paradigmatic Romantic position
will to truth
and knowledge: The rational
not achieve objective truth; nor could any perspective
intellect could
ever be independent of interpretation of some
which
halts at
phenomena
facts are precisely
—There
what there
"Against positivism,
sort.
are only facts'
—
I
would
No,
say:
are not, only interpretations." This
was true
not just for matters of morality, but for physics too, which was but a
and exegesis
specific perspective
to suit specific needs
way of viewing the world was the product
and
desires.
Every
of hidden impulses. Every
philosophy revealed not an impersonal system of thought, but an
in-
voluntary confession. Unconscious instinct, psychological motivation, linguistic distortion, cultural prejudice
—
human
Western tradition of
perspective. Against the long
these affected and defined every
unique validity of one system of concepts and scientific, or philosophical
—
beliefs
asserting the
—whether
religious,
that alone mirrors the Truth, Nietzsche set
There
forth a radical perspectivism:
exists a plurality of perspectives
through which the world can be interpreted, and there
is
no
au-
which one system can be
thoritative independent criterion according to
determined to be more valid than others. But
if
the world was radically indeterminate,
heroic act of will to affirm
The
life
and bring forth
its
it
could be shaped by a
triumphant fulfillment:
highest truth, Nietzsche prophesied, was being born within
through the self-creating power of the
knowledge and power would
fulfill
will.
itself in
man
All of man's striving for a
new being who would
incarnate the living meaning of the universe. But to achieve this birth,
man would have
to
grow beyond himself so fundamentally that
present limited self would be destroyed: is
a bridge
For
and not a
man was
a
goal.
way
to
compass oi the present life- impoverishing
.
.
Man
.
is
"What
And
great in
man
is
his
that he
something that must be overcome."
new dawns and new age.
is
horizons far beyond the
the birth of this
new being was not
a
otherworldly fantasy to be believed by ecclesiastical
decree, but was a vivid, tangible reality to be created, here and now,
through the heroic self-overcoming of the great individual. Such an individual had to transform forge his character,
life
embrace
protagonist of the world epic.
himself into being.
He had
into a
work of art, within which he could
his fate,
He had
and recreate himself
as heroic
to invent himself anew, imagine
to will into existence a fictive
drama
into
RomMKBm md
h\uc
Its
\71
which he could enter and
imposing
live,
meaningless universe without God.
ot a
i
redemptive order on the chaos
Then
projected to the beyond could he horn Within
could dance godlike
God who had long been the human >oul. hen man
the
the eternal flux, tree
in
1
ot
all
foundations and
all
hounds, beyond even metaphysical constraint. Truth was not something
one proved or disproved;
it
was something one created In Nieasche,
Romanticism generally, the philosopher became was fudged not as
terms
in
an expression
ot
ot abstract rationality or tactual verification, hut
sensibility
advanced new standards M\d values
human knowledge. Through the self-creating power will, the human being could body forth unborn invisible hut altogether real
and
levels ot
and the cosmos's unfolding
A
process ot creation.
And
ssary.
ot
tor
imagination and
realities,
penetrate
comprehend nature and
being,
— indeed,
participate
in
the
very
new epistemofogy was claimed both possible and
so the limits ot
knowledge established by Locke. Hume,
Kant were boldly defied by the
the posinvist side ot
Romantics
m
courage, beauty, and imaginative power.
Thus the Romantic
historv
as
poet: a world conception
Idealists
and
ot the post- Enlightenment.
The two temperaments rwo traditional
pillars ot
held similarly divergent attitudes toward the
Western
the Judaeo-Chnstian religion.
developed during the modern
culture.
As
era,
Greco-Roman
classicism
the Enlightenment-scientific it
and
mind
increasingly employed the thought
o\ the classical era only to the extent that
it
provided useful starting
points tor further investigation and theory construction, beyond which
ancient metaphysical and scientific schemes were generally perceived deficient
and of mainly was
historical interest.
the Romantic
tor
personalities, still
its
exalted models,
its
living realm
enable
in
it
general differed.
more
—one
modem
lines that their respective attitudes
While the
pregnant
tor the sake
the other CO revivify that past,
to live again in the creative spirit o\
was along such
still
Both viewpoints encouraged the
ery of the classical past, but tor different motives
.
accurate historical knowledge,
It
ot
imaginative and spiritual insights
with newly discoverable meaning.
ot
classical culture
By contrast,
Olympian images and still creations from Homer and Aeschylus onward a
artistic
as
rational scientific
CO
man.
toward tradition
mind viewed
tradition in
skeptical terms, valuable only to the extent ot providing continuity
and structure less rehellious
tradition
tor the gr
ow th
in character
ot
knowledge, the Romantic, although no
and often considerably more
something more mysterious
—
a reposif
so,
found
in
wisdom,
The
172
Modern
or motion of die
["rans/
the accrued insights ot a people's soul, a living, changing force with
own autonomy and ly
the empirical and technical knowledge of the scientific mind, but
spoke
deeper
ot
realities,
New
experiment.
Greco-Roman tive
.
but tor the spiritually resonant Middle Ages, tor
past,
Romanticism
mind not out
subsequent years by
their historical
now
the Renaissance
ot
new consciousness of the age
By contrast, such matters concerned the scientific
and anthropological
modern
civilization
in
its
ambivalence turned into antagonism belief
in
its
own
In
interest.
and
its
the Enlightenment'
values stood unequivocally
Romanticism maintained
predecessors, while
ambivalence toward modernity
the West's
a
tor
empathic appreciation or inspiration, but by virtue of
ot
scientific vision, its
in
itself
all sorts,
peoples, tor the Dionysian
culture.
ot
emerged, followed
all
And the primi-
tolk literature, tor the ancient
Germanic and other A new awareness
the Volksgeist ot the
above
sense and mechanical
Oriental and exotic, tor esoteric traditions of
tor the
wellsprings
common
hidden to
appreciation thus arose not only tor the classical
Gothic architecture and
ot
its
evolutionary dynamism. Such wisdom was nor mere-
many
Romantics
as
"progress."
in
its
a
profound
As time
expressions.
passed.
radically questioned
innate
civilization's
superiority, in rational man's inevitable fulfillment.
The part
issue ot religion
posed the same contrasts. Roth streams were in
predicated on the Reformation,
freedom
ot belief
were
common
individualism and personal
tor
each developed different
to both, yet
aspects ot the Reformation legacy.
The
spirit
ot
the Enlightenment
rebelled against the strictures ot Ignorance and superstition imposed by
theological
dogma and
belief in the supernatural, in favot of straightfor-
embrace
ot the
was either rejected altogether or maintained only
in the
ward empirical and rational knowledge and secular. Religion
a liberating
form of a rationalist deism or natural law ethics.
The Romantic's
attitude
toward religion was more complex. His rebellion too was against the hierarchies and institutions ot traditional religion, against enforced belief,
moralistic constriction,
and hollow
central and enduring element in the
ritual.
