2018-10-15

The Queen of the Sciences?

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by Neil Godfrey

My attention was captured by theologian/biblical scholar Jim West’s post reminding readers that

theology used to be called the ‘Queen of the Sciences’. 

I’m not sure if that was meant to be a nostalgic recollection of something he wished were still true or if it was an expression of sardonic humour.

In the days when theology was crowned with such honour the word for “sciences” meant something quite different from what it means today.

Scientia is also the historical source of our modern term ‘science’. But the medieval and the modern terms do not mean the same thing(s): there is some overlap in their meanings, but the differences in their meanings must be recognized as being as important as the areas of similarity. . . . .

Seven liberal arts:

3 of language

  • grammar, rhetoric, dialectic/logic

4 of number

  • arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music

The kind of knowledge which was taught in cathedral schools, using the seven liberal arts, was known as scientia, that is human knowledge, knowledge about the world (at the theoretical level), and knowledge which can be shown to derive from firm principles.

For theology . . . was a matter of dialectical argumentation, not of insight gained by meditation, nor the decisions of episcopal or other authoritative sources. . . . For in this ‘theology’ mystery and revealed truth were to be investigated by the test of reason. This ‘theology’ was a new, God-centred subject, for which the seven liberal arts – and especially logic – were to be essential bases. Theology was the application of scientia to the understanding of the nature of God and of the Christian religion. 

In the thirteenth century there was a faculty of theology only in Paris, Oxford and Cambridge. But whether or not there was a theology faculty at a given studium, everyone regarded theology as the highest faculty. Indeed they regarded theology as the Queen of the Sciences, and theology continued to be seen like this for the next 600 years. It was Queen because it dealt with the highest study available to man, and it was a Science (scientia) because of course, like the other scientiae, it dealt in theory and it was built on sure and certain principles.

French, Roger, and Andrew Cunningham. 1996. Before Science: The Invention of the Friars’ Natural Philosophy. Aldershot, Hants ; Brookfield, Vt: Routledge. pp. 4, 55, 57-58, 64


2014-06-25

Jesus and the Relationship Between Sin and Disease

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by Tim Widowfield

Nicolas Poussin, The Plague of Ashdod.
Nicolas Poussin, The Plague of Ashdod. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Spiteful, jealous, and full of love

The God of the Old Testament had a habit of making people sick, often as a form of punishment. My favorite is the story of the poor Philistines who captured the Ark of the Covenant. In 1 Samuel 5:6, we read:

Now the hand of the LORD was heavy on the Ashdodites, and He ravaged them and smote them with tumors, both Ashdod and its territories. (NASB)

The word “tumors” is a nice way of saying hemorrhoids, or, as the KJV translators put it, emerods. In other words, God gave them a wicked case of the piles. Eventually, the populations of Ashdod, Gath, and Ekron wouldn’t sit still for it any longer, and returned the Ark to the Israelites.

More deadly, of course, were the diseases God inflicted upon the Egyptians during the period of bondage. But in the promised land, the Israelites would be safe. In Deuteronomy, he promised to keep his chosen people free of disease.

The LORD will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. (Deut. 7:15, NIV)

So God has complete control over who gets sick and who stays well. What happens if his beloved people stray from the straight and narrow path?

Continue reading “Jesus and the Relationship Between Sin and Disease”


2010-12-07

Theology: a Vestigial Course in the Universities

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by Neil Godfrey

Why is theology with its arcane scripts from ages long dead still even tolerated in twenty-first-century institutions of higher learning alongside geochemistry and biotechnology and disciplines that use synchrotrons and things? In Australia at least public universities rely on funding that is awarded in response to the research output that can be demonstrated to provide some socio-economic benefit to the community.

Unless academics can demonstrate such a benefit for their research proposals they get no public funding. What socio-economic benefit can theology offer? Why is theology even considered a respectable discipline in a scientific age when many westerners look aghast across at the dominance of mullahs in less industrialized societies? We think we should keep faith-based science out of schools, so why do we even tolerate a faith-based history discipline in a modern public institution of higher-learning?

I was re-reading an old book from my student days, The Social Sciences as Sorcery by Andreski, and came across this interesting passage explaining how it was that science appeared in universities without at the same time getting rid of theology: Continue reading “Theology: a Vestigial Course in the Universities”