ON THE 6th of May, 1962, the Christian world was somewhat taken aback to hear the capsule-sized Communist cosmonaut, Gherman Stepanovich Titov, arrogantly inform a Sabbath news conference held at the Seattle World's Fair that "In my travels around the earth I saw no God or angels." Many Christians perhaps felt that man was overstepping his bounds that he was acquiring sufficient knowledge to challenge God, in spite of the testimony of Col. Glenn who later stated that, "The God I pray to is not so small that I expected to see Him in space." Many agreed with Solomon when he wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:18: "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Yes, the sentiments of a large number of people were aptly expressed by the eighteenth century English poet Thomas Hood:
I remember, I remember
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky;
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm further off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
The world today is watching with interest the remarkable advances of scientific knowledge on all fronts. A language once heard only in select scientific circles to day tumbles from the lips of children who have barely learned to talk. Adventuresome deeds which a few decades ago were to be found only in the imagination of a comic-strip artist are today becoming so commonplace that they scarcely rate banner headlines. Who, living in the year 1953, would have thought that the jargon ten years hence would contain such expressions as "Lunar Soft Landing," "Lunar Expeditionary Vehicle," "Venus Flyby," "23 Orbit Mission," "Orbital Rendezvous," and the like. As we look back and then to the future we sometimes wonder where these gigantic steps of progress will take us. Will they continue forward at an undiminished pace will they stumble over some unforeseen obstacles and perhaps falter or will they encounter a barrier beyond which they cannot advance?
Impact of Space Age on Religion
The answers to these questions will be found only in the years which lie ahead. There are, how ever, vague uncertainties existing in the minds of many people today which should be examined care fully queries to which answers should and must be provided. These impinge largely upon one central question, namely, "What impact will the space age have upon my religion, my faith, my beliefs? Will man get to other planets, and perhaps find different forms of life? Will men of science advance so far in their quest for knowledge that they can challenge the Word of God cast doubt upon the doctrine of divine inspiration? Will the Bible become outmoded if new discoveries are made which tend to reinforce and enhance the theory of evolution as it pertains to the origin of the universe? These and similar questions are very real in the minds of many Christians whom I have encountered, particularly those belonging to conservative bodies strong in doctrine.
How will they allay these fears, calm the troubled mind, uplift the shaken faith? Should-they take a firm stand and staunchly maintain that science is wrong? Must they acquire scientific knowledge become conversant with technical data in order to accomplish their purpose? Or should they ignore the whole matter, turn their backs upon these problems, and tell their parishioners that if they remain patient, right will ultimately rise to conquer. What is their task or more generally what is the role of religion in a scientific age?
I would like to attempt to partially answer this question not as a theologian, but as a layman, a church member, looking for help in traversing the mental maze which lies ahead, and 1 feel that perhaps the answer lies in the past, in examining a period in history when our forefathers encountered a similar difficulty.
Perhaps the one thing which best characterized the dark and middle ages was the dominant role played by religion. The economy was basically agrarian, with the towns themselves being semirural. Production and exchange were practically unknown rather, the guild system predominated. Life expectancy was low, for science had not as yet learned to deal with pestilence and famine. Men naturally turned to religion because, as Francis Bacon once observed, "Atheism flourished in learned times, specially with peace and prosperity, for troubles and adversities do more to bow men's mind to religion."
The intellectual class, small in an age when comparatively few people could even read and write, consisted largely of clergymen. The intellectual and spiritual prestige of the church guaranteed that most of the thinking would be done within a religious framework, and that a major attempt should be made to explain all knowledge in a religious synthesis. Consequently, the main body of medieval thought was authoritarian, theocentric, and theocratic to a degree seldom equalled before or since.
Geocentric Concept of Universe
The concept of the earth and the surrounding universe was largely drawn from the writings of the Greek philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolemy. According to the Ptolemaic system the uni verse was geocentric or earth-centered. Surrounding the entire universe was the sphere of stars, or the heaven, and beyond this was nothing. \n other words, the universe had definite limits, as described by Aristotle in his book On the Heavens when he wrote: "It is plain, then, . . . that there is not, nor do facts allow there to be, any .bodily mass beyond the heaven. The world in its entirety is made up of the whole sum of avail able matter . . . , and we may conclude that there is not now a plurality of worlds, nor has there been, nor could there be. This world is one, solitary, and complete."