Romantic
Yet religion
spirit,
whether
itself it
was
a
took the
form of transcendental idealism. Xeoplatonism, Gnosticism, pantheism, mystery religion, nature worship. Christian mysticism. Hindu Buddhist mysticism,
Swedenborcianism,
theosophy.
esotencism.
religious
ex
Mother Goddess worship, evolusome syncretism ot these. Here the
istentiahsm. neopaganism, shamanism. tionary
human
dninization.
or
"sacred" remained a viable category, whereas in science
it
had lone since
Romanticism and
17
was rediscovered
deism but
01
not
process;
Fau
Ood
disappeared.
orthodoxy
Ici
ol
Romanticism
In
ineffably mysterious, pluralistic
human
Moreover,
mechank
musi
t
phenomena
to reach the ultimate reality, since mail's finite reason inevitably
caught
in
contradiction whenever
human reason as fundamentally Mind (Gcist), through the power be transcended
in a
it
attempted to do
an expression oi
which,
higher synthesis.
as
m
oi a
love,
10,
became
Hegel
ww
universal Spirit .ill
I
>pp
ng lines similar to Hegel.
Their eventual
although regarded by many
tare,
as brilliant
however, was also similar,
tor
and comprehensive challenges
to
the conventional scientific vision, tor others such speculations did not eSS a sufficiently
the case,
concepts
demonstrable empirical
Cuven the nature
basis.
as Bergson's
creatne elan
operating
vital
God who was
m
the evolutionary
process,
Whitehead's evolving
and
processes of becoming, or Teilhard's "cosmogenesis"
its
ot
there seemed to be no decisive means tor verifying such
human and world
evolution would be
interdependent with nature
an
fulfilled in
which
in
"Omega
point"
unitive Christ-consciousness. Although each ot these theories
i
t
a spir-
>t
informed evolutionary process gamed wide popular response
itually
began to influence
later
modern thought
in
often subtle ways, the overt
cultural trend, especially in academia, was otherwise.
The
decline of speculative metaphysical overviews signaled as well the
decline of speculative historical overviews,
Oswald
and epk
efforts
such
-is
Spengler's and Arnold Toynhee's, though not without admirers,
were eventually depreciated
now disengaged
itself
like Hegel's before
from the task
them. Academic
discerning
ot
gi
hi
warching
he Hegelian
patterns and comprehensive uniformities
in history.
gram of discovering the "meaning" cultural evolution was now regarded
of
history
as
impossible and misguided.
stead, profession.il hist
I
and the "purpose
in their competence
In-
mon
retully defined specialized studies, to methodological problem
rived from the social sciences, b
such
as
population levels and
was better directed their
economic and
1
[Tie hisi
in*
to the concrete details social
irable
statistical
t
people's
li
•
I
ntion Jly to
than to the
384
The Transformation of
Idealist
the
Modern Era
image of universal principles working through great individuals
to forge world history. Following the directive of the Enlightenment,
academic historians saw the need to remove history entirely from the
and metaphysical contexts within which
theological, mythological,
had long been embedded. Like nature, history too was
phenomenon,
examined empirically, without
to be
it
a nominalist
spiritual
precon-
ceptions.
modern era moved to its later stages, Romanticism would reengage the modern mind from another field altogether. The decline of Yet
as the
Hegel and of metaphysical and intellectual
environment
in
historical overviews
had originated
in
an
which physical science was the dominant
force in determining the cultural understanding of reality. But as science itself
began to be revealed, both epistemologically and pragmatically,
relative
and
fallible
as a
form of knowledge, and with both philosophy and
religion having already lost their previous cultural preeminence, reflective individuals
many
began to turn inward, to an examination of con-
sciousness itself as a potential source of
meaning and
otherwise devoid of stable values. This
new
focus
identity in a world
on the inner workings
of the psyche reflected as well an increasingly sophisticated concern with
those unconscious structures within the
mind of the
—
determining the ostensible nature of the object
Kantian project on
a
more comprehensive
level.
subject that were
a continuation of the
Thus it was that of all (if we except modern
the instances of a Romantically influenced science
evolutionary theory's complex debt to Romantic ideas of organic evolution in nature and history, of reality as a process of constant becoming),
the most enduring and seminal proved to be the depth psychology of
German
Freud and Jung, both deeply influenced by the stream of
Romanticism that flowed from Goethe through Nietzsche. In
its
concern with the elemental passions and powers of the un-
conscious
—with
imagination, emotion, memory, myth, and dreams,
with introspection, psychopathology, hidden motivations, and ambivalence
—psychoanalysis brought Romanticism's preoccupations
level of systematic analysis first
With Freud, hearing Goethe's Ode to Nature
and cultural
turned to medical science after
student,
and who throughout
religious
and mythological
his
to a
life
statuary, the
significance.
obsessively
collected
new who as a
archaic
Romantic influence was often
hidden or inverted by the Enlightenment-rationalist assumptions that pervaded his
became more
scientific vision.
But with Jung, the Romantic inheritance
explicit as Freud's discoveries
and concepts were expanded
Romanticism
arid Its Fate
\g$
and deepened. In the course and
cultural
scious
phenomena, Jung found evidence
common
archetypal locally
ot analyzing b wist
range ot
psychoid
of
collective uncon-
a
human beings and structured according to powerful principles. Though was dear that human experience was to
all
it
conditioned by
historical factors,
a
multitude
subsuming
certain universal patterns or
all
concrete biographical,
ot
these
modes
ot
at
a
t
ultuial.
and
deeper level appeared to
In-
experience, archetypal tonus that
human experience into typical collective human psychology dynamic
constantly arranged the elements ot configurations and gave to
.1
continuity. These archetypes endured as basic a prion symbolic tonus
while taking on the costume
each cultural
era,
moment
ot the
each individual
in
life
and
permeating each experience, each cognition, and each
world view.
The ly
discovers ot the collective unconscious and 1
extended psychology's range
perience,
creativity,
artistic
imagination were
now
interest
ot
and
archetypes radical' Religious ex-
and the mythological
systems,
esoteric
its
insight.
analyzed in nonreductive terms strongly reminis-
A
cent o\ the Neoplatonic Renaissance and Romanticism.
new dimen-
sion to Hegel's understanding ot historical dialectic emerged with Jung's insight into the collective psyche's tendency to constellate archetypal
oppositions in history before moving toward a synthesis on a higher level.
A
host of factors previously ignored by science and psychology were
now
recognized as significant to the psychotherapeutic enterprise and given vivid conceptual formulation: the creativity and continuity o\ the col-
unconscious,
lective
the psychological
and potency
reality
t
spon-
taneously produced symbolic forms and autonomous mythic figures, the
nature and power o^ the shadow, the psychological centrality
^\
the
search for meaning, the importance ot teleological and self*regulating
elements
phenomenon
in the psyche's processes, the
Freud and Jung's depth psychology thus ottered
—
between science and the humanities o\
human
ot
a fruitful
sensitive to the
experience, concerned with
art
synchronkities.
and
middle ground
many dimen
religion
and
interioi
realities,
with qualitative conditions ve
was
am
way
emerged the leemingl)
self-
1
epresentative theology
r
oi
and given ah
leculai age,
theologian
sensibility: thus
contradictory but singular^
God."
(
r
subjectively * rhino's-
196
The rvmsformatkm
/
ihc
Modern Era
in-themselves, arc neither accessible nor positable; and that the value of all
The
ing. ity
and assumptions must be continually subjected
truths
critical search for
and pluralism, and
rmrh
outcome
its
to direct test-
constrained to be tolerant of ambigu-
is
will necessarily
he knowledge that
is
relative 7
All hum, m understanding
a priori certain.
is
no interpretation
The
prevalence
Line
the
oi
Kuhnian concept
highly characteristic
is
awareness
critical
Interpretation, and
la
final
is
"paradigms"
postmodern thought,
cuneni
In
reflecting
mind's fundamentally interpretive nature.
ol the
awareness has not onl\
ol
ol
aflfe
— philosophical,
religious, scientific
ot
any
— must he aban-
theories and universal overviews cannot he sustained
without producing empirical falsification and intellectual authoritarianism. ot
To
assert general truths
phenomena. Respect
for
is
to
is
at best
a
dogma on
spurious
contingency and discontinuity
edge to the local and specific. outlook
impose
Any
no more than
the chaos
limits
knowl-
alleged comprehensive, coherent
a temporarily useful
fiction
masking
chaos, at worst an oppressive fiction masking relationships ot power, violence, and subordination.
