Religion and science; Religion and science -- History; Science -- History
Columbus is the next warrior. The world has heard of his battles:
how the Bishop of Ceuta worsted him in Portugal; how at the Junta of
Salamanca the theologians overwhelmed him with quotations from the
Psalms, from St. Paul, and from St. Augustine.[14] And even after
Columbus was triumphant, and after his voyage had greatly strengthened
the theory of the earth's sphericity, the Church, by its highest
authority, was again solemnly committed to the theory of the earth's
flatness. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI. issues a bull laying down a line
of demarkation upon the earth as a flat disk; this line was drawn from
north to south, west of the Azores and Canary Islands; and the Pope, in
the plenitude of his knowledge and powers, declared that all lands
discovered east of this line should belong to the Portuguese, and all
discovered west of it should belong to the Spaniards. This was hailed
as an exercise of divinely illuminated power in the Church; but in
a few years difficulties arose. The Portuguese claimed Brazil, and,
of course, had no difficulty in showing that it could be reached by
sailing to the east of the line, provided the sailing were sufficiently
long-continued. The bull of Pope Alexander quietly passed into the
catalogue of ludicrous errors.[15]
But in 1519 Science gains a crushing victory. Magalhaens makes his
famous voyages. He proves the earth to be round, for his great
expedition circumnavigates it; he proves the doctrine of the antipodes,
for he sees the men of the antipodes;[16] but even this does not end
the war. Many earnest and good men oppose the doctrine for two hundred
years longer. Then the French astronomers make their measurements of
degrees in equatorial and polar regions, and add to other proofs that
of the lengthened pendulum: when this was done, when the deductions of
science were seen to be established by the simple test of measurement,
beautifully, perfectly, then and then only this war of twelve centuries
ended.[17]
And now, what was the result of this war? The efforts of Eusebius and
Lactantius to deaden scientific thought; the efforts of Augustine to
combat it; the efforts of Cosmas to stop it by dogmatism; the efforts
of Boniface, and Zachary, and others to stop it by force, conscientious
as they all were, had resulted in what? Simply in forcing into many
noble minds this most unfortunate conviction, that Science and Religion
are enemies; simply in driving away from religion hosts of the best
men in all those centuries. The result was wholly bad. No optimism can
change that verdict.
On the other hand, what was gained by the warriors of science for
religion? Simply, a far more ennobling conception of the world, and a
far truer conception of Him who made and who sustains it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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