Transcript Cosmogonies

Religion and natural philosophy [“science”]
in earth studies*
Cosmogonies
Chronologies
Natural theology
*Europe in the 16th to early 19th centuries
J. Bourgeois 2007
ESS 408/508
Warnings about confounding scripture and nature from
influential early Christian thinkers/writers
When it is asked what we ought to believe in matters of religion,
the answer is not to be sought in the exploration of the nature of
things, after the manner of those whom the Greeks call
“physicists.” . . .
Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the
heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and
orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the
predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years
and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so
forth, and this knowledge he holds as certain from reason and
experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an
infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy
Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all
means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people
show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.
Augustine of Hippo
[St. Augustine]
A.D. 354 – 430
from
Enchiridion
c. 420
quoted in Lindberg, D.C., 1986. “Science and the early Church,” in D.C. Lindberg and R.
Numbers, eds. God and Nature, Historical Essays on the Encounter between
Christianity and Science, Univ. of California Press, p. 19-48.
Warnings about confounding scripture and nature from
influential early Christian thinkers/writers
First, the truth of Scripture must be held inviolable.
Secondly, when there are different ways of explaining a
Scriptural text, no particular explanation should be held so
rigidly that, if convincing arguments show it to be false,
anyone dare to insist that it still is the definitive sense of
the text. Otherwise unbelievers will scorn Sacred
Scripture, and the way to faith will be closed to them.
from Summa theologiae
1265 - 1274
[St.] Thomas Aquinas
c. 1225 – 1274 A.D.
quoted in Grant, E., 1986. “Science and theology in the Middle Ages,” in D.C. Lindberg
and R. Numbers, eds. God and Nature, Historical Essays on the Encounter between
Christianity and Science, Univ. of California Press, p. 49-75.
Archbishop James Ussher
1581 - 1656
Ussher was NOT the first to calculate
time since the first day of Genesis
But his work was footnoted in
the King James Bible
1650
Ussher’s chronology
De Emendatione Temporum (1583)
a cosmogony which
outlined world history – assumed universal;
scale of time traditional [Mosaic] 6000 years
Joseph Justus Scaliger
1540-1609
religious leader and scholar,
expanded the notion of classical history
from [just] Greek and Ancient Roman
to include
Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian
Univ. of Leiden library
Bruno being burned at the stake,
after refusing to recant,
even after torture
Giordano Bruno
1548 - 1600
February, 1600, Rome
Mystic, heretic, pantheist
Denied original sin
Excommunicated itinerant
Described a cosmos without center or boundaries
-- infinite, eternal, possibly uncreated
-- allowed possibility of plurality of worlds
c. 150 A.D.
A.D. 1543
Ptolemy (left) and
Copernicus (right)
both imagined a
fixed sphere of stars
c. 1584 A.D.
“Bruno visualized a planetary
system similar to the one of
Copernicus with a new concept
that the stars extended
outward infinitely”
“It was not Copernicus or Galileo but Giordano Bruno who grasped the great truth that
the so-called fixed stars were actually huge suns like our own. Bruno conceived of a
universe extending outward infinitely, containing suns without end, each, perhaps, racing
through space with its own family of planets; Bruno's cosmos was a bold concept indeed,
when compared with the stiffing, enclosed systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus.”
W. Hollister, UCSB
Galileo Galilei
1564 - 1642
Galileo before the Holy Office,
a 19th century painting by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury
Beginning in 1614, finally culminating in trial and condemnation in 1633,
Galileo and his writings got him in trouble with Catholic dogmatists
Philosophiae Principia
1644
read excerpt in
reading packet
René Descartes 1596 – 1650
champion of rational thought
mechanistic view of cosmos
Earth starts as glowing mass,
differentiates into three zones,
outer region further layered,
arranged by density.
Ruptures of the outer crust
generate topography, e.g.
water
I – incandescent, glowing center; M – opaque solid?
C,E – solids, with C being “very solid and very heavy”
air
4th ed. published
posthumously
Strategies to avoid trouble -Due to Galileo’s trial (1630s),
Descartes “denies” his own theory
René Descartes 1596 – 1650
Universe of indefinite limits
Earth and possibly countless other bodies
had own origins and histories
Detached Earth history from cosmic history
Possible to conceive human history in Bible
as separate from history of cosmos
sounds like Giordano Bruno…
Newton, reacting to Descartes’ mechanistic view,
writes letters to Thomas Burnet
Newton tries to reconcile religion
with the “laws of Nature”
Evidence for divinity:
regularity of solar system
“perfection” of creation
Isaac Newton
1643 - 1727
Attempted to reconcile Genesis with “science”, but also wrote to Burnet
his view that Genesis was written for common folk, was not sophisticated
Still, he tried to reconcile Mosaic account using natural laws;
e.g., perhaps Earth not turning on the first day,
which in that case could be very long.