Properly speaking, therefore, there
is
no "postmodern world view," nor
The postmodern paradigm
the possibility ot one.
damentally Subversive of all paradigms, reality
as
being at once multiple,
tor at
local
its
is
core
by is
[is]
the chief intellectual characteristic
of
modern mind
in
the superiority ot
the
r
ward met.marr.irives."
Here, paradoxically, we can recognize something
its
tewey
the present age," has been
Leotard's definition of postmodern as "incredulity
the
I
the century, that "despair ot any integrated outlook and attitude
enshrined as the essence of the postmodern vision,
of
ol
and temporal, and without
demonstrable foundation. The situation recognized by John start of
nature fun-
if^
the awareness
how
little
ot
superiority
derives from
knowledge can be claimed
Yet precisely by
virtue n
OT
field, i.e.,
the child
found,
is
forced to distort his or her perception ot both outer and inner realities,
with serious pgychopathological consequences.
Now human
if
we
substitute in these tour premises world tor mother.
being tor child,
The human
we have
the
modern double bind
being's relationship to the world
therebv making
it
world accurately
human The human mind
critical tor the
(2)
compatible information about
its
is
being
one
in
,i
of vital
I
receive*
situation with respi
nutshell:
(
1
)
depend©
'he nature lictory
«»t
t
that in-rid,
420
The Passion of
whereby
its
the
inner psychological and spiritual sense of things
is
Western Mind
incoherent
with the scientific metacommunication. (3) Epistemologically, the hu-
man mind cannot
achieve direct communication with the world.
(4) Existentially, the
The
differences
human
being cannot leave the
field.
between Bateson's psychiatric double bind and the
modern existential condition are more in degree than in kind: the modern condition is an extraordinarily encompassing and fundamental double bind, made less immediately conspicuous simply because it is so universal. We have the post-Copernican dilemma of being a peripheral and
and the post-Cartesian
insignificant inhabitant of a vast cosmos,
dilemma of being
and personal subject confront-
a conscious, purposeful,
ing an unconscious, purposeless, and impersonal universe, with these
compounded by the post-Kantian dilemma of there being no possible means by which the human subject can know the universe in its essence. We are evolved from, embedded in, and defined by a reality that is radically alien to our
own, and moreover cannot ever be
directly con-
tacted in cognition.
This double bind of modern consciousness has been recognized in one
form or another since
at least Pascal: "I
of these infinite spaces."
Our
am
terrified
by the eternal silence
psychological and spiritual predispositions
are absurdly at variance with the world revealed by our scientific
We
seem
two messages from our
to receive
one hand,
strive,
fulfillment; but
substance
we
existential situation:
are derived,
is
not. If
The we follow
condition,
its
effects.
We
it
whose
are at is
once aroused and
inhuman, yet we are
profoundly unintelligible.
modern what kinds of response the modern
Bateson's diagnosis and apply
should not be surprising
psyche has made to
spiritual
that the universe, of
crushed. For inexplicably, absurdly, the cosmos is
on the
entirely indifferent to that quest, soulless in
character, and nullifying in
situation
meaning and
give oneself to the quest for
on the other hand, know
method.
this situation as
it
it
to the larger
attempts to escape the double
bind's inherent contradictions. Either inner or outer realities tend to be distorted:
inner feelings are repressed and denied, as in apathy and
psychic numbing, or they are inflated in compensation, as in narcissism
and egocentrism; or the outer world reality, or
it
is
slavishly submitted to as the only
is
aggressively objectified
and exploited. There
is
also the
strategy of flight, through various forms of escapism: compulsive eco-
nomic consumption, absorption
in
the mass media, faddism, cults,
ideologies, nationalistic fervor, alcoholism, drug addiction.
When
avoid-
Epilogue
41
ance mechanisms cannot be sustained, there chronic hostility, suspect
feeling of
a
meanings,
all
an
helpless
fragmenting
tull-blown
d
victimization,
the extreme, there
at
reactions
psychopathological
to
ten*
a
Inesolvable inner contradic*
o(
And
Consciousness,
paranoia,
tendency
a
toward self*negation,
impulse
purposelessness and absurdity, a feeling tion, a
anxiety!
is
1
the
ot
the
.ire
schizophrenic:
self*
destructive violence, delusional states, massive amnesia, catatonia, au-
tomatism, mania, nihilism. The modern world knows each reactions in various combinations and social
And
political
Nor should
life
brought
we now
see*
intellectual
and
situation, but by
modem
Of cdurse
large the
M\e-compulsi\e
on
sitting
and Hegel and Aquinas
one
is
right—while
way
crucial
activity
—
in
and pursued
nature.
The modern mind
Promethean project
o( the world:
nomena
that
are
method has
concretely
mechanistic, structural.
To
the
what these explanations to
suggest,
is
a
We can
required explanations ot phe-
and
modern
it
that world
i-
words,
th.it
i^
the
spiritual
all
>>t
the world
is
u
be certain only that the world ot
recognizes
to
this
I
is
interpretation.
the one
the hum. in
hand it mind, on the
impersonal and SOuUeSS WOfld ot
not necessarily the whole K
'her,
the only kind (A story that tor the past three centuries the
Western mind h ner's
1
*>n
scientific cognition
impersonal.
therefore
way
appears to place the world beyond the
other hand
ot
type ot interpretation
a specific
be certain
susceptible
that
and mode
from and controlling
itself
sword that cuts two ways. Although
an indeterminate extent
Kant's insight
but has
helpless child,
a
not
their purposes, these cxplanati.
Of course we cannot
qualities.
their hike,
the tact that the
is
a specific strategy
predictive,
fulfill
this
the uniyerse ha\'e been systematically "cleansed*
human
as a severe
meantime So^ rates
mountain on
and
o\ freeing
demanded
has
scientific
its
much
new and unexpected vistas. which the modern situation is
modern human bein^ has not simply been actively engaged the world
post-
seeing
air,
identical to the psychiatric double bind,
a
m
are already high up the
breathing the bracing alpine
But there
it
the
to
responses
bed repeatedly tying and untying his
his
because he ne\er quite gets
philosophy has
philosophy that has dominat-
ed our century and our universities resembles nothing so
i
its
notoriously SO determined.
is
some courageous
forth
these
be surprising that twentieth-century philosophy finds
ir
itseU in the condition
Copemkan
ot
compromise formations, and
"It
:ered intellectually justifiable.
was Kant's merit
-
thai
this
In Ernest
(
compulsion
Sell|t»>r
422
The Passion of
mechanistic impersonal explanation]
Weber's to see that
it is
is
the
Western Mind
in us, not in things."
And "it was
kind of mind, not
historically a specific
human
3
mind as such, that is subject to this compulsion." Hence one crucial part of the modern double bind
is
not
airtight. In
the case of Bateson's schizophrenogenic mother and child, the mother
more or
holds
less
all
the cards,
she unilaterally controls the
for
communication. But the lesson of Kant
—
that the locus of the
is
com-
human knowledge of the human mind, not in the world as such. Therefore it is theoretically possible that the human mind has more cards than it has been playing. The pivot of the modern predica-
munication problem
world— must
ment
is
first
the problem of
i.e.,
be viewed
as centering in the
epistemological, and
here that
it is
Knowledge and
When
for
an opening.
