Robert Grosseteste
These developing concepts, Platonic but biblical, were contained in the work of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (1168–1253). His methodology was rooted in the notion of God as Creator, to deal with points of conflict with Aristotelian philosophy on behalf of Christianity. His thought was strongly shaped by Platonic ideas, but he rejected the idea that the universe emanated from God, as light emanates from the sun, and was instead in favor of the biblical account of creation ex nihilo.[297] He made a distinction between the abstract, geometrical notion of math and math as applied to nature. In De Lineis, he explains his analysis of the powers propagated from natural agents:
The utility of considering lines, angles and figures is huge, because it is impossible to know the philosophy of Nature without them. They are valid for the entire universe and, unconditionally, for all its parts. They apply in connecting the properties, such as in straight and circular motions. And they apply in action and passion (reaction), and this is so, whether in the matter or in the capacities of perception; and this is so again, whether in the sense of sight, as it is occurring, or in any other sense in the action of which, it is necessary to add other things on that which is producing the vision.
For, it does not act through deliberation and choice; and therefore in one way it acts, whatever it is occurring, whether it is a perception or something else, animated or inanimate. But because of the diversity of the objects of action we have different effects. Moreover, in the perception, this received power produces, in some way, a spiritual and noble effect; on the other hand, when acting on the matter, it produces a material effect, such as the sun produces, through the same power, different effects in different objects of its action. For it hardens the clay and melts the ice.[298]
Grosseteste’s theory of scientific measurement was summarized by William of Alnwick from the Oxford Franciscan House in 1310. He understood Grosseteste to hold that all man-made measurements are imperfect since they are based on conventional units which cannot account for the infinitely small.
For how are we to know the number or quantity of that line which the first Measurer has measured? That quantity he reveals to no man, nor can we measure the line by means of infinite points, because they are neither known nor determined to us, as they are to God by whom they are comprehended. Whence this method of measuring is for us as uncertain as the first . . . Therefore there is no perfect measure of continuous quantity except by means of indivisible continuous quantity, for example by means of a point, and no quantity can be perfectly measured unless it is known how many indivisible points it contains. And since these are infinite, therefore their number cannot be known by a creature but by God alone, who disposes everything in number, weight and measure.[299]
The last line shows that the role of the Creator was in the forefront of Grosseteste’s thinking, and there is further evidence of this in his (still unedited) treatises, the “Hexaemeron” and the “De universitatis machina.”[300] Grosseteste struggled with Aristotle’s Physics, particularly the thoughts on light, and denounced forcibly the Aristotelian idea that the world had no beginning in time.[301] The central theme of Hexaemeron was the biblical theme that God is light, truly, essentially and not in the metaphorical sense.[302] Both treatises document that Grosseteste’s scientific methodology depended on the Old Testament understanding of the Creator as a rational and personal planner, builder, and maintainer of the universe.[303]
William of Auvergne
There was not a uniform agreement in the thirteenth century about the nature of the universe, however. There were a mixture of opinions and insights from those who studied the Greek works, a mixture of sound principles and irrational tales, reason, and magic.[304] There is evidence of these struggles in the massive works of the Bishop of Paris, William of Auvergne (1180–1249). William took an active interest in the institution where he taught, the University of Paris, and his treatises were aimed at adopting and adapting Aristotle’s philosophy on the basis of Christian dogma.[305] His work, therefore, is known as an unexpectedly detailed picture of the magic and superstition of the time.[306] There were errors and perversions of the Aristotelian texts from the Arab translations, so Auvergne’s task was to rescue Aristotelian thought from the Arabs by reconciling it with Augustinian and Platonic elements.[307]
There are many references to the magical elements of Auvergne’s work, as he sought to find a way out of the mixture of ideas which included the doctrine of the Great Year, the heresy of Manichaeism (the Persian belief that all religious systems could be synthesized, particularly Zoroastrian Dualism, Babylonian folklore, Buddhist ethics, and some superficial tenets of Christianity), fatalism, pantheism, star worship, necromancy, and other irrational concepts.[308] He discussed at length the demonic aspect of magic, superstition, and idolatry.[309]
Lynn Thorndike explained in his book A History of Magic and Experimental Science that Auvergne’s account of magic is a “remarkable and illuminating one.”[310] Most of Auvergne’s discourse is found in the last part of the De universe. Thorndike summarized the main points:
He [Auvergne] constantly assumes that its [magic] great aim is to work marvels. He holds that often the ends are sought by the help of the demons and methods which are idolatrous. Evil ends are brought about by magicians. On the other hand the apparent marvels are often worked by mere human sleight-of-hand or other tricks and deceptions of the magicians themselves. But the marvel can be neither human deceit nor the work of an evil spirit. It may be produces by the wonderful occult virtues resident in certain objects of nature. To marvels wrought in this manner William [of Auvergne] applies the name “natural magic,” and has no doubt of its truth. But he denies the validity of many methods and devices in which magicians trust, and contends that marvels cannot be so worked unless demons are responsible.[311]
In the quagmire of ideas there was, nonetheless, an equally pervasive presence of Christian doctrine regarding the Creator and creation. This widespread presence served as a firm barrier against the conceptual chaos that threatened medieval thought.[312] Thorndike also noted this respect for science as an explanation for both natural causes and the Creator’s omnipotence:
William at any rate has respect for natural philosophy and favors scientific investigation of nature. Like his namesake of Conches in the preceding century he has no sympathy with those who, when they are ignorant of the causes of natural phenomena and have no idea how to investigate them, have recourse to the Creator’s omnipotent virtue and call everything of this sort a miracle, or evade the necessity of any natural explanation by affirming that God’s will is the sole cause of it. This seems to William an intolerable error, in the first place because they have thus only one answer for all questions, and secondly because they are satisfied with the most remote cause instead of the most immediate one. There is no excuse for thus neglecting so many varied and noble sciences.[313]
Jaki thought that William of Auvergne had the right approach for his times. It would have been a mistake summarily to dismiss the translations from the Arabs or to dismiss Aristotelian philosophy where it strayed from Christian doctrine. William, and others, needed to deal with it in detail and to show respect for Plato and Aristotle since Plato and Aristotle had so great a reputation among scholars.
