Faith and Reason and Science

Science Fiction author John C. Wright points to an article by fellow SF author Michael Flynn that was in the the July/August edition of Analog. The article “De revolutione scientiarum in ‘media tempstas'” and addresses the history of science and its roots in the medieval period and questions related to this

He asks how long was this pregnancy and also mentions Fr. Stanley Jaki’s statement that “the Scientific Revolution was stillborn in every other civilization.” Having read some of Fr. Jaki’s books in regard to the history of science it is certainly true that it was the Catholic Church that was the midwife for the Scientific Revolution.

Michael Flynn writes this in the dialectric format which readers of St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologicae. This is really quite an excellent article, though since it is a scanned PDF not the easiest thing to read.

John C. Wright also mentioned some of the most ignorant comments he has received citing the myths of the Church’s opposition to science or saying the Church taught the Earth was flat or that it banned autopsies.

This kind of reminds me how some Protestants are very similar to some atheists/secularists. That they believe all sorts of things about the Church that just doing the most basic research would show as false. Atheists seem to think that science popped up out of nothing and if anything despite Christians and Protestants seem to think that church history started right after the Reformation. Both groups are quite ignorant of the actual history of the Church just as I was once equally or even more ignorant.

I previously reviewed Mr. Flynn’s book Eifelheim which I loved and Mr. Flynn even commented on my review. I am also a fan of his other books and look forward to reading his latest book “The January Dancer.”