Christianity is the only worldview and only religion in history to propound and expand natural philosophy into the sciences.  Christianity is the only true religion of course, and so it is no surprise that early Christians wanted to uncover the secret of God’s created world.  The perfect design they found in nature and their own bodies, compelled investigations. 

The Christian worldview was premised as much on reason as faith.  Saint Augustine of Hippo in the 4^th century advocated interpreting scripture with reality as he synthesised Platonic philosophy with Catholic teaching.  In the 13^th century Saint Thomas Acquinas aligned Aristotle’s philosophy and Greek science with Catholic beliefs, using physics, scientific concepts and reason, to support the existence of the Christian God.  In between Augustine and Acquinas, stretching some 800 years, the objective historian can see the great progress made from paganism and mystical beliefs to concrete experimentation and investigation. 

Boethius (480 to 525 AD)

Romano-Christian aristocrat who wrote ‘The Consolation of Philosophy’, which discusses aspects of Christian-stoicism and why free will is necessary.  Composed texts on music and mathematics which were used for almost a millennia in schools.  Completed some translations of Aristotle from Greek into Latin.  Boethius’ works were copied and translated by Alfred the Great in England during the middle to late 9^th century. 

Saint Augustine (354-430 AD)

Bishop of Hippo, synthesised Platonic and neo-Platonic philosophy with Catholic teaching.  Accepted pagan science as true even if it seemed to contradict scripture.  Did not believe in a literal reading of every book in the Bible if it contradicted reason, common sense or observations.  Ambivalent about free will.

Gerbert of Aurillac (940 to 1003 AD)

Born in the lower class, rose to become Pope and a significant contributor to science and mathematics.  Wrote an instruction manual for astrolabes which the Byzantine Christians had been using since the 5^th century.  Built spherical models of the Earth and universe.  Promoted both astronomy and mathematics to describe natural phenomena. 

As with most people of his time, did not believe that the Earth had to be in the centre of the universe, and that if it was immobile (telescopes were long in the future), it should be raised up to the stars (exalted), not found ‘lower down’.

Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Italian born, a student of Lanfranc, Anselm became Bishop of Canterbury and used reason to support the existence of God.  In the Proslogion, Anselm utilises pure logic, or ‘ontology’, to prove that God must exist.  This work was to provide logical support for those who believed in God.  His arguments use aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy.  He marks a departure within European philosopher and metaphysics, from Plato to Aristotle.  Anselm felt the best way to know God was through prayer, meditation and fasting.

Peter Abelard (1079-1142 AD)

Catholic intellectual who criticised scripture and texts which seem to contradict each other.  His commentaries Sic ou Non (Yes or No), were mandatory reading for medieval students at the University of Paris and beyond.  Abelard believed in logical rationalism in all spheres of life including faith.  All Catholic dogma, including the Trinity, should be analysed and scrutinised for logical, rational or factual errors or misrepresentations. 

William of Conches (1085-1154)

Educated at the Cathedral school of Chartres, Conches attempted to align Platonic philosophy found in Timaeus, one of the first and for a time, only translated work of Greek philosophy, with the creation account in Genesis.  It was a difficult if impossible task, given that Plato who believed in a creator, had God using existing material and was a passive God, more of Newton’s divine clock maker, than the interactive God of Christianity.  Conches developed ideas about the first mover (God) and secondary movers (events, or processes after God’s activity), and natural laws emanating from God’s creation. 

Adelard of Bath (1080-1160)

After extensive travel to Syria and beyond, Adelard translated the Greek copies of Euclid’s Elements, into Latin.  Euclid’s work (~300 BC) was the basis of advanced mathematics.  Adelard’s work is an exhaustive study of geometry based on Euclid’s textbook. 

Translators

From at least the 12^th century onwards Catholics were eager translators of ancient, pagan and even Muhammadan texts.  Gerard of Cremona (1114-87) translated Ptolemy’s Almagest, or compendium of astronomical and geocentric observations and calculations.  Gerard also translated Arab works by Avicenna on medicine and Averroes on Aristotle’s philosophies.  Gerard and other translators were able to produce copies of Aristotle’s enormous (if usually uncompleted) output.  This had a profound impact on medieval ‘scholasticism’ in natural philosophy, and theology.

Universities

Universities began to form as educational corporations, with their own charters and laws, funded by the Catholic Church in the 12^th century.  The first universities in Bologna (medicine), Paris (theology), Chartres (physics, natural philosophy), were exemplary illustrations of how innovative and forward thinking the medieval mind could be.  These environments provided an opportunity to educate, debate and investigate theology, nature, physics and pagan philosophies including Platonism and Aristotelianism.  This Catholic obsession with education and knowledge has no other parallel from any other worldview in history.

Sources:

James Hannam, God’s Philosophers, 2017.