William knew that the doctrine of the Great Year was also a far reaching worldview incompatible with Christian faith, and he wrote a refutation against the six arguments that had been advanced in support of the Great Year. Those arguments could be accused of repetitious detail perhaps, but in his age, it was probably necessary. Still, the refutation came down to one rebuttal, that even among the observed cycles of nature, the recurrences were never identical.
The philosopher Alfred North Whitehead wrote in his book Science and the Modern World, a series of eight Lowell Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1925 succinctly describing the overall rebuttal that emerged among Western European minds:
Obviously, the main
recurrences of life are too insistent to escape the notice of the least rational of humans; and even before the dawn of rationality, they have impressed themselves upon the instincts of animals. It is unnecessary to labour the point, that in broad outline certain general states of nature recur, and that our very natures have adapted themselves to such repetitions.
But there is a complementary fact which is equally true and equally obvious:—nothing ever really recurs in exact detail. No two days are identical, no two winters. What has gone, has gone forever. Accordingly the practical philosophy of mankind has been to expect the broad recurrences, and to accept the details as emanating from the inscrutable womb of things beyond the ken of rationality. Men expected the sun to rise, but the wind bloweth where it listeth.[314]
The error could also be described as a failure to distinguish between primary and secondary causes, to distinguish between the Creator and creation. Here, Jaki noted that obviously “what was needed was an unremitting search coupled with an unconditional respect for some guidelines marking the major pitfalls in reasoning about nature, a contingent entity.”[315] This unremitting search and unconditional respect would be the work of St. Thomas Aquinas, student of St. Albertus Magnus.
St. Albertus Magnus
Aquinas’ master, Albertus Magnus (St. Albert the Great, 1193–1280), was an enthusiastic proponent of the investigative approach to nature. In Western Christendom, Albertus Magnus was the first to interpret comprehensively Aristotle’s philosophy.[316] He was heavily influenced by the Platonism of the Church Fathers, but he perceived the significance of Aristotle’s work. He realized that the role of omnipotent determinators to move celestial bodies would not be easily dismissed, and he treated the question of fate in a brief treatise entitled De fato.[317] The work begins with a summary of twenty-one writings from Boethius, Aristotle, Macrobius, Ptolemy, Gregory, and Augustine.[318] In interpreting the views of the Stoics and Muslims through the lens of his Christian faith, Albertus rejected astrology and magic, and instead argued for reason and investigation to go as far as possible in the natural world. For instance, he wrote that “changes of the general state of the elements and the world” are affected by the planets and their spheres, and he rejected the opinion of “certain Arabs” that the imaginations of the intelligences that move the moon cause floods.[319]
Albertus also wrote a complete encyclopedia of philosophical disciplines based on the Aristotelian texts for his students of the Dominican Order. He wanted not only to provide theological studies, but also to prepare his students for philosophical studies such as he had not received. He began the extensive part on natural sciences as follows:
Our purpose in natural science is to satisfy as far as we can those brethren of our order who for many years now have begged us to compose for them a book on physics in which they might have a compete exposition of natural science and from which also they might be able to understand correctly the books of Aristotle. Although we do not think we are competent of ourselves to carry out this project, nevertheless, because we do not want to refuse our brethren’s request, we have finally accepted this task which we so many times rejected. Overcome by the request of certain of these brethren we have undertaken this work first to the praise of Almighty God, who is the fountain of wisdom and the creator, ordered and governor of nature, and then for the benefit of our brethren, and, finally, for the benefit of all those desirous of learning natural science who may read it.[320]
Not only was Albertus assimilating and modifying the Aristotelian texts, he was synthesizing them into Christian thought and teaching it to his pupils.
