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TechnoratiWhere did universities come from?
When a group of students and professors refused to hear the pope speak at their Roman university they were denying their own tradition.
The conventional view nowadays regarding faith and reason is that there is simply no relationship between the two. It is inconceivable. The notion of a "rational" or "reasonable" faith is viewed as an oxymoron. Consequently, any ethical judgment associated with a religious faith is deemed non-rational and irrelevant to those not sharing that faith.
In a lecture intended for delivery at La Sapienza University in Rome earlier this month, Pope Benedict XVI undertook to address this issue and to show that faith cannot exist without reason and that reason itself cannot flourish without the faith. His whole argument is based on the concept of the Western university, whose emergence in the Middle Ages was not some sheer historical fluke, but an outgrowth of the intellectual requirements of the Christian faith itself -- a point which suggests why universities did not develop in Asia, Africa or the Middle-East.
What students and faculty were rejecting was not simply a religious institution but the very foundations of Western culture.
The pope first notes that "the true, intimate origin of the university lies in man's craving for knowledge". In this sense, "the Socratic questioning is the impulse that gave birth to the Western university". He then explains that it is precisely as a response to this kind of questioning that the Christians of the first centuries embraced the faith: "They accepted their faith as a way of dissolving the cloud that was mythological religion so as to discover the God that is creative Reason as well as Reason-as-Love."
In short, the first Christians were drawn to the faith not by inner frustrations but by their intellectual quest for the truth. "For this reason, asking themselves about the reason for the greater God…was part of the essence of their way of being religious." Far from putting aside Socratic self-questioning, they felt not only able but compelled "to recognize as part of their identity the demanding search for reason in order to learn about the entire truth". It was precisely because of that difficult and unrelenting search, says Benedict, that "the university could and indeed had to be born within the Christian world and the Christian faith." The medieval universities were thus a response to an urge to find answers to questions raised by reason enlightened by the Christian faith.
Moreover, while truth "pertains first and foremost to seeing and understanding theoria, as it is called in the Greek tradition", it is "not only theoretic." This is because "truth makes us good and goodness is true". The God that is "creative Reason" is also "Goodness itself". The knowledge that God gave us through his incarnation in Christ is thus both a theoretical and a practical knowledge. Revelation is not only about what we need to know, but also about what we need to do.
This, says Benedict, helps to explain why the relation between theory and practice, between knowing and acting, was so prominent in the four faculties of the medieval university - medicine, law, philosophy and theology. The fact that medicine, for example, was part and parcel of the "universitas" meant that "the art of healing was seen as something guided by reason and was thus beyond the domain of magic". Similarly, in the faculty of law, the question of the relationship between practice and theory arose as a result of the need for an ordering of freedom, i.e. the need to identify the standards of justice "that make freedom as part of a whole possible and serve mankind's goodness".
Here the pope notes that contemporary scholars are still addressing this issue and that, whether Christian or not, they must acknowledge "that responsiveness to truth is a necessary component of political argumentation." The words he uses are borrowed from Jürgen Habermas, a prominent German atheist writer, so as to show that, irrespective of one's beliefs, one cannot escape the need for some kind of transcendent truth. But, if that is the case, we cannot help asking: What is truth? Even if one adopts the secularist view that equates it with "public reason", as does John Rawls, whose influence on political philosophy the Pope acknowledges explicitly, the question immediately arises: What is reasonable? Even today, legal issues cannot be addressed without reflecting on the nature of justice, which is precisely what led our medieval forebears to set up law schools in the first place.
The pope goes on to note that the mission of the two other faculties of the medieval university, those of philosophy and theology, was "studying mankind in his totality and thus keep alive responsiveness to truth". The two disciplines constitute "a peculiar pair of twins", neither of which can be totally separated from the other and each of which must nevertheless retain its autonomy. Drawing from the works of Thomas Aquinas, Benedict says that philosophy and theology must relate to each other "without confusion and without separation." "Without confusion" means that "each will maintain its own identity". Philosophers should conceive of their discipline as "truly a free and responsible search for reason [within] its own limits." "Without separation" denotes that philosophy "never starts from scratch in isolation, but is part of the great dialogue found in the accumulated knowledge that history has bequeathed and which it always critically but meekly accepts and develops."