Unconscious
Nietzsche in the nineteenth century said there are no
interpretations, critical
the
we should look
facts,
only
he was both summing up the legacy of eighteenth-century
philosophy and pointing toward the task and promise of twentieth-
century depth psychology. That an unconscious part of the psyche exerts decisive influence over
human
perception, cognition, and behavior was
an idea long developing in Western thought, but tively
brought
it
into the foreground of
modern
it
was Freud
who
effec-
intellectual concern. Freud
played a fascinatingly multiple role in the unfolding of the greater Coper-
nican revolution.
On
the one hand, as he said in the famous passage at
the end of the eighteenth of
his Introductory Lectures, psychoanalysis
represented the third wounding blow to man's naive pride and self-love,
the
first
being Copernicus's heliocentric theory, and the second being
Darwin's theory of evolution. For psychoanalysis revealed that not only the Earth not the center of the universe, and not only privileged focus of creation, but
is
man
is
not the
even the human mind and ego, man's
most precious sense of being a conscious rational
self, is
only a recent and
precarious development out of the primordial
and
by no means mas-
own house. With his epochal minants of human experience, Freud ter of
its
lineage of
modern thought
human
being.
gether
new
And
level,
id,
is
insight into the unconscious deter-
stood directly in the Copernican
that progressively relativized the status of the
again, like Copernicus
and
like
Kant but on an
alto-
Freud brought the fundamental recognition that the
apparent reality of the objective world was being unconsciously deter-
mined by the condition of the
subject.
Epilogue
4j
wm
But Freud's insight too
modem
a
sword that cur both ways, and
Freud represented the crucial turning point
significant sense
trajectory. For the discovery ot the
boundaries or interpretation. As Descartes empiricists Had noted, the primary
human
timately
experience
sensors transforms
d
itself
human
the
human
in
the
human
With
this
background, and with rhe further iteps taken
logical
in a sense ineluctable.
The modem
task established by
psychological imperative, to
modem
the unconscious, precisely coincided with rhe
er
Hume, and
modern epistemology had depended on rhe role played by the human mind in the
hopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others, rhe analytic Freud was
begun the
experience and cognition,
ot
increasingly acute analyses or act ot cognition.
ul-
is
and not
world,
psyche. From Descartes tD Locke, Berkeley, and
then to Kant, the progress
a
the
in
experience
material
that world; ,\nd with psychoanalysts was
systematic exploration or the sear of all
in
unoonsckxM collapsed the old and the post*( artesian British
datum
— nor
)
eptStemo-
imperatiye— to discover the ux^r principles of mental organization.
But while
it
was Freud who penetrated the
veil,
it
was Jung who 9
grasped the critical philosophical consequences of depth psychology !
more
Partly this was because Jung was
discoveries.
sophisticated than Freud,
having been steeped
episte
mologically
Kant and
in
critical
philosophy from his youth (even in the 1930s Jung was an informed reader ot Karl Popper
— which comes
as a surprise to
many
Jungians).
temperament Jung was less bound than Freud by nineteenth-century scientism. Bur above all, Jung had the more profound experience to draw upon, and could see the Partly this
was also because by
intellectual
!
context within which depth psychology was operating. As Joseph bell
used to say, Freud was fishing while sitting on
realize
what he had before him. But of course who
depend on our successors to overleap our
Thus it,
it
was Jung who recognized that
"the mother of
that
human
own
critical
or us does,
modern psycho) g)
inevitably too narrow and simplistic.
mind had been
Hume
sive experiences oi rhe
human
i
ill
pur hi
9
Kant ! formulation
at
Newtonian ph
In a sense,
psyche, both h;
are
had thought, bur
by
9
just
his
ai
Freud ! un-
Darwinian
suppositions, so was Kant's understanding limited by hi
presuppositions. Jung, under rhe imp
and
limitations.
in
limited
didn't
philosophy a
instead was permeated by a prion structures; yet
those structures, reflecting his complete behet
amp-
(
whale— he
Kant was correct when
experience was not atomistic, as
derstanding of the
a
pre-
nian
424
The Passion of
the Kantian and Freudian perspectives
kind of holy
grail
archetypes in
all
the
all
way
the
until
Western Mind
he reached a
of the inner quest: the discovery of the universal
power and rich complexity
their
human
determining structures of
as the
fundamental
experience.
Freud had discovered Oedipus and Id and Superego and Eros and
Thanatos; he had recognized the instincts in essentially archetypal terms.
But
at crucial junctures, his reductionist presuppositions drastically re-
stricted his vision.
With
Jung, however, the
full
symbolic multivalence
of the archetypes was disclosed, and the personal unconscious of Freud,
which comprised mainly repressed contents
resulting
from biographical
traumas and the ego's antipathy to the instincts, opened into a vast archetypally patterned collective unconscious which was not so
the result of repression as itself.
With
much
was the primordial foundation o( the psyche
it
progressively unfolding disclosure o{ the unconscious,
its
depth psychology radically redefined the epistemological riddle that had first
been posed by Kant
—Freud doing
so narrowly
and inadvertently
as
it
were, and then Jung doing so on a more comprehensive and self-aware level.
Yet what was the actual nature of these archetypes, what was collective unconscious,
and how did any o{
this affect
the
this
modern
world view? Although the Jungian archetypal perspective
scientific
and deepened the modern understanding oi the psyche,
greatly enriched in certain
ways
it
too could be seen as merely reinforcing the Kantian
As Jung
epistemological alienation.
repeatedly emphasized for
many
years in his loyal Kantian way, the discovery of the archetypes was the result o{ the empirical investigation o{ psychological
therefore
phenomena and
had no necessary metaphysical implications. The study of the
mind rendered knowledge
of the mind, not of the world beyond the
mind. Archetypes so conceived were psychological, hence in a certain
way
subjective. Like Kant's a priori forms
human
experience without giving the
of reality beyond
preceded
human
itself;
and categories, they structured
human mind any
direct
knowledge
they were inherited structures or dispositions that
experience and determined
not be said to transcend the
most fundamental of the
its
character, but they could
human psyche. They were perhaps only many distorting lenses that distanced
human mind from genuine knowledge of the world. They were only the deepest patterns of human projection. But of course Jung's thought was extremely complex, and of his very long intellectually active
life
his
the the
perhaps
in the course
conception of the archetypes
Epibgue
42
went through widely
known view
ot
Jungian archetypes,
Jung's middle-period writings
K
The conventional and
a significant evolution.
just
5
most
still
described, was bated
on
when
his thought was still largely governed Cartesian«Kantian philosophical assumptions concerning the nature
o\ the
psyche and
its
separation from the external world.
work, however, and particularly ties.
