Harrison - Bible, Protestantism, And The Rise Of Natural Science

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Harrison (who)

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Former Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion at Oxford University and former Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre and a Fellow of Harris Manchester College.

Now: Research Professor and Director of the Centre of the History of European Discourses at the University of Queensland.

Studied at the University of Queensland in Science and Arts before studying philosophy and religion at Yale University.

PhD at the University of Queensland, and served as Professor of History and Philosophy at Bond University before being elected to the Idreos Chair.

Founding member of the International Society for Science and Religion.

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Harrison (research interests)

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Harrison is best known for a number of influential writings on religion and the origins of modern science. He has argued that changing approaches to the interpretation of the bible had a significant impact on the development of modern science. He has also suggested that the biblical story of the Fall played a key role in the development of experimental science. His earlier work traces changing conceptions of religion in the West. Harrison contends that the idea of religions as sets of beliefs and practices emerged for the first time in the seventeenth century.

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Harrison (purpose)

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“To explain how the systematic study of nature came to be incorporated into the humanities in the first place, and to document those events which led to its eventual independence” (2-3).

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Harrison (Bible --> Science)

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The emergence of ‘proper’ natural history was a new conception of the world based on the allocation of meaning to words as opposed to things, which made possible the collapse of the allegorical interpretation of texts (4).

While most believe it was the shift in the early modern’s view of the world that led to their new reading of the Bible, “the reverse is the case: that when in the sixteenth century people began to read the Bible in a different way, they found themselves forced to jettison traditional conceptions of the world” (4).

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Harrison (thesis)

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“The literalist mentality initiated by the Protestant reformers, and sponsored by their successors” is by far the most significant factor in the development of modern science (8).

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Harrison (literal and spiritual interpretations)

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To combat gnosticism, early Christian writers employed Platonic dualism, which ascribed value to visible things as signs of invisible things. Origen systematized this perspetive through his three-fold sense of Scripture. The physical always leads to spiritual. Allegory became the interpretive approach to uncover the the spiritual behind the physical.

Augustine provided the philosophical foundation for Origen through signification, which put the focus on the "thing" as opposed to the "sign." In this method, Augustine created a balanced where the literal meaning was important but subservient to the spiritual meaning, and the natural world was simply plain signs, whose true meaning was found in Scripture and whose reference was found in the spiritual world (30). Understanding he "thing" behind the word or world was the goal.

Study of the physical world alone was a vain pursuit. The spiritual meanings of Scripture gave meaning to the nature.

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Harrison (natural world)

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For Origen and Augustine, the natural world not only met man's needs, but was a repository for spiritual truths. It must be read with an eye to the spiritual.

Pursuit of knowledge about nature was only for the purpose of understanding the similitudes in Scripture. Additionally, Scripture's discussions of the natural world was not to convey knowledge about nature but to foster spirituality.

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Harrison (12th and 13th C. turn to the natural)

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The rediscovery and ascendency of the visible world began with the Renaissance. Anthropological speculations, discussions about the nature of the Eucharist and atonement, and the rise in the role of the senses in gaining knowledge all emphasized the physical world.

*Thomas Aquinas believed that since knowledge arose from sensation, thus nature conveyed knowledge of God and brought legitimacy to theological language used analogously of God (38).

This is a “complete reversal” of Augustine, “For Augustine, it is God who makes possible our knowledge of the world: for Aquinas, it is the world which makes possible our knowledge of God,” and it was this view of the world as a single corporeal entity that led to the rediscovery of nature (38).

Nature ceased to be valued because of the thing it signified. Instead, it became valued as a source of knowledge in an of itself and what it tells us about other material things.

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Harrison (medieval natural methodology)

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As a source of knowledge, specifically about God and redemption, nature needed to be read. Biblical interpretive principles were applied to this new "book of nature."

As scriptural exegesis was concerned with biblical patterns, connections, and the relating of parts to the whole, so too the interpretation of nature began to unfold (45-46). Philo’s exegetical principle of microcosm-macrocosm, which linked the human being and creation as a source of allegorical interpretation, was redeployed into the natural world, connecting the human being with the whole of creation (48-50).

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Harrison (two Reformations)

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1) Aristotle and Encyclopedias: 13th and 14th C. catalogs of nature were created building on Aristotle. They moved beyond mere observation to clarification, and eventual interaction with the material world in the fields of medicine, botany, etc. 16th and 17th C. humanist textual criticism to ancient sources brought about the challenge to the ancients's authority. The emblematic nature of things came into question (91)

2) Protestants: Unseating the churches authority over the Scripture entailed finding authority in Scripture itself. That meant rejecting allegorical methodology, which made meaning anything the church wanted, and instead employing humanists-historical methods to understand the original author's meaning (99). This placed authority in the hands of individual.

The natural world was stripped of its spiritual objects. Luther and Calvin argued for the simplest and clearest meanings (108). Literal meaning became the foundation of allegory (which was used sparingly).

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Harrison (Re-reading two texts)

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Scripture: With a greater emphasis on the literal meaning came a greater emphasis on the history and circumstances of the authors to understand the Bible. Bible became mundane, to be read like any text authored by human authors. Typology falls within this paradigm b/c it deals with history.

The natural sciences changed the understanding of accommodation--God spoke according to the perspective of the authors not in terms what science reveals.

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Harrison (nature in the 17th C.)

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As the use of allegorical understanding of nature came to a halt, the need to re-answer the question of the usefulness and meaning of nature arose (161-162).

Seventeenth century natural history imposes order on the world by active investigation of things which uncovers their material utility (167).

As with Scripture, interpreting the book of nature became a matter of discerning the intention of the author, and therefore understanding the purpose for which God had created living things (168-169). Arguments from design flourished from this.

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Harrison (results of two-books separation)

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1) The search for a divine purpose in nature provided a religious foundation for scientific development.

2) A rejection of the symbolic function of nature raised the question of nature's utility. Determining their purpose became the goal in order to help God fulfill his plan.

3) The fall and subsequent biblical-historical events became realities to be reversed through human endeavors.

4) Salvation is no longer viewed as a process in which the divine image in mankind is restored, but the likeness is being restored from without, with science acting as the tangible means of obtaining secular salvation (273).

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Harrison (Protestant Irony)

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“While the Protestants’ insistence that passages of scripture be given a determinate meaning proceeded from the purest of religious motives, they were inadvertently setting in train a process which would ultimately result in the undermining of that biblical authority which they so adamantly promoted” (268).

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Harrison (takeaways)

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1) Science in the medieval period not the same as in 17th C. b/c science subservient to theology.

2) Biblical interpretation provides religious warrants to advances in natural science, not the reverse.

3) Protestant reformers's elevation of literal interpretation, which minimizes the symbolic function of words, fueled the rejection of the symbolic function of nature.

4) Methodology for uncovering the meaning of the words themselves was applied to uncovering the meaning of nature, which became utilitarian.