In my book Biological
Evolution and Cultural Evolution in the History of Life and Man, published
in Spanish, I analyze the cultural history of 23 civilizations and compare
their evolution. In the particular case of science, I wrote this:
...the first-generation
civilizations (Mesopotamia, Egypt and the American) reached their maximum
scientific development in mathematics and astronomy. Egypt and Mesoamerica
added medicine to these sciences. A second-generation (Greco-Roman) and a
third-generation civilization (Islam) also practiced the natural sciences. As
for the West, it is a unique and unprecedented case, as its scientific
development has been overwhelming.
...astronomy was the
first cultivated science... Mathematics emerged in parallel... It was soon
found that both sciences were related, for mathematics supported astronomy, making
it possible to perform complex calculations and predictions.
The pagan religions...
tried to predict the future, using for that purpose sacrificed animals, which
led to an accumulation of anatomical knowledge, soon applied to man, which mixed
with ancient knowledge about the properties of medicinal plants, led to the
formation of a corpus of medical doctrines.
On the other hand, the
development of the physical, chemical and biological sciences was less urgent...
and so it was attempted only by civilizations that had freed from the
necessities of survival an important part of human work... This happened for
the first time in Greece, the cradle of philosophy and most of the modern
sciences.
What is the reason that the Western
civilization has been (until now) the only one that has experimented a
disproportionate scientific development, out of all comparison with any
other civilization, precedent or contemporary? Why this spectacular difference
between our civilization and the others, which is evident if one studies the
history of science?
In all the first and second-generation
civilizations dominated a cosmology incompatible with a scientific development
similar to that of the West: the
cyclical cosmology, which considers the history of the universe as a
repetitive process, asserting that the same things happen once and again, and
that the same people are born and die many times (metempsychosis). Cyclical cosmology gives rise to a pessimistic and defeatist
idea, incompatible with sustained scientific progress. Let us
see it expressed by the philosopher emperor Marcus Aurelius:
 |
| Emperor Marcus Aurelius |
[The rational soul]
travels through the entire world, the emptiness around it and its form; it
extends throughout the infinity of time, embraces the periodic rebirth of the
universal whole, calculates and realizes that our descendants will see nothing
new, just as our ancestors saw nothing extraordinary...
Among the first and second-generation
civilizations, only one did not accept the cyclical cosmology. Convinced of
being the chosen people of God, depository of an Alliance, the Hebrew people adopted a
different, unique cosmology, a linear concept of history, with a
beginning and an end. Their cosmology begins with creation from chaos and will end
with the consecration of Israel as the leader of all peoples, when the world will
return to primitive Eden to remain there forever. The Hebrew culture, however,
did not perform any scientific development and hardly had any philosophical
activity, except in those aspects related to religion.
Christianity, the successor of the Hebrew from
the theological point of view, spread through the Greco-Roman civilization and
made the synthesis of two very different cultures, although its genesis was,
above all, the consequence of a crucial historical fact:
a) From the Hebrew culture it adopted the linear vision of history.
b) From the Greco-Roman culture it
adopted Greek philosophy (especially
Plato and Aristotle) and Roman law.
c) The crucial historical fact on which
Christianity was based was the Incarnation of
God in Jesus Christ, his death and resurrection.
Another civilization, Islam, shared the first
two points: the linear vision of history and the influence of Greek philosophy.
In fact, during the first centuries of its existence, the Islamic civilization
made important scientific advances in astronomy, mathematics, medicine and
alchemy. However, it soon ended up in stagnation, probably because it lacked
the crucial fact of God’s interaction with man, His Incarnation in a person who
shares the two natures: something that Muslims do not accept.
Christianity has made possible the explosive
development of science, because the following two statements play a fundamental
role in our conception of the world:
1. The universe has been
created by God.
As God is a rational being, He must have created a rationally comprehensible
universe, subject to laws that can be expressed logically.
2. Man, as a rational being,
has the inconceivable dignity that God became man. That huge dignity of man means
that he cannot be an epiphenomenon, but a crucial element, capable of
discovering and understanding the laws with which God has endowed the universe.
To do this, we must resort to experimentation.
It was precisely the consciousness of our ability
to discover and understand the laws of the universe through experimentation
that has unleashed the scientific revolution in which we find ourselves. This
explosion of science has only been possible in a Christian civilization.
Let us see how Christopher Dawson expresses this
idea:
 |
| Christopher Dawson |
For the Christian
doctrine of the Incarnation is not simply a theophany—a revelation of God to
Man; it is a new creation—the introduction of a new spiritual principle which
gradually leavens and transforms human nature into something new... The key
to the Christian understanding of history—is to be found in the Incarnation—the
presence of the maker of the world in the world unknown to the world. And
though this divine intervention in the course of history seems at first sight
to empty secular history of all ultimate significance, in reality it gives
history for the first time an absolute spiritual value.
[Dynamics of World History]
The same post in Spanish
Thematic Thread on Science and History: Previous Next
Manuel Alfonseca
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