Jung began to move toward
mous
conception
i
ot
synchronic!*
archetypes
.is
meaning thai appear to structure and inhere
patterns ot
psyche ^nd matter, thereby
dichotomy. Archetypes categories
In his later
in relation to his study of
— more
in effect dissolving the
in
their oncological status,
stricted to a specific dimension,
Neoplatomc conception
more
ot archetypes.
development have been pressed
both
in
subjectrobject
were more mysterious than
in this view
ambiguous
modem
autono-
i priori
less easily
re-
like
the original Platonic and
Some
aspects of this late-Jungian
further, brilliantly
and controversially,
by lames Hillman and the school of archetypal psychology, which has
developed o\ the
a
"postmodern" Jungian perspective: recognizing the primacy
psyche and the imagination, and the irreducible psychic
and potency
metaphysical psyche in
reality
o\ the archetypes, hut, unlike the late Jung, larger) avoiding
all
m
or theological statements its
endless and
favor of a
full
But the most epistemologically significant development history ot depth psychology,
embrac
rich ambiguity. in
the recent
and indeed the most important advance
in
the field as a whole since Freud and Jung themselves, has been the work o\ Stanislav Grot,
which over the
past
three decades has not only
revolutionized psvchodvnamic theory hut also brought forth major implications for
many
other
fields,
including philosophy.
Many
readers will
already he familiar with Grot's work, particularly in Europe and California,
but tor those
who
are not
I
will give
here
a
bnet summary/
hoanalvtic psvchiatnst, and the original background
HI
l
ot his ideas
Freudian, not Jtmgian; vet the unexpected upshot ot his uork was to Jung's archetypal perspective
on
a
new
level,
and hrm^
it
Bfl
was
r,itit\
into coherent
synthesis with Freud's biological and biographical perspect ive, though 00 a
much deeper stratum oi the psyche than Freud had recognised. The basis of Grot's discoveries was his observation of several thousand .loanalytic sei
first
in
Prague and then
National Institute of Mental Health,
in
which
in
Maryland with the
subje^
melv
I
potent psychoactive substances, particularly LSD, and then lac ety ot powerful nondrtlg therapeutic methods, which u
of unconscious processes. Grof found
th.it
' I
subjects involved in
JyStJ
d
426
The Passion of
the
Western Mind
sessions tended to undergo progressively deeper explorations of the un-
conscious, in the course of which there consistently emerged a pivotal
sequence of experiences oi great complexity and intensity. In the sessions,
subjects
moved back through
typically
biographical experiences and traumas training,
nursing,
intelligible in
to represent
early
infantile
—the
and
earlier
initial
earlier
Oedipus complex,
experiences
—which
toilet
were generally
terms of Freudian psychoanalytic principles and appeared
something
like laboratory
of Freud's theories. But after reliving
evidence for the basic correctness
and integrating these various memory
complexes, subjects regularly tended to
move
further back into
an ex-
tremely intense engagement with the process of biological birth.
Although most
explicit
was experienced on
this process
and detailed manner,
distinct archetypal
it
a biological level in the
was informed by, or saturated by, a
sequence of considerable numinous power. Subjects
reported that experiences at this level possessed an intensity and univer-
what they had previously believed was the
that far surpassed
sality
experiential limit for an individual
human
being. These experiences
occurred in a highly variable order, and overlapped with each other in very complex ways, but abstracting from this complexity Grof found visible a distinct
sequence
—which moved from an
undifferentiated unity with the maternal
sudden
fall
womb,
initial
to
and separation from that primal organismic
condition of
an experience oi unity, to a highly
charged life-and-death struggle with the contracting uterus and the birth canal,
and culminating
in
an experience o{ complete annihilation. This
was followed almost immediately by an experience of sudden unexpected global liberation,
which was
typically perceived not only as physical birth
but also as spiritual rebirth, with the two mysteriously intermixed. I
should mention here that
in Big Sur, California,
where
I
I
lived for over ten years at Esalen Institute
was the director of programs, and in the
course of those years virtually every conceivable form of therapy and personal transformation, great and small,
came through
Esalen. In terms
o{ therapeutic effectiveness, Grof's was by far the most powerful; there
—
was no comparison. Yet the price was dear
in a sense the price
was
absolute: the reliving of one's birth was experienced in a context of
profound existential and
spiritual crisis,
with great physical agony, un-
bearable constriction and pressure, extreme narrowing of mental horizons, a sense of hopeless alienation life,
and the ultimate meaninglessness of
a feeling of going irrevocably insane,
periential encounter with death
—with
and
finally a shattering ex-
losing everything,
physically,
Epilogue
42
7
psychologically, intellectually, spiritually. Yet aftei integrating this long
exponential sequence, subjects regularly reported experiencing ic
expansion
or reality, a
ot horizons, a radical
change
perspective as to the nature
oi
sense ol sudden awakening, a feeling
reconnected to the universe,
all
d
accompanied by
psychological healing and spiritual liberation. in
dramat«
i
1
ana
being fundamentally
profound sense
a
In these sessions
oi
and
subsequent ones, subjects reported having access to memories
o(
prenatal intrauterine existence, which typicalh emerged in association
with archetypal experiences
mystical union with nature o\
(A paradise,
with the divine or with the Great Mother Goddess, dissolution in
ecstatic unity with the universe,
One, and other forms
of
o\ th
build
.1
me
o
tabernacle t"t
months when I
ttolen the
m
•
from the
488
Notes for The Modern World View
bounds of Egypt.
you pardon me, I shall rejoice; if you reproach me, I shall and I am writing the book to be read either now or by posterity, it matters not. It can wait a century for a reader, as God himself has waited six thousand years for a witness." endure.
The
die
If
is
—
cast,
Here was perhaps the most fundamental distinction between classical and science: While Aristotle had postulated four causes material, efficient, formal, and final modern science considered only the first two empirically justifiable. Thus Bacon praised Democritus for removing God and mind from the natural world, in contrast to Plato and Aristotle who repeatedly introduced final causes into scientific explanations. See also the more recent statement by the biologist Jacques Monod: "The cornerstone of scientific method is the systematic denial that 'true' knowledge can be got at by interpreting phenomena in terms of final causes that is to say, of 'purpose' " (Jacques Monod, Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology (translated by A. Wainhouse) [New York: Random House, 1972], 21). 1 1.
modern
—
—
.
.
.
—
This was the celebrated reply of the French astronomer and mathematiSimon Laplace to Napoleon, when questioned about the absence of God in his new theory of the solar system, which had perfected the Newtonian synthesis. Because of certain apparent irregularities in the planetary movements, Newton had believed that the solar system required occasional divine adjustments to maintain stability. Laplace's reply reflected his success in demonstrating that every known secular variation (such as the changing speeds of Jupiter and Saturn) was cyclical, and that therefore the solar system was entirely stable on its own account without divine intervention. 12.
cian Pierre
13. a
The
complex
character and composition of the
Church
clergy in France also played
The clergy's upper ranks were typically younger sons, who took the positions as sinecures,
role in these developments.
occupied by the aristocracy's and whose style of life was generally indistinguishable from that of nonclerical aristocrats. Religious fervor at this level of the Church was infrequent, and was distrusted in others.
The
interests of the institutional
Church seemed
to lie less
than in the enforcement of orthodoxy and the preservation of political advantage. Further complicating the issue was the growing embrace of Enlightenment rationalism by members of the aristocratic clergy itself, thus strengthening the secular forces from within the Church structure. See Jacques Barzun, "Society and Politics," in The Columbia History of the World, edited by John A. Garraty and Peter Gay (New York: Harper Row, 1972), 694-700. in the pastoral mission of religious salvation
&
out to serve both God and Pearsall Smith).
14.
"Those who
there
is
15.
Such
mand
as signifying "stewardship" rather
set
Mammon
soon discover that
no God" (Logan a
view was controverted by Christians who interpreted that comthan exploitation, the latter seen as
reflecting the alienation of the Fall.
