Category Archives: theology and culture

Galileo, What Hast Thou Wrought?

2 Replies

Today we continue our study of how the statement, “I am a woman trapped in a man’s body” (Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, p. 19), came to be taken seriously by millions of intelligent people. The previous essay explained why no one before 1500 could have comprehended the modern dichotomy between the external appearances of such things as the male and female bodies and their internal reality. At the conclusion of that essay, I promised that in the next part “we will see how the architects of the scientific revolution—Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, et al.—destroyed confidence in the reality of forms and souls and replaced them with atoms, space, and machines. The appearances no longer reveal the reality of things. Creation is emptied of spiritual reality, meaning, purpose, moral law, and beauty, all of which are transferred to the inner subjective world of the human mind.” We begin that saga with Galileo Galilei.

Galileo Versus Aristotle

Students of nature before Galileo assumed that the way things appear to us reveals something about their inner reality and that the inner reality of things manifests itself truly in their external appearances. The meaning, purpose, beauty, moral law, and value we experience in our minds also exists in nature. The goal of Aristotelian science was understanding how all these qualities are embedded in the natures of the things themselves. However, by the time Galileo (1564-1642) came to maturity in the early seventeenth century, such thinkers as Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Rene Descartes (1596-1650), and Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) were already complaining that the doctrine of forms contributed nothing to our empirical understanding of things. Mysterious forms, whether they are real or not, cannot be clearly thought and have no value for making predictions, discovering laws, and creating technology. And for reasons I do not understand, achieving these goals had become the driving force of the emerging scientific revolution.

Galileo and the Mathematization of Nature

Galileo believed that applying mathematics to nature was the only way to achieve his practical goals. Numbers and mathematical operations are clear and simple, and when we see the value of a mathematical expression or equation, we become certain of its truth. To understand nature, argued Galileo, we should set aside questions about its mysterious inner nature, the ways it appears to us, and the way it makes us feel; these are irrelevant to achieving the goals of the new science. We will then be free to work out the mathematical laws of nature’s movements and transformations. At last, we can understand nature as clearly as we understand mathematics!

Unforeseen and Unintended Consequences

To modern ears, Galileo’s philosophy of science and his revisions to the scientific method sound familiar and innocent. Whatever Galileo’s intentions, however, his innovations produced a profound moral and religious revolution. For by limiting science to knowledge that can be expressed in mathematics, Galileo, Descartes, et al, broke decisively (1) with the traditional belief that things reveal their inner reality in their outward appearances, and (2) with the corresponding belief that the inner worlds of things in nature are intelligible and mindlike in a way similar to the inner world of the human mind.

The Distinction Between Primary and Secondary Qualities

Perhaps Galileo and other pioneers of the scientific revolution could have narrowed science to what can be understood in mathematical terms without postulating an alternative to Aristotle’s intelligible forms as the cause of the way things appear to us. But they did not exercise such restraint. Instead, they replaced Aristotle’s inner forms and souls with imperceptible material atoms or corpuscles, which possess only mathematically measurable properties: shape, movement, mass, velocity, etc. In ways Galileo and Descartes cannot explain, these material particles cause us to experience the world in a human way. By distinguishing primary qualities (material, mechanical, and mathematical) from secondary qualities (psychological, organic, and qualitative), they drove a wedge between the way human beings experience the world and the world as it is apart from human perception. The only bridge between the two is mathematics. Listen to Galileo, Descartes, and Locke drive this point home:

“To excite in us tastes, odors, and sounds I believe that nothing is required in external bodies except shapes, numbers, and slow or rapid movements. I think that if ears, tongues, and noses were removed, shapes and numbers and motions would remain, but not odors or tastes or sounds. The latter, I believe, are nothing more than names when separated from living beings, just as tickling and titillation are nothing but names in the absence of such things as noses and armpits” (The Assayer, 1623).

“The properties in external objects to which we apply terms light, color, smell, taste, sound, heat and cold—as well as other tactile qualities…are so far as we can see, simply various dispositions in the shapes, sizes, positions, and movements of their parts which make them able to set up various kinds of motions in our nerves which are required to produce all the various sensations in the soul” (Descartes, The Principles of Philosophy, 1644; Quoted in Cottingham, A Descartes Dictionary, p. 149).

“These I call original or primary qualities of body, which I think we may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz. solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number. Secondly, such qualities which in truth are nothing in objects themselves but powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e. by bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colors, sounds, tastes, etc. These I call secondary qualities”(John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1698, II. 8)

Oh Galileo! What Hast Thou Wrought?

Galileo convinced the world that the variety and obscurity of the natural order could be reduced to the clarity and certainty of simple mathematical equations. Modern advances in understanding the mathematical laws of nature and the explosion of technological innovation rely on this supposition. But at what cost?  God’s glorious creation has fallen silent, emptied of spiritual reality, meaning, depth, mystery, purpose, moral law, and beauty, all of which have been transferred to the inner subjective world of the human mind. But how can we continue believing in the reality of meaning, depth, mystery, purpose, moral law, and beauty, if we think of them as existing only in the human psyche? They seem to be hanging in midair with no confirmation in common experience or foundation in an enduring reality.

Aristotle and all the ancients believed in the likeness and harmony between the human world and the natural world. This belief seemed reasonable, obvious even, because humans are part of the natural world. Galileo, Descartes and others split them apart, dividing the qualities we experience into the objective (real) and subjective (psychological) spheres. Human beings became islands of mind in a sea of mindless matter. It was inevitable that this division would become intolerable…that the human mind and soul would be reunited to nature by reducing them to something simpler. Sooner or later some thinker would do to the human soul what Galileo had done to the solar system.

And that “someone” was John Locke.