Sacred Theory of the Earth
[1680s]
Thomas Burnet
1635 – 1715
S.J. Gould writes about Burnet
frontispiece
Mosaic account is a brief and finite Earth history
in an ocean of past and future cosmic time
Used natural knowledge to amplify and illuminate biblical narrative
– can we use the laws of physics [first principles of Newton]
to explain . . . ?
Strategies to avoid trouble
– don’t publish your cosmogony in your own lifetime
Protogaea [1749 – 33 years after death]
1) incandescent molten globe –
2) crystalline granite and gneiss
3) sphere of water, universal ocean
Fossils are animal forms transformed in Earth history
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
1646 - 1716
Telliamed [de Maillet spelled backwards]
[1748 – 10 years after death]
universal ocean gradually drying up
valleys eroded as water retreats
ridicules use of Noah’s flood in cosmogonies
much of Telliamed quite fanciful
Benoit de Maillet
1656 - 1738
Lisbon, Portugal, catastrophic earthquake and tsunami in 1755
-- major impact on philosophy of the time
challenges philosophy that creation is perfect and God benificent
ref. Voltaire, Candide, e.g., “the best of all possible worlds” [not]
Histoire Naturelle 1749 
Introduction was a
theory of the Earth
Epoques de la Nature 1778
read excerpt in
reading packet
Italian edition of
Buffon’s Natural History
Georges Louis le Clerc de Buffon
1707 – 1788
Cosmogony starts with molten Earth, six epochs plus a 7th – man
Finite age of Earth [c. 100,000 yr], experiments with cooling iron balls
Separated science and religion, no attempt at reconciliation
Most persuasive cosmogony of late 18th century, but many didn’t accept it
Paley’s Natural Theology (1802) condemns Buffon
1st edition was 1796
Popular account
of cosmology
Rejects supernatural,
Calculates odds that
solar system
could be “accidental”
Pierre Simon Laplace
1749 - 1827
nebular hypothesis
4th edition 1815
Start with hot gaseous mass – expanded sun, rotating and cooling
• rings abandoned as mass contracts, accreted to planets
• one ring left—asteroid belt
• moons—same process on smaller scale
•1790s to early 1800s nebulous matter discovered [Herschel]
While not atheists, and working
within a world largely controlled
by the church,
these cosmogonists were attempting,
primarily, to generate cosmogonies
that
explained the world naturalistically,
without requiring a strict adherence
to the Mosaic accounts.
Cosmogonies with
reference to
Mosaic accounts
&
handiwork of God
De Emendatione Temporum (1583)
•a cosmogony
•outlined world history – assumed universal;
•scale of time traditional [Mosaic] 6000 years
Joseph Justus Scaliger
1540-1609
religious leader and scholar,
expanded the notion of classical history
from [just] Greek and Ancient Roman
to include
Persian, Babylonian, Jewish and Ancient Egyptian
Univ. of Leiden library
Sacred Theory of the Earth
[1680s]
Thomas Burnet
1635 – 1715
S.J. Gould writes about Burnet
frontispiece
Mosaic account is a brief and finite Earth history
in an ocean of past and future cosmic time
Used natural knowledge to amplify and illuminate biblical narrative
– can we use the laws of physics [first principles of Newton]
to explain . . . ?
Kircher’s Mundus Subterraneus
“the standard geological treatise of the 17th century”
was more of a cosmology than a cosmogony
Kircher referred to his world as the handiwork of GOD
Athanasius Kircher
1602 - 1680
read excerpt in
reading packet
Remember this excerpt when we read about
neptunism, volcanism and plutonism
Mundus Subterraneus, 1678
1696
Comets explained great physical events
in earth history
– deluge & conflagration
Earth in harmonious equilibrium derived
from original chaos
William Whiston
1667 - 1752
His “physics” defied Newtonian
principles
A diagram from William Whiston's book,
A New Theory of the Earth [1696]
showing the trajectory of the earth
and the flood-causing comet.