Notes for The Transformation of
Part VI.
the
Modem
I
The Transformation
of the
Modem
I
1. On the basil oi Kant's second preface to the ( Antique of Rune Reason, it has often boon said that Kant called his insight a "Copernican revolution" (e.g., by Karl Poppor. Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, and the fifteenth edition of the
among many others). 1. B. Cohen has pointed out (in [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985], Z37 243) that Kant does not appoar to have made that specific statement. On tlu- other hand, Kant explicitly compared his new philosophic.il Strategy to Copernicus'fl astronomical theory, and although strictly speaking the term "C bpemican revo lution" may postdate both Oopernicus and Kant, both the term and the COHV Encyclopaedia Bntomuca,
m
Revolution
ScJc'tuv
parison are accurate and illuminating. "I can Fevnman).
2.
3.
safely say that
Quoted
(W'heaton,
in 111.:
Huston
nobody understands quantum mechanics" (Richard
Smith,
Quest, 1989),
Bevorui
the
Post-Modem
Mind,
rev.
ed.
8.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1%2), outgrowth of significant advances in the study of the history of science made a generation earlier, notably the work of Alexandre Koyre and A. O. Lovejoy. Also important were major developments within academic philosophy such as those associated with the later Wittgenstein, and with the progress ot argument in the school of logical empiricism from Rudolf Carnap through W. V. O. Quine. The widely accepted conclusion of that argument essentially affirmed a relativized Kantian position: i.e., one cannot, in the last analysis, dry compute complex truths out of simple elements based in direct sensation, because all such simple sensory elements are ultimately defined by the ontology of a specific language, and there exist a multiplicity of languages, each with its own particular mode of construing reality, each one selectively eliciting and identifying the objects it describes. The choice of which language to employ is finally dependent on one's purposes, not on objective "facts," which are themselves constituted by the same theoretical and linguistic systems through which those facts are judged. All "raw data" are already theory-laden. See W. V. O. Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," in From a Logical Point of \'icu ed. (New York: Harper Row, 1961), 20-46. 4.
Kuhn's
wore
in part the
ideas, first set torth in
&
The
word through which Hegel expressed his concept of dialc meaning both "to cancel" and "to lift up." In the moment oi synthesis, the antithetical state is both preserved and transcended, negated and fulfilled. 5.
crucial
integration was aufheben,
Ronald Sukenick, "The Death of the N« >\ el." Other Stones (New York: Dial, 1969), 41. On a less may be said to epitomize the postmodern artistic 6.
postmodern identity generally,
in
The Death of
futile note,
for his or her reality
the
Sovel and
perhaps the
nd to personify the rem.uns deliberately
irreducibly ambiguous. Irony pervades action; performance
i-
.ill.
The
actor
is
490
Notes for Epilogue
never univocally committed to an exclusive meaning, to a thing 7.
is
"as
Every-
literal reality.
if."
Richard Rorty, Philosophy and
the
Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1979), 176.
Ihab Hassan, quoted in Albrecht Wellmer, "On the Dialectic of Modernism and Postmodernism," Praxis International 4 (1985): 338. See also Richard J. Bernstein's discussion of the same passage in his 1988 Presidential Address to the
8.
Metaphysical Society of America ("Metaphysics, Critique, Utopia," Review of Metaphysics 42 [1988]: 259-260), where he characterizes the postmodern in-
sometimes resembling Hegel's description of a self-fulfilling "which only ever sees pure nothingness in its result .[and] cannot get any further from there, but must wait to see whether something new comes along and what it is, in order to throw it too into the same empty abyss" (G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A. V. Miller [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977], 51). tellectual attitude as
abstract skepticism,
9.
Arnold
J.
.
Toynbee,
in Encyclopaedia Britannica,
10.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The
York:
Random House,
11.
Max Weber, The
Talcott Parsons
(New
Gay
Science,
15th ed.,
translated by
s.v.
.
"time."
W. Kaufman (New
1974), 181. Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by
York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), 182.
Carl G. Jung, "The Undiscovered Self," in Collected Works of Carl Gustav
12.
Jung, vol. 10, translated by R. F. C. Hull, edited by H.
Read
et al. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1970), pars. 585-586.
Part VII. Epilogue 1.
John
stitute,
2.
McDermott, "Revisioning Philosophy" conference, Esalen
J.
In-
Big Sur, California, June 1987.
The double bind
theory was an application of Bertrand Russell's theory of
and Alfred North Whitehead's Principia Mathematica) communications analysis of schizophrenia. See Gregory Bateson et al., "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia," in Bateson, Steps to an Ecobgy of Mind logical types (from Russell
to a
(New 3.
York: Ballantine, 1972), 201-227.
Ernest Gellner, The Legitimation of Belief (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer1975), 206-207.
sity Press,
4.
Vincent Brome, Jung:
Man
and Myth (New York: Atheneum, 1978),
14.
Commentary on 'The Tibetan Book o( the Great Works of Carl Gustav Jung, vol. 11, translated by R. F. C. Hull, edited by H. Read et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 5.
Jung, "Psychological
Liberation,'
par.
759.
"
in Collected
Notes for Epilogue
4^
The most comprehensive
6.
presentations
Grof's clinical evidence and
oi
i
its
theoretical implications can be found in Stanislas Grof, Realms of the Human Unconscious: Observations from LSD Research (New York. Viking, 1975) and
LSD
Psychotherapy (Pomona,
popular account
Hunter House.
Calif.:
Beyond
hi>
is
the
Brain:
Psychochera^ (Albany: State University
New
ot
York
A more
L980).
Death,
Birth,
and
Press,
receni
Transcendence
in
1985).
The clinical evidence from Orof's research concerning the perinatal ex 7. perience should not be misunderstood as suggesting the operation oi a Freud* kind oi causality, in which the individual birth trauma viewed as mechanically producing specific psychological and intellectual syndromes in the same, more or less "hydraulic* manner thai a childhood Oedipal trauma was seen by traditional psychoanalysts as producing specific ian, linear*mechanistic is
1
The evidence
pathological symptoms.
an archetypal form
ot
suggests, rather,
what might be called
causation, in which the individual's reliving
the birth
oi
mediate participation in a much larger, transpersonal, .uchetypal death-rebirth process, with the individual and collective levels ot the psyche radically interpenetrating. The perinatal sequence docs not seem to be
proee» appears
to
ultimately grounded in or reducible to the individual's original experience ot biological birth; instead, biological birth
compassing archetypal
reality
which
itself
appears to reflect
more en-
a
directly accessed by those undergoing
i^
the perinatal process, either spontaneously
(as in
personal experiences of "the
dark night of the soul"), in religious ritual, or in experiential psychotherapy. The birth experience is here viewed not as an ultimate root, a reductionist cause in a closed system, hut as an amplifying pivot, an experiential transduction point between personal And transperson.il realities.
Grot's evidence thus suggests
a
more complex understanding
of
causation
than that offered by the conventional modern scientific conception of linear* mechanistic causality, and, in agreement with recent data and theories emerging from several other fields, points toward a conception th.it incorporates participatory, morphic, and teleological forms ot causation closer in character
—
to classical Platonic
and Aristotelian notions
of archetypal, formal,
and
causation, as well as to the later Jungian archetypal understanding.
final
The
or-
ganizing principles of this epistemology are symbolic, nonliteral, and radically
multivalent in character, suggesting
a
nondualistic ontology that
is
metaphor-
patterned "all the way down"— an understanding developed in recent decades by thinkers as diverse as Owen Rarfield, Norman O. Brown, J. ui.es ically
Hillman, and Robert Bellah. 8.