Here, of course, Benedict is using language unacceptable to the secularist mind. The notion that philosophy "never starts from scratch in isolation" is anathema to the modernist creed, whose foundational claim is precisely that true knowledge begins by positing Descartes' tabula rasa -- the notion that each individual mind is born "blank" and thus has the ability to author its own "soul" without the help of a religious tradition, the latter being essentially alien to the "free" exercise of reason. The pope's response is that "the history of the humanism that has developed on the basis of the Christian faith is proof of the truth of this faith in its essential core, making it something that public reason needs". In other words, irrespective of one's beliefs, one can acknowledge that the Christian tradition has produced an accumulated wisdom that ought not to be "thrown into the dustbin of the history of ideas".
To those who say that religious belief has its origin in superstition and fear, the pope in effect responds that there is a body of evidence testifying that our universities, our legal tradition, the development of modern science, philosophy, architecture, literature and arts are grounded in the fecundity and reasonableness of the Christian faith. To ignore all of that would be contrary to reason. More generally, there can be no conflict between true faith and right reason. If there appears to be one, we need to question, not faith or reason per se, but rather our premises or our mode of reasoning.
That Pope Benedict's lecture had to be cancelled as a result of protest by students and faculties says more about the state of modern universities than it does about the papacy. What students and faculty were rejecting was not simply a religious institution but the very foundations of Western culture. Tabula rasa might well have been their rallying cry. Perhaps we need to reflect on T.S. Eliot's observation about the relationship between Western culture and the Christian faith:
If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes. Then you must start painfully again, and you cannot put on a new culture ready made. You must wait for the grass to grow to feed the sheep to give the wool out of which your new coat will be made. You must pass through many centuries of barbarism. We should not live to see the new culture, nor would our great-great-great-grandchildren: and if we did, not one of us would be happy in it.
Richard Bastien is director of the Catholic Civil Rights League for the National Capital Area of Canada and a regular contributor to Égards.
Came across some words of G.K. Chesterton that can shed some light of on the religion vs science debate
it’s from his book on St. Thomas Aquinas:
“ the principles he laid down, properly understood, are perhaps the best that can be produced for protecting science from mere obscurantist persecution. For instance in the matter of inspiration of scripture, he fixed first on the obvious fact which was forgotten by four furious centuries of sectarian battle, that the meaning of scripture is very far from self-evident; and that we must often interpret it in the light of other truths. If a literal interpretation is really and flatly contradicted by an obvious fact, why then we can only say that the literal interpretation must be the false interpretation. But the fact must really be an obvious fact. And unfortunately, 19th century scientists were just as ready to jump to the conclusion that any guess about nature was an obvious fact, as were 17th century sectarians to jump to the conclusion that any guess about scripture was the obvious explanation. Thus, private theories about what the bible ought to mean, and premature theories about what the world ought to mean, have met in a loud and widely advertised controversy, especially in Victorian times - and today - and this very clumsy collision of two very impatient forms of ignorance was known as the quarrel of science and religion.”
In the final analysis, a good educational system is a community of people that fosters a culture of life, an environment of personal freedom and responsibility where everyone is formed to achieve their full potential in pursuit of the common good.
It works for me, Jim. I’m confused why you mentioned my name at all.
David said: “ Jim, an insult isn’t an argument. But if you want an argument, I’m all yours.”
I apologize if what I wrote was taken as an insult. And here is the crux, in my opinion I was making a statement of fact.
With regard to your offer for “argument”, I tried this previously and you thought me obtuse when I attempted merely to define terms. You moved everywhere but in the direction to define terms on which to base argument. I do not have the patience or desire to go there again.
Jim said: “If the shoe fits “…arguments which sidetrack from the essential point of debate …” this is as close a fit to my recall of exchanging what must have been 10 or more comments with David Page all the while being left feeling that it was a futile exercise.” Jim, an insult isn’t an argument. But if you want an argument, I’m all yours.