What Keeps You Up at Night?

2 Replies

Interviewers often ask FBI directors, generals and diplomats the question, “What keeps you up at night?” It’s a simple way of asking about the most pressing dangers facing the nation or the world. Today I want to answer this question in my own case.

Interviewer: Professor Highfield, as a student of church history, Christian theology, and contemporary culture, what keeps you up at night? What dangers currently threatening the church do you see that less observant people may not see?

Highfield: Indeed, I have given much of my life to study and observation of all things Christian. Also, I have given much attention to the cultures with which Christianity has interacted for 2,000 years. However, despite all that study I still feel like I am groping in the dark. The world is far too complicated for one person to grasp. Nevertheless, I will give you my take on your question.

Interviewer: That is all my audience can ask.

Highfield: One more thing before I answer your question. I want to make it clear that I believe firmly in the comprehensive providential care of the infinitely wise and good God. Nothing can separate us from “the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

Interviewer: Understood.

Highfield: What keeps me up at night? I am most alarmed by the rapidity with which the younger generations in the church are assimilating to the mind and behavior patterns of the surrounding culture and abandoning traditional Christianity. In the history of Christianity there have been many crises, defections, and heretical movements. From Judas who betrayed the Lord onward there has been a steady stream of traitors and deserters. I am aware of this. So, I am not claiming that this latest crisis is unprecedented. Only that it is different from anything I’ve seen during my life.

Interviewer: Could you unpack your thoughts for us. What exactly are these young generations finding in the surrounding culture that they are not finding in traditional Christianity? Why? And why now?

Highfield: I will state this as concisely as I can. The secular culture appeals primarily to our lower natures, as John says, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). It offers an easy way to pleasure, excitement, freedom, and happiness. Just follow the inclinations of your desires. In an unflattering contrast, popular culture pictures traditional Christianity as unnatural, backward, and unhappy. Christianity’s ethic of obedience, humility, self-discipline, and prudence, contemporary culture sneers, is as boring as it is antiquated.

Interviewer: Is that all there is to it? Young people have always been tempted to “sow their wild oats” before they come to their senses later in life.

Highfield: I was just about to address that issue. The secular culture wraps its sensuality in appeals to youthful idealism. Secular culture was not created exclusively by its rebellion against Christianity’s strictures on sexual excess, drunkenness, and other modes of self-indulgence. It also inherited certain ideals that it combined with its pleasure-seeking core. Among these are freedom, tolerance, respect, and dignity. In Christianity, these ideals fit perfectly with faith, obedience, and self-discipline. Popular culture, however, uses the rhetoric of these ideals to construct a view of the self whose inherent freedom and dignity give it a kind of moral independence that supposedly deserves respect from others. We are told that each individual is unique and must be left free to seek happiness in their own way.

Interviewer: So, secular culture uses Christian ideals to lure young Christians away from their Christianity?

Highfield: Precisely! Well…almost. In Christianity, “freedom” is the God-empowered state of exemption from the destructive powers of sin and death. In popular culture, freedom is the ability to indulge your desires as you please. In Christianity, we are sometimes allowed to tolerate behaviors we condemn. In secular culture, to tolerate means to approve. In Christianity, dignity is rooted in our God-imaging nature. In secular culture, a sense of our dignity comes out in asserting our rights to self-determination.

Interviewer: And young people are fooled by this rhetoric?

Highfield: Sort of. When young people hear these ideals used to justify a life of self-indulgence and criticize traditional Christianity, I am not sure they are completely fooled. The human tendency toward self-deception is very strong. But invocation of these twisted virtues gives the impression of moral superiority. And that moral fig leaf combined with the pull of the flesh and desire for acceptance by the majority culture explains why so many are taken in.

Interviewer: But why are so many so vulnerable to such deception? And what can be done to make them less vulnerable?

Highfield: I wish I knew the definitive answers to your questions. However, I do have some thoughts. First, I think most of us are unaware of how deeply embedded in the Western psyche the ideal of the independent, self-creating individual is, and how anti-Christian it is. Our political rhetoric and all our institutions—even many of our churches—idealize the individual’s freedom to choose their own path to happiness free from subservience to any lord. This pattern of thought is woven into every level of society and every social activity. So, when the time is ripe for secular society to use the rhetoric of freedom and individualized happiness to subvert traditional Christianity, young Christians fall by the millions.

Interviewer: Why now? Why was the time ripe?

Highfield: Again, you are asking a question to which only God knows the answer. I am sure it is much more complicated than this. But I believe this precipitous fall results from generations of ever more thorough assimilation to an ever more secular culture. It was not as precipitous as it seemed. The churches, the grandparents and parents of the current generation failed. They failed to understand and teach the true nature of the inner rot and godlessness of modern culture. They failed to understand and teach the true inner nature of the Christian faith and way of life. They failed to understand and teach the true nature of Christian freedom, dignity, and joy and how these ideals fit perfectly with faith, obedience, and self-discipline. They failed to understand and teach how to love God truly and keep ourselves from idols.

Interviewer: What can be done to slow or reverse this crisis?

Highfield: I dearly wish I knew. Until God visits us with revival on a large scale, all I know to do is repent and urge others to repent of our negligence. Church leaders need to repent of their superficiality, get educated, and grow a backbone. Parents need to repent of worldly ambition and childish self-centeredness, teach their children, and get their families involved in a like-minded group of believers.

Interviewer: So, that is what keeps you up at night?

Highfield: Yes. I pray I am wrong, but I don’t see it changing on a large scale until it gets much worse. But it can change for your church and your family. It starts with you and me. Who knows, God may yet surprise us with a great outpouring of his Spirit. Come Holy Spirit!