Between the earth and the heaven, or sphere of stars, existed seven concentric spherical shells. The spherical shell nearest to the earth contained the moon, the next Mercury, then Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The concentrical shells, the planets, and the stars were made of a celestial element called aether. Unlike substances known on earth, it was pure, unalterable, transparent, and weightless.
Sets of intermediate concentric shells provided the mechanical linkage which transformed the entire nest of spheres into a gigantic piece of celestial clockwork, driven by the sphere of stars. Thus the outer sphere was often referred to as the "Primum Mobile" which was in immediate contact with God, and which derived its circular motion directly from Him. In fact, some held that the motive force was furnished by the angels, joyfully going about their task because they were so close to heaven.
This concept of the universe, with the distinct separation of the earth from the heavens, agreed very well with the human senses and reasoning. The earth was but a platform from which the heavens could be viewed, sharing few of the characteristics of the celestial bodies. The heavenly bodies seemed bright points of light the earth an immense non-luminous sphere of mud and rock. Little change was observed in the heavens the stars remained unchanged through centuries of recorded history. By contrast the earth was the scene of birth change and destruction. Vegetation and animals altered from week to week, civilizations rose and fell topography was changed by storm and flood.
The idea that the earth moved seemed equally absurd. Common sense told them that, if the earth were in motion, then the air, clouds, birds, and other objects not attached to the earth would soon be left behind. A man jumping would descend to earth far be hind the point from which his leap began. Rocks and trees, cows and men, would be hurled from the earth's surface as a stone flies from a whirling sling.
This concept even agreed with Scripture, for did not God create the earth and the heavens, and then make the sun, moon, and stars, and place them in the firmament? Certainly He must have in tended the earth to be the center of the universe, for He made this the habitation of the man whom He created. Furthermore, every thing God created was perfect, and was not the sphere the most perfect of all objects the circle the most perfect of all motions?
Copernicus Raises Question
Yes, things went rather smoothly in the realm of scientific religious thought. There were a few problems, such as the retrograde, or reverse, motion of some planets and the varying distance and cor responding degrees of brightness, but this could be explained through a complicated system of epicycles, epi-epicycles, and deferents. Then, in 1543, a Polish astronomer by the name of Nicholas Copernicus dropped an object into this tranquil sea of human reasoning which created a disturbance felt throughout the world. The agitating element was his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Celestium.
Copernicus was troubled by the complexity of the mathematical model of the universe, for he felt that God would have created something more perfect in its simplicity. Therefore, he proposed that the sun, rather than the earth, was the center of the universe, and that the motion of the sun, moon, planets, and stars was actually not due to their movement, but rather to the rotation of the earth about its axis. The earth was relegated to the role of an ordinary planet, revolving with all the others about the sun.
Problems to Christians
Can you imagine the consternation, the gigantic problems, which this proposal raised in the minds of believing Christians? If, for example, the earth was merely one of six planets, how were the stories of the Fall and salvation, with their immense bearing on Christian life, to be presented? If there were other bodies essentially like the earth, then Cod's goodness would simply necessitate that they, too, would be inhabited. And if there were men on other planets, how could they be descendants of Adam and Eve? Did they have original sin? How were they to learn of the Saviour who could give to them eternal life? How could the heavens be a suitable abode for God if they participated in the evils and imperfections so clearly visible on earth? Worst of all, if the universe were infinite, then where could God's throne be located? How was man to find Cod, or God man?
Ironically, the book published primarily through the efforts of the Lutheran theologian, Osiander, also received its first comments from the theologian, Luther. In one of his "Table Talks" held in 1539, he is quoted as saying: "People gave ear to an up start astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us (Joshua 10:13) that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth." Six years later Melanchthon joined the fray when he wrote: "The eyes are witness that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eighth sphere nor the sun revolves.
"Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of i good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it." Initially the Catholic Church, convulsed as it was in the throes of the Reformation, provided little opposition, though individual clergymen did express their in credulity and abhorrence. But by the first decades of the seventeenth century clergymen of many persuasions were to be found searching the Bible line by line, looking for a new passage that would confound the adherents of the earth's motion. In 1616 the Catholic Church officially prohibited teaching or believing that the sun was the center of the uni verse, and the earth revolved about it—a ban which was to re main in effect until 1822. Untenable Position In so doing, the church placed itself in an untenable position, for the decree was made in opposition to a physical doctrine for which supporting evidence was being discovered on a daily basis. For science now had a new powerful tool at its disposal, the empirical—or experimental—method. Formerly philosophers tended to see only what they were convinced must be there; they looked for evidence to confirm their a priori conception, and simply did not see things which did not con form to this. Now scientists formed hypotheses, and then at tempted to prove them by con ducting experiment upon experiment. Thus Tycho Brahe spent his lifetime studying the motion of Mars as it moved across the heavens, gathering data later used by Johannes Kepler to develop three basic laws concerning planetary motion. Galileo discovered the telescope, and used it to obtain information which verified the Copernican theory. Isaac Newton extended the work of Galileo in the field of falling bodies, and formulated the laws governing all motion.
The result was that the church was proven wrong, with the issue being not the truth of the Bible, but the truth of Aristotle. The Catholic Church's official commitment to earth stability did irrevocable harm to Church prestige. No episode /in Catholic literature has so often or so appropriately been cited against the Church as the pathetic recantation forced upon the aged Galileo by the Inquisition in 1633.
Mechanical View Developed
Did the opposition of the Church have any effect on the thinking of man? Was there a resulting reaction? This point is perhaps debatable, but an examination of the philosophy of the subsequent years would indicate that it did. Up until this period the teleological world view predominated. Teleology comes from the Greek, meaning end, or purpose. The teleologist believes that there is an ideal, purpose, or goal at work in the universe which directs the way in which events follow one another. For example, he would claim that the chicken as a goal or end comes before the egg and directs the hatching.
Now there arose, in opposition, the mechanical world view, whose adherents claimed that the universe was like a giant machine, in which everything happens according to physical laws of cause and effect. No living thing has any choice about the way it behaves. Events are like the cogs in the wheel of a clock, which pull each other forward. God is pictured as the one who wound the clock and set it in motion, and now sits back and watches it run without interference. The mechanist would say that whenever the egg, the right temperature, and other factors described by the word "hatching" are brought together, a chicken will result.
Listen to Spinoza, who lived in the mid-seventeenth century, and who claimed he saw more clearly than anyone else "what the Cartesian revolution has really done to man and his world." He writes—concerning God—in Ethics Demonstrated in the Geometrical Manner: "They there fore laid down as an axiom, that God's judgments far transcend human understanding. Such a doctrine might well have sufficed to conceal the truth from the human race for all eternity, if mathematics had not furnished another standard of verity in considering solely the essence and properties of figures without regard to their final causes."
The following century saw an even greater trend in this direction. Sometimes called the "Age of Reason, or Enlightenment," it was a period of critical reason: rationalism, the cast of thought which takes nothing for granted, especially from theologians. For revealed religion they substituted their own brand of natural religion, called Deism. The philosophers substituted a new faith for the old. Faith—enthusiastic faith— in reason, science, and the future —replaced faith in revealed religion.
This was the age of Voltaire and his "Philosophical Dictionary," of David Hume and Positivism, of Baron d'Holbach, dubbed "the personal enemy of God." The latter wrote, in his System of Nature: ". . . Religious morality is an infinite loser, when compared with the morality of nature, with which it is found in perpetual contradiction. Nature invites man to love himself, to preserve himself, to incessantly augment the sum of his happiness: religion orders him to love only a formidable God, that deserves to be hated; to detest himself, to sacrifice to his frightful idol the most pleasing and legitimate pleasures of his heart."
Perhaps these philosophical conceptions would have come into being even though the Copernican revolution had taken place without the opposition of the Church. But there is also the possibility that it was hastened and perhaps augmented by the events which took place. Could it be possible that the Church, proven to be in error in one of its teachings, now had the shadow of doubt cast over all its doctrine? Did men react by developing a type of religion based only upon human reasoning? If this is true, then we should be careful not to repeat the error today.