St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas has sometimes been accused of lacking an appreciation for the experimental method in favor of philosophical reasoning, but this is more a personality trait of his than a commentary on his contemporaries. Aquinas was both a philosopher and a theologian, which was key to his stable synthesis of reason and faith. In fact, his works form the classical balance.[321] In keeping with the approach of Auvergne and Albertus, Aquinas reasoned as far as possible with a generous acceptance of the Aristotelian system to show respect for the scholarship of the time.
Aquinas’ first major synthesis was the Summa Contra Gentiles (1257), which brought the authority of reason to bear on Muslim philosophy. The lengthy beginning dealt specifically with the questions about the Creator, the search for truth, human intellect, and refuted specifically theological aspects tied to Muhammad. Aquinas departed from Aristotelic orthodoxy only where no compromise could be allowed by the Christian Creed.[322]
An example of Aquinas’ acceptance of the search for the laws of nature can be found in the brief work De Motu Cordis (On the Motion of the Heart), in which he considered what moves the heart and exactly what kind of movement it has.[323] He was not referring to the will of man, but to the actual organ called the heart. The movement of this organ is a push-pull motion, somewhat like a circle, which led Aristotle to suppose that this movement had a supernatural mover since it moved as the celestial bodies do, in circles. Aquinas followed Aristotle’s physics insofar as he sought a natural explanation for the movement of the heart, but he deviated from Aristotle in concluding that the movement was sustained by intelligences in the way that celestial bodies are moved in circular motion by intelligences in the divine ether.
Instead Aquinas argued that “the motion of the heart is a natural result of the soul, the form of the living body and principally of the heart.”[324] Aquinas from there argued that the heart could not have its own soul moved by desire, reasoning thus. First, he noted how inanimate objects and animate beings both move. The heart moves because it is part of an animal’s body, which is why the heart beats faster in response to various sensations and emotions, or in the case of man, even in response to reasoning. Second, he noted how the heart beat begins and ends with the life of the animal, a “continuous movement as long as the animal lives.”[325] This reasoning demonstrates how Aquinas, just as his contemporaries, desired to search for natural explanations as far as possible even when the reasoning involved spiritual aspects of being.
Aquinas carried the same approach in the Summa Theologiæ (1273), accepting as much of Aristotle’s philosophy as possible. For instance, in the 91st Question of the Third Part (Supplement), Aquinas discussed “the quality of the world after the judgment.” This discussion is a direct confrontation with Aristotle’s cosmology of endless cycles emanating from God.[326] Aquinas accepted that there are natural cycles in the world, but in the end when the world is renewed, corporeal things and man will be renewed too. He wrote that the “philosophers who assert that the movement of the heaven will last forever” are not “in keeping with our faith, which holds that the elect are in a certain number preordained by God, so that the begetting of men will not last forever, and for the same reason, neither will other things that are directed to the begetting of men, such as the movement of the heavens and the variations of the elements.”[327]
This reasoning guided by faith is the same sort of reasoning that led Aquinas to assert that the movement of the heavens will cease in the world after the judgment not by a natural cause, but as a result of the will of God. This departure from Aristotelian, Greek, and Muslim cosmology–indeed a departure from any other cosmology at all–shows the ultimate reason for the cosmos to exist in the worldview of Christianity. The cosmos exists by the will of the Creator, and it is subordinate to man’s eternal, unique, and supernatural destiny.[328]
Roger Bacon
It is often assumed incorrectly that the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon (1214–1294) stood alone in the Middle Ages in his advocacy of experimental and natural sciences, but his works make more sense when considered in the context of his contemporaries. Bacon lived during a time when scholars were trying to make the most of the Greek scientific corpus being recovered and translated rapidly.[329] In addition to his strong support for the experimental method, he also lent support to some of the interpretations of the Arabs regar
ding astrology, enough to get him into some trouble with Church authorities by 1277 when his work Opus majus was condemned as containing “some suspected novelties,” and he was imprisoned.[330] Bacon is sometimes credited along with Galileo as the beginner of modern science, and indeed he can be considered a precursor for his appreciation for the experimental method.
There are two ways of acquiring knowledge, one through reason, the other by experiment. Argument reaches a conclusion and compels us to admit it, but it neither makes us certain nor so annihilates doubt that the mind rests calm in the intuition of truth, unless it finds this certitude by way of experience. Thus many have arguments toward attainable facts, but because they have not experienced them, they overlook them and neither avoid a harmful nor follow a beneficial course. Even if a man that has never seen fire, proves by good reasoning that fire burns, and devours and destroys things, nevertheless the mind of one hearing his arguments would never be convinced, nor would he avoid fire until he puts his hand or some combustible thing into it in order to prove by experiment what the argument taught. But after the fact of combustion is experienced, the mind is satisfied and lies calm in the certainty of truth. Hence argument is not enough, but experience is.[331]
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