If the shoe fits “…arguments which sidetrack from the essential point of debate …” this is as close a fit to my recall of exchanging what must have been 10 or more comments with David Page all the while being left feeling that it was a futile exercise. In my opinion the “arguments” are not truly arguments in fact, but a means to allegations without evidence, to distortion of language and extrapolation of fact, for the most part in disservice to the Church.
John Wilkes said: “When you have an initial invitation to attend a function and give an address to a family group/social club/church/political body, but the invitation is subsequently repudiated by many members of that organization, is it not at least good manners, if not a respect for the maintenance of proper public order, that you cancel your visit?”
How many were against the visit? Five percent? Your right, the Pope’s action was a profile in courage. What was I thinking?
John Wilkes said: “And the Pope’s decision was actually what the University wanted - so how can he be only preaching “to the choir”?”
Preaching to the choir means trying to convince people who already agree with you, so I don’t understand the sentence above. If the Pope’s decision was what the University wanted why did they go on to read his lecture aloud? By the way, this isn’t the first time he has caused controversy by quoting others. Do you remember the Muslim remarks? Do you think the controversy takes him by surprise? I suspect there is a passive/aggressive kind of thing going on.
David,
Just briefly two points.
1. When a person apologies for earlier, regrettable, actions by members of their family/social club/church/political structure etc I interpret that apology to mean that the said earlier actions were wrong. Pope John Paul 11 did that apropos of the treatment of Galileo. The Church sinned and has acknowledged that fact. Therefore isn’t the debating point closed?
2. When you have an initial invitation to attend a function and give an address to a family group/social club/church/political body, but the invitation is subsequently repudiated by many members of that organization, is it not at least good manners, if not a respect for the maintenance of proper public order, that you cancel your visit?
By analogy, would you visit the local scout hall or sporting club if many of the leadership and its members publically said you were not wanted, and members of that organisation held public protests, and it was evident that if you persisted in your visit, people and or property might be damaged ? That is all that happen in the case of the La Sapienza affair.
Consider this report from the BBC World News (Jan 15):
“The academics at La Sapienza signed a letter saying Pope Benedict’s views on Galileo “offend and humiliate us”.
They said it would be inappropriate for the Pope to open their academic year on Thursday.
“In the name of the secular nature of science we hope this incongruous event can be cancelled,” said the letter addressed to the university’s rector, Renato Guarini.
In a separate initiative, students at La Sapienza organised four days of protest this week. The first revolved around an anti-clerical meal of bread, pork and wine, the BBC’s Christian Fraser reports from Rome. “
See report at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7188860.stm
And the Pope’s decision was actually what the University wanted - so how can he be only preaching “to the choir”?
Sean Mullins said: “The article under comment had to do with the paradox of students and professors at a University, refusing to hear the Pope speak.”
The Vatican, not the University, cancelled the Pope’s lecture. Your ‘essential point’ is based on a false premise. The Vatican simply wanted a friendlier crowd. One must assume that the Pope’s policy is to only preach to the choir.
The question, for me and for the students at La Sapienza, is still whether the Church had the right to torture and kill those with contrary views. Whether Galileo was right or wrong doesn’t matter. Galileo could have been defending the existence of Fairies at the bottom of the garden. Except to disagree, it would be none of the Church’s business.
By the way, I have no intention of being drawn into name calling. ‘When the facts are on your side, then pound on the facts. When they are not, pound on the table’. When you compare me to Dorothy Dix you are calling me a liar. You are pounding on the table.
With the greatest of respect to Mr Page and his Dorothy Dixer* question, no-one is trying to defend the so-called right of the Church to kill those with contrary views. The article under comment had to do with the paradox of students and professors at a University, refusing to hear the Pope speak. Do the “professors” refuse to lecture on contentious propositions or arguments with which they disagree? Are students at that University not exposed to opposite viewpoints, or encouraged to contemplate challenging ideas? Perhaps not, if the way to deal with the argument that faith and reason are inseparable, is to refuse to listen! *In Australia, we refer to arguments which sidetrack from the essential point of debate, as Dorothy Dixers, in honour of a politician who converted this method of debate into an art form.
