Synopses & Reviews
Have science and Christianity been locked in mortal combat for the past 2000 years? Or has their relationship been one of peaceful coexistence, encouragement, and support? Both opinions have been vigorously defended, widely disseminated, and hotly debated. And both have been rejected by knowledgeable historians as unacceptable oversimplifications of the historical reality.
This book steps back from those debates, abandoning, for the present, the attempt to formulate or defend generalizations of such breadth and scope. Its authors believe that every encounter had its own peculiar shape and that each must be examined uniquely before broader attempts at generalization are likely to succeed. This book, in language accessible to the general reader, investigates twelve of the most notorious, most interesting, and most instructive cases, aiming to tell each story in its historical specificity and local particularity.
Among the episodes treated in When Science and Christianity Meet are the Galileo affair, the 17th-century clockwork universe, Noah's ark and flood in the development of natural history, struggles over Darwinian evolution, debates about the origin of the human species, and the Scopes trial. Readers will be introduced to St. Augustine, Roger Bacon, Pope Urban VIII, Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon de Laplace, Carl Linnaeus, Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Sigmund Freud, and many other participants in the historical drama of science and Christianity.
Contributors:
*William B. Ashworth Jr.
*Thomas H. Broman
*Janet Browne
*Mott T. Greene
*Edward J. Larson
*David C. Lindberg
*David N. Livingstone
*Robert Bruce Mullin
*G. Blair Nelson
*Ronald L. Numbers
*Jon H. Roberts
Review
"With its concise, clearly written essays . . . including extensive endnotes that refer the reader to primary texts and important scholarly studies, this volume is a superb introduction to some of the most fascinating episodes in the long history of the relationship between science and Christianity."
Review
"An outstanding volume. . . . The book can certainly be recommended as an appropriate text for undergraduates."
Review
"Lindberg and Numbers, and their team, show how effective concentrating upon science and religion can be for getting scholarly history of science across. They write clearly, for ordinary readers, setting events in context, and supply formidable notes and bibliographies."
Review
and#8220;Clarity is a chief feature of all the contributions, each of which . . . has been chosen to illustrate and#8216;the most notorious, most interesting or most instructive instancesand#8217; of the encounter between science and Christianity. Clear and engaging: it is a winning combination. It should find favour with students and see the book listed as an essential text in many course reading lists.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;With its illustrations, extended endnotes and annotated guide to further readings, the book reviews old questions in a thoroughly enlightening scholarly and interesting way.and#8221;
Review
"The contributors . . . offer the educated public some fascinating twists of plot characteristic of the newer 'complexity' literature."
Review
"The well-written essays in this book cover material from the Middle Ages through the post-Darwinian debates. . . . Most of the essays are clear, and the excellent, annotated bibliography mentions many important readings."
Synopsis
Have science and Christianity been at each other's throats for centuries? Or have they coexisted in harmony? Although both characterizations are misleading at best, they've nevertheless dominated most popular and scholarly debates over science and religion.
Through careful attention to actual lived encounters, When Science and Christianity Meet demonstrates that the truth lies somewhere in betweensometimes Christian beliefs and practices have encouraged scientific investigation, and sometimes they have hampered it, depending on the time, place, and people involved. Providing much-needed historical contexts for the science and religion debate, this book explores key interactions between Christianity and science from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century. Twelve richly detailed case studies vividly evoke particularly notorious, interesting, or instructive historical episodes, discussing the intellectual issues at stake, the relevant social and cultural circumstances, and the often quite colorful personalities involved. As the contributors bring to light, even cases that have been frequently cited as evidence of Christian suppression of scientific inquiry, such as the Catholic Church's seventeenth-century condemnation of Galileo or the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925, reveal great complexity.
For anyone curious about how science and Christianity have related to each other over the centuries, When Science and Christianity Meet provides an in-depth understanding of crucial events from their shared history.
Synopsis
This book, in language accessible to the general reader, investigates twelve of the most notorious, most interesting, and most instructive episodes involving the interaction between science and Christianity, aiming to tell each story in its historical specificity and local particularity.
and#160;Among the events treated in When Science and Christianity Meet are the Galileo affair, the seventeenth-century clockwork universe, Noah's ark and flood in the development of natural history, struggles over Darwinian evolution, debates about the origin of the human species, and the Scopes trial. Readers will be introduced to St. Augustine, Roger Bacon, Pope Urban VIII, Isaac Newton, Pierre-Simon de Laplace, Carl Linnaeus, Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Sigmund Freud, and many other participants in the historical drama of science and Christianity.and#160;and#8220;Taken together, these papers provide a comprehensive survey of current thinking on key issues in the relationships between science and religion, pitchedand#8212;as the editors intendedand#8212;at just the right level to appeal to students.and#8221;and#8212;Peter J. Bowler, Isis and#160;
About the Author
David C. Lindberg is the Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsinand#8211;Madison. Ronald L. Numbers is the Hilldale Professor of the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Wisconsinand#8211;Madison. Together Lindberg and Numbers edited God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science and are currently editing the CambridgeHistory of Science.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Medieval Church Encounters the Classical Tradition: Saint Augustine, Roger Bacon, and the Handmaiden Metaphor
David C. Lindberg
2. Galileo, the Church, and the Cosmos
David C. Lindberg
3. Christianity and the Mechanistic Universe
William B. Ashworth Jr.
4. Matter, Force, and the Christian Worldview in the Enlightenment
Thomas H. Broman
5. Noah's Flood, the Ark, and the Shaping of Early Modern Natural History
Janet Browne
6. Genesis and Geology Revisited: The Order of Nature and the Nature of Order in Nineteenth-Century Britain
Mott T. Greene
7. "Men before Adam!": American Debates over the Unity and Antiquity of Humanity
G. Blair Nelson
8. Re-placing Darwinism and Christianity
David N. Livingston
9. Science, Miracles, and the Prayer-Gauge Debate
Robert Bruce Mullin
10. Psychoanalysis and American Christianity, 1900-45
Jon H. Roberts
11. The Scopes Trial in History and Legend
Edward J. Larson
12. Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs
Ronald L. Numbers
Notes
A Guide to Further Reading
Contributors
Index