James Hillman, ReAfatonmg Psychology (New York: Harper
c*
Row,
1975),
126.
Writers and editors toda) often comment on the difficult) they have in many sentence^ that were originally written with the traditional generic "man," which they seek to replace with a term rh.ir is not gender-hased. Partly
9.
revising
the difficulty
is
created by the fact that no other term simultaneously attempts to
denote both the
human
being.
human
That
is,
species (i.e.,
the word
all
"man"
metaphorically singular and personal entity
human i-
beings) and
uniquely capable
who
is
i
Single generic
of
indicating
constituting the dialectic that propels "history" (political, intellectual, spiritual). It is this dialectic that has driven the internal drama throughout llw
5,
146,
Ockham
estantism,
2 34,
psychological,
Z35,
2 37,
Sand. George (1804- 1876), J67, 459 Santayana, George (1863 1952), 463
Sarap.s,
318; universalism
of,
106,
Mary and. 162-64,
gin
>21; Vir-
166,
)rml6, 17
Roman
Li Rose (Meun), 173, 452 Romans, 74, 75, 87-88, 171, 283, 448-51; Christianity and. 89-91, 97-101. 146; conquest of Greeks
dt
by, 87; law o\\
74. 87. 99,
158; sci-
ence of, 114; Stoicism and, 76, 83 Romanticism. 243. 296. 313, 351. 36694; attempted synthesis of science and, 378-88; and divided world view, 375-78; existentialism and,
German,
389, 390;
366; participa-
tory epistemoK'U'v and. 436; of PlatO,
41; postrru>dern
mind and, 403,
407 Romantic
love, 173. 211 R.chard (1931- ), 399, 405, 467, 49:
Sapir,
•
),
kan-Paul (1905-1980), J89, 464 Satan, 110-11, 122, 131, 141, 147, Sartre.
166,
169,
193.
303
Saturn (god), 492-93nl0 Saturn (planet), 52, 65, 83, L94, 250,
488nl2 Saussure, Ferdinand de (1857-1913), 351, 398, 462
Savonarola, (urolamo (1452 1498), 229 Schellm^, Fnedrich NX'. J. von (17754),
351,
366.
369, 43
3
von (1759-1805). 366-67. 433, 458 Schle^cl, August Wilhelm von (17671845). M6, 458 Schlegel, Fnedrich von (1772-1829), Schiller. Fnedrich
458 Schleiermacher, Fnedrich P.
Roscellmus (c.l050-cll2
W), 458 Schoenberg, Arnold (1874-1951),
I
iciantsm.
Scholasticism,
Theodore (1933- ), 466 Rousseau, Jean-lacques (1712-1778),
(1768-
2
.
21,
I
I
192, 211, 302. Aristotelianism
Society of London. 270.
333,
lah
176-7-
I.
486-87n8
0-201, \ 275,
21.
:
l\
(1855-1916), 462
Ruether, Rosemarv Radford (1936-
408
EL
175-78, 198, 207.
-2, 290, 229 475n4; Aquinas and,
321 456,
447
110, 473n2, 475fl9
Rom,
•k.
Re
lution and, 253; secularism and, K)7, 3io, 121—22
192—93; sexual repressiveness
of,
137.
238, 241;
187; S< ientifk
Edward (1881 -1939), Sappho (/I. early 6th cent b.
5
Salvation. Christian.
in,
power
Samts,
),
280; Boethiu •
rni-
540
Index
280; evangelical
movements and,
482n3; Galileo and, 264; Humanism and, 209-13, 215, 216; Ideas in, 108; moving Earth in, 201, 484n7; naturalism in, 201, 220;
Ockham ics in,
in,
and, 202, 203, 205; phys-
201,
483-84n7; rationalism
205, 218, 220; Reformation as
329, 366; Darwinism and, 288; Greek philosophy and, 69, 291-97;
Humanism
and, 218, 219;
mathematization of physical world in,
230; philosophical revolution
resulting from,
272-81; printing
press and, 226; religious motivation in,
231; Scholasticism and, 178,
483-84n7; secularism
reaction against, 234, 236, 238,
208, 218,
240-41
and, 298-301, 308, 311, 319,
322
School of Athens, The (Raphael), 68,
228, 454
Scotism, 212
Schopenhauer, Arthur (1788-1860), 368, 383, 423, 459 Schrodinger, Erwin (1887-1961), 46364 Schumacher, Ernst (1911-1977), 467 Science, 48; alienating effect
of,
326—
331-32; Aquinas and, 180, 189-90; Arabic, 193; Aristotle's 27,
in-
fluence on, 55, 57, 62, 67, 68, 76; astrology and, 83; attempted synthesis of
humanism
and, 378-88;
Berkeley on, 336; Christianity and,
282-90, 298-323; classimodern, 488nll; faith in, 282, 320; Greek, 19-29, 32, 36, 46-47, 48-54, 69, 78; Hellenistic, 79; history of, 360-61, 407; Humanism and, 218; Kant and, 341-44, 346-51; medieval, 172, 175-78, 180, 189-90, 191 — 96, 200-1, 205-8, 483-84n7; metaphysics and, 383; modern, crisis of, 355-65; and modern world view, 282-84, 286; negative consequences of, 362-65; Ockham and, 200-1, 205-7; of phenome-
Scott, Walter Scripture. See
(1771-1832), 459 Holy Scripture
Second Coming of Christ. See Christ "Second Coming, The" (Yeats), 411, 462 Secular humanism, 25, 26, 30, 38, 286, 294, 307 .
Secularism, 366; Augustine's reaction
482-83n5; in Middle Ages, 191-93; postmodern mind and, 403; triumph of, 298-323 Semantics, 354 against,
106, 114,
Semele, 110
cal vs.
Semiotics, 398, 418
nal, 339; philosophy of, 353,
61, 395, 404, 407,
360-
436-40,
488nll; postmodern, 404-5; reductionist, 331, 357, 388; Reformation and, 241-43, 245; religion and, 53,
282-90, 298-323; Renais-
sance, 226, 229, 230 (see also Scientific Revolution);
Roman,
88;
Romanticism and, 377; Scholasticism and,
see Science,
medieval;
secularism and, 192, 301-8, 311,
321; utilitarian value
of,
311
Scientific Revolution, 48, 223, 224,
247-71, 282, 283, 285, 325, 326,
Seneca (c. 3 b.c. -a.d. c. 65), 76 Sense perceptions: Aquinas on, 182, 185, 186, 242; Aristotle on, 61;
59-
Bacon on, 273-75; Berkeley
on, 335; Descartes on, 276;
Hume
on, 336-37, 339-40; Kant on,
342, 343, 345, 346; Locke on, 309, 333-34; Ockham on, 204; Plato on, 6, 8, 107 Septuagint, 78, 106 Seventh Letter (Plato), 11, 42
Sextus Empiricus
{fl.
early 3rd cent.
b.c), 77, 276, 293, 297, 450 Sexuality: Christian view of, 138, 141, 144-45, 480nl7; secularism and,
317-19 Shakespeare, William (1564-1616), 224, 455 Shamanism, 372, 443 Shaw, George Bernard (1856-1950), 462 Sheldrake, Rupert (1942- ), 404, 432, 467 Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822), 366, 459 Sic et Non (Abelard), 177, 452
v*l
Iruii'x
Sideretu Suncius (The Messengei of the Star,)
Sigei oi Brabant
1240
(
,
21,
110; in Epi< ureanism,
on.
oi
*70; of
204; ot Pascal.
