On Tue, 3 Oct 1995 00:35:31 -0400 Glenn wrote:
>Stephen Jones wrote:
SJ>Now if Glenn could show: 1. a large number of important medieval
>>scholars (eg. Aquinas, Anselm, Occam, etc), believed that there was no one
>living at the antipodes; 2. it became part of official Catholic church
>doctrine; and 3. when it and when it was discovered that there were people
>living at the antipodes, it provoked a major crisis in the history of the
> Church, with great controversy, new interpretations and doctrinal revisions,
>then I would agree that White (and Glenn) had made his case.<<
GM>Here is a start. I count 2 other than Augustine. I don't have
>time right now to do more research for you Stephen.
I didn't ask Glenn to do "research" for me. It is *his* view he is
trying to support, not mine.
GM>"To all of them this idea seemed dangerous; to most of them
>it seemed damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose were tolerant
>enough to allow that a man might be saved who thought the earth
>inhabited on its opposite sides; but the great majority of the
>fathers doubted the possibility of salvation to such
>misbelievers.
No evidence is given by White of this "great majority". He could
have given names and references.
GM>"The great champion of the orthodox view was St. Augustine.
>Though he seemed inclined to yield a little in regard to the
>sphericity of the earth, he fought the idea that men exist on the
>other side of it saying that 'Scripture speaks of no such
>descendants of Adam.'...Thus the great
>Bishop of Hippo taught the whole world for over a thousand years
>that, as there was no preaching the gospel on the opposite side
>of the earth, there could be no human beings there."~Andrew D.
>White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in
>Christendom,1, (New York: George Braziller, 1955), p.103-104
This sounds more rhetorical than scholarly. It may have been
an aspect of Ausgustine's thought, but how important was it:
a) to Augustine and b) to others?
>**
>"But in 1519 science gains a crushing victory. Magellan makes
>his famous voyage. He proves the earth to be round, for his
>expedition circumnavigates it; he proves the doctrine of the
>antipodes, for his shipmates see the peoples of the antipodes.
>Yet even this does not end the war. Many conscientious men
>oppose the doctrine two hundred years longer...."~Andrew D. White, A
>History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom,
>1,(New York: George Braziller, 1955), p.109
I am tempted to say "what a load of garbage" but I won't! :-).
This is a beat up - "in 1519 science gains a crushing victory",
indeed! This was only 2 years after Luther posted his 95 theses in
1517. "Science" did not exist in any meaningful sense. Magellan may
have finally proved the earth was round, but there was hardly any
doubt about it. As White had already said, Augustine had believed it
way back in 400 AD!
IMHO this is all part of the naturalistic mythology that we were all
taught at school, ie. that everyone believed the Earth was flat until
Columbus and Magellan. This is false, exaggerated, self-serving
propaganda, designed to show the Christian church in the worst
possible light and science in the best possible light.
God bless.
Stephen
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