John Wilkes said: “I am distressed to read that Galileo was tortured and killed by the Church because of his - Galileo’s - view’s.”
John Wilkes, I’m disappointed In your post. I said Galileo was questioned under ‘threat of torture’. Others certainly were tortured at that time. Death, including the stake, was one of the penalties for heresy. You’ll remember what happened to Bruno some 30 years earlier. Galileo recanted. If he had not done so you can imagine how it all would have progressed. So, I repeat, the discussion, for me isn’t about whether Galileo was right or wrong. The question is whether the Church has the right to torture and kill those with contrary views.
Dear David,
I am distressed to read that Galileo was tortured and killed by the Church because of his - Galileo’s - view’s. This is certainly contrary to the views contained in the article by Timothy Moy, who said:
“ In 1633, Galileo was called back to Rome to answer these charges. His trial was a see-saw battle that turned on all manner of technical points in church law, theology, and mathematics, and nearly ended in the equivalent of a hung jury. In the ensuing plea bargain, Galileo admitted that he had gone a bit too far in promoting heliocentrism as truth without sufficient proof and promised not to do it again; all sides then prepared to conclude the face-saving compromise. Then, almost at the last moment (and for reasons that are still quite mysterious), the Inquisition overruled the plea bargain and handed down a verdict and sentence that was unexpectedly harsh: Galileo was found guilty of a “vehement suspicion of heresy” (which was not nearly as bad as heresy itself but still worse than disobedience and teachings contrary to Scripture) and forced to abjure and recant his belief in heliocentrism. Galileo signed a recantation in June of 1633. (I should also point out that Galileo was never imprisoned in a dungeon or tortured during the inquest, as is also sometimes believed. By all accounts, his surroundings were quite enviable.)
See http://www.encyclopedia.com/printable.aspx?id=1G1:77757768
I would be most appreciative of a citation or two so I can read about this most atrocious treatment of Galileo.
Felicitous salutations.
A Oriku said: “With or without christianity western civilisation would have flourished. I wonder why the Japanese are not thanking shintoism for their meteoric advances.”
I agree completely.
Ikenna said: “A clear manifestation of the fact that the church has always emphasized the ability of human reason to come to truth”
Ikenna, is ‘Truth’ different from ‘The Truth’? Christians don’t always use words the same way I do.
John Wilks, the discussion, for me, isn’t about whether Galileo was right or wrong. The question is whether the Church has the right to torture and kill those with contrary views.
Padding TS Eliot into an article that seeks to cream the relevance of christianity into our consciousness is rather lazy. What else would high-chuch Eliot have said about the importance of chritianity to Western civilisation if not such pontifical hyperbole? Eliot’s whole career was built on cribbing passages verbatim from christian scripture. Why should David Page be subjected to such vicious broadsides by churchians just because he holds a different view? I, as an other-thinking person, will never stop bucking the tyranny of overweening religionists. Of course, christianity contributes to the sum of western civilisation - even then this is only in a qualified way. With or without christianity western civilisation would have flourished. I wonder why the Japanese are not thanking shintoism for their meteoric advances.
I cannot find the original Scientific American (SA)at the moment, but the following articles are consistent with it. The last paper is by a Owen Gingerich, a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and a research professor of astronomy AND of history of science at Harvard.
As I recall the center points of the SA article, the problems for Galileo were (1) that his proof was predicated on false logic (he switched the observation and the conclusion regarding the heliocentric nature of the the Universe and the Venus showing phases) and (2) his observations could be explained by the theory of Tycho which did NOT challenge scripture.
Articles of increasing refinement and complexity can be found at:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/printable.aspx?id=1G1:77757768
http://www.adam.com.au/bstett/ReligGalileoMyth95.htm
http://www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/2003/PSCF6-03Gingerich.pdf
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