61, 101
c
365; of
J61,
$47,
I
66; preordained fate of,
77; empiri-
cism and, $34, J36; in French Enlightenment, KJ9-10, \\ )\
Sol,
120
lav
78, 276, 293, 294, 448, 486n4; of Augustine,
Kant,
116,
Humanism,
Skepticism, 69, 77 .
113,
of,
Mount. 217
Sistine Chapel, 228,
tine on,
.
Aquinas on,
107.
cal
M Sinai,
>.
Week conception of, 70. fes cartes on, 278; Enlightenment vie*
235,
remission oi punishment
l
482n4; Aristotle on, 60
158; physical bod) and,
vie*
I,
L91, 482n4; in Christianity,
(see also Origi-
nal Sin); in Judaism,
147.
l
18
:
atomism,
144.
Adam,
169; of
12
it
Sophocles (496 26, 71. 447 Soul:
Signs,
14,
Sophianic Judaeo-Christian d 443
.).
i
151
5J
449
23
David Friedrich (1808
446 Stravii
-2-1971).
^rnte, prin.
Sukenick, Ronald (1932
),
-
1874),
542
Index
Summae, 175, 190, 201, 220, 452
Summa
Thales (c.636-c.546 b.c), 19-20, 23,
Theologica (Aquinas), 193, 201,
220, 299, 452
Sun, 42, 51, 52, 64, 80-81, 194; Apollo as god of, 110; as center of universe, see Heliocentric universe; of
divine Logos, 113; Kepler on, 255, 256; light
of,
27, 51, 62, 71,
Theaetetus (Plato),
213; in Neoplaton-
108, 446,
471n3
12
Theodoric (454-526), 481nl Theodosius (c. 346-395), 451 Theogony (Hesiod), 17, 446 Theologica Platonica (Ficino), 214, 232 Theology: of Aquinas, 179-82, 187-90;
ism, 250, 291, 292, 295; observa-
archetypes
tions of, 258; revolution of planets
fluence on, 55; astrology and, 193,
around, 79-80; sacralization
of,
218-19
Suso, Heinrich
(c.
1295-1366), 197
107; Aristotle's in-
196; Augustinian, 144, 145; dual-
ism
Superego, 328, 424 Superman, Nietzschean, 322
in,
in,
121, 141; existentialism
and, 389; faith as basis
of,
113;
Greek influences on, 101, 102, 105, 140, 152; Hegel and, 381;
Suzuki, D. T. (1870-1966), 462
Holy
Swedenborg, Emanuel (1688-1772), 457 Swedenborgianism, 372 Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745), 457 Syllogism, 60, 212, 273 Symbol formation, 396, 406 Symposium (Plato), 11, 13, 41-42, 216, 473n7 Synchronicities, 385, 425
131; liberation, 403; medieval,
Syncretism, 214, 216, 219, 233, 297; postmodern mind and, 403; Romantic,
372
Tacitus (c.55-c.ll7), 449 Taliaferro, R. Catesby, 473nl Tauler, Johann
(c.
1300-1361), 197
Technology, 388; medieval, 173, 220; philosophy and, 281; postmodern mind and, 404; Renaissance, 225 — 27; science and, 355, 357, 362 — 64, 377; secularism and, 321, 322 Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre (18811955), 383, 465, 480nl5
Teleology, 45, 306; Aristotelian, 45, 58, 59, 62, 67, 181, 184, 274, 278,
289; Hegelian, 381; Neoplatonic, 86;
and participatory epistemology,
435; psychology and, 385, 491n7; secular, 321
Telescope, 358-59, 366, 439, 455 Telos,
61, 443
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), 229, 246, 455 Terrestrial dynamics, 263, 268, 483-
84n7 Tertullian
(c.
Tetzel, 233
160-C.230), 153
Spirit in,
157; Johannine,
166-67, 172, 173, 176-78, 185; modern, 316; natural, 274; Ockham on, 204, 206; of Paul, 89, 101, 143; philosophy and, 309; pre-
Christian, 216; Protestant, 233,
235-37, 240-43, 304; puritanism and, 119; redemptive, 92; Renaissance, 228; revelation in, 100; Scholastic, 178, 236, 238, 241; sci-
ence and, 298, 299, 301, 306, 327; Scientific Revolution and, 253, 254, 260; secular thought and, 191, 192; Sophianic, 443; speculative,
Mary in, 163, 166 Theophilus (/I. c.385-403), 475n9 Theosophy, 372 Thermodynamics, second law of, 327, 460 275; Virgin
Thirty Years' War, 311,
455-56
Thoreau, Henry David (1817-1862), 366, 460
Thucydides (c.460-c.400 b.c), 26, 447 Tillich, Paul (1886-1965), 464 Timaeus (Plato), 11, 14, 50, 173, 214 Time: breakdown of category of, 377; clock and relationship to, 225; continuum of space and, 356, 358; end of, 133; notion of, 338, 343-44; patterns of, 50 Tiresias, 109 Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805-1859), 459 Tolstoy, Leo (1828-1910), 313, 46061 Totalitarianism, 389
S-M
Index
Totalization, 401. i
trovert)
Tower
Ockham
94
oi Babel,
Toynbee, Arnold |. (1889 1975), 411. 463, 490n9 Tragedy, Greek, 18, 19, 24, 472n5
mind,
TransubstantiatJon, doctrine
405
260
Trinity,
92*.
an J. Triumph of
238, 4^4
of,
108,
110,
lodern
J7,
,
Wittgenstein on,
\9\
'mu'iMiav
I
Iniversities:
7
1
*
medieval,
archctvpc
L
79-80, 185 102,
111-15, 117-19, 172.
177.
U
103,
L52,
191,
159,
loo.
Dw
KM;
192,
Scientific
>
t.on and, 251,
fnmoved Mover, 63, 65 Urban 11. Pope (< 1035 1099), 451 Urbanization,
(62
Urbino, 227 Ussher, Archbishop lames (1581
Enlightenment view Hegelian dialectic
Utilitarianism. 314
in
Humanism.
J IS.
Ockham
382;
humanly
216;
Utopia, 322
on, 205. 206, 208; in
participator* perspective. 4^5; post-
Valerian
modern view
Valla, Lorenzo
of,
J96,
197,
*99,
409; in Protestantism. 238, received. 400; in Romanticism, icientific,
282, 283, 360.
itic
of,
32-40; Sophist view
of,
27-29 Tudors.
:
Turing, Alan (1912-1954), 464 Turks, 225; m\asion of Constantinople by,
c.
230-260), 450 (1407-1457), J30
Greek, 4, 7, 17, 31; Platonic, 44. postmodern, 400; Sophist skepticism toward,
31
30,
Van Gogh, Vincent (1853-1890),
J62; self-evident,
281; Skeptics' view
(fl.
Values: Christian, 146, 168, 318;
240, 242-43; or pure reason. 338;
pursuit of,
1656),
134; in
71; mathematical,
.
342;
In,
I
cartel on, 277; in education. 4^; of,
1
'1.
twentieth-century philosophy 421
B8;
41; Aristotle on, 61;
of,
in Christianity.
91,
I
193, 200, 207,
RenaissaiM
Truth: Aquinas on.
167,
fniversal
I
Church, The (Raphael),
the
Inl;
lympathy, doctrine
I
155; heresies
118,
16V
.
M
iti