Also wrote
Astronomical Principles of Religion
Natural and Revealed [1717]
John Woodward
1667 - 1728
Essay towards a
Natural History of
the Earth [1695]
•Studied strata and fossils
•Claimed whole sequence had settled in order of
specific gravity out of chaotic global mixture at
the time of the flood [Noah’s flood]
•Flood benificent
•His physical interpretation DIVERGES from
literal interpretation, but invokes assistance of
supernatural power
Response of some: Noah’s flood more local
And occurred after MOST of Earth history
Anton Lazzaro Moro
1689 - 1740
•Criticizes Burnet and Woodward
•Rejects Noachian deluge to explain
strata
•Claimed he did not contradict but
only supplemented Genesis account
De Crostacei degli altri Marini
Corpi che si trovano su Monti
[1740]
Testament at end wherein reformers of studies
state that book contains nothing contrary to the
Holy Catholic faith
Problems with traditional
chronology by 17th century
Histories Egyptian and Chinese civilizations was of comparable
length as Mosaic calculation
Hard to explain distribution of plants and animals around the
globe
Difficult to fit accumulating written and natural history into
narrative framework of Genesis and following books
Were accounts indicating greater
antiquity fraudulent?
Was God testing scholars’ faith?
Lettres Physique et Morales [1779]
•Conceded vast time scale of
pre-human history
•But criticized eternalistic theories
•Flood only a few thousand years
ago--tremendous disturbance
Jean André deLuc
1727 - 1817
•Christians need only be concerned
with creation and history of mankind
•For rest of history,
Genesis should be seen as symbolic
By the late 18th to early 19th century,
most “scriptural geologists” have left
the “scientific” community
Strata show long history before any
fossils [azoic period]; creation of all life
separated from time of Earth’s origin
Traditional literal chronology [6000 yrs]
can’t explain Earth history without
supernatural causes
However, work like Woodward’s and others
helped establish the discipline of stratigraphy
[see Hallam, Ch. 3]
AND the tradition of Natural Theology persisted
Natural theology is the attempt to find evidence of a God or
intelligent designer without recourse to any special or supposedly
supernatural revelation. [Wikipedia]
Wikipedia also says:
From the 8th century, the Mutazalite school of Islam, compelled to
defend their principles against the orthodox Islam of their day,
looked for support in philosophy, and are one of the first to pursue a
rational theology, called Ilm-al-Kalam (scholastic theology).
Extra credit: Submit one or more examples of
“natural theology” in earth sciences from these
or other religious traditions.
Francis Bacon
1561 – 1626
Counsel to King James
champion of empirical/inductive
method
from
The Advancement of Learning 1605
Let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an all-applied
moderation think or maintain, that man can search too far, or be
too well studied in the book of God’s word, or in the
book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let
men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both;
only let men beware… that they do not unwisely mingle or
confound these learnings together.
[emphases added; this is called the Baconian
compromise, or the “two books” concept]
quoted in Moore, J.R., 1986. “Geologists and interpreters of Genesis in the
nineteenth century,” in D.C. Lindberg and R. Numbers, eds. God and
Nature, Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and
Science, Univ. of California Press, p. 322-350.
The Wisdom of God
Manifested in the
Works of Creation
(1693)
John Ray (1628 – 1705)
Botanist and zoologist
“father of natural history”
“Aristotle of England”
As in the Baconian
“two books” tradition,
Nature is a revelation
of the Divine
[the Creator]
1692 – Miscellaneous discourses concerning the
dissolution and changes of the world
Can only understand world in terms of accepted
religious principles of Judeo-Christian world, but
Criticized Woodward as fanciful
noted that specific gravity did NOT match order
of fossils in strata -- “simplest empirical test”
William Paley
1743 – 1806
Natural Theology or
Evidence of the Existence and Attributes of the
Deity Collected from the Appearance of Nature
[1806]
Inferred existence of God from evidence of
exquisite design in nature
Provided credible explanation for why
organisms were so perfectly adapted to
their environments
Made watch/watchmaker argument –
design, e.g., of eye, hand
No historicism, no geology;
argument based only on present things
1829 – Francis Henry, Earl of Bridgewater, leaves £8000 to
the Royal Society of London to be paid to persons to write,
print and publish 1000 copies each,
On the power, wisdom and goodness of God,
as manifested in the Creation
Buckland writes one of these treatises
See reading packet
1808 – ordained in ministry
1813 – fellow, mineralogy and chemisty,
Oxford; then Professor
1818 – Royal Society, readership in Geology
1820 – Vindicae Geologiae
1823 – Reliquiae Diluvianae
1825 – Canon of Christ Church
1825 – married Mary Morland,
illustrator and collector of fossils
1836 – Bridgewater Treatise [see below]
William Buckland
1784 - 1856
reading packet
excerpt from:
Some doubts were once expressed
about the Flood
Buckland arose, and all was clear as mud
Shuttleworth*
*Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night
God said, Let Newton be, and all was light
A. Pope, 1730
Buckland’s Bridgewater Treatise
is scanned and on the web!!!
http://www.geology.19thcenturyscience.org/books
/Bridgewater-Treatises/06-1837-BridgewaterBuckland/text.htm/%20entry.htm