Christian History articles from November 2002

Christian History archives from November 2002

Did you know? Interesting and unusual facts about Christians in the scientific revolution.
November 1, 2002... Astronomer by Night, Canon by Day When Nicolaus Copernicus wasn't redrawing the celestial map, he held down a day job as a Catholic canon (ecclesiastical administrator). As the Reformation grew rapidly and extended its influence in Poland,...

The specter of enmity. (Letter from the Editor).(Christianity and science)(Editorial)
November 1, 2002... Before I started working on this issue, I had always harbored (though fancying I knew better) a vague, unsettling notion that the things of science and the things of God are somehow incompatible. Attached to this was an equally disturbing sense...

Galileo and the powers above: the convoluted tale of a faithful Catholic caught in a web of theological inflexibility, papal power, and his own political naivete.(Biography)
November 1, 2002... Say the name Galileo, and most people picture the astronomer standing before scowling Inquisition judges, forced to recant his claim that the earth revolves about the sun. To secular scholars, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was a martyr to...

A God of math & order: the new science rode in on the shoulders of new theological ideas.
November 1, 2002... What caused the scientific revolution? How did science advance from the relatively static medieval philosophies of nature to the dynamic technologies of modern science? Secular historians have argued that the church opposed this progress at...

Luminous wonder, heavy cross: a sense of cosmic awe sustained Johannes Kepler through deep sorrow.(Biography)
November 1, 2002... On an unforgettable night in 1577, a mother took her 5-year-old son to the top of a hill to view the bright path of a comet. The boy was Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), and that night his life course was set. The reverent wonder of that...

Did the reformers reject Copernicus? Some defenders of secular science say they did. What's the real story?
November 1, 2002... From the start, Nicolaus Copernicus's heliocentric system, described in his De revolutionibus, met opposition from Catholics and Protestants alike. Critics attacked his new cosmology with a number of Scripture passages: Psalm 19: "He set...

Interior design: sixteenth-century students of anatomy saw the hand of God in the intricacies of the body.
November 1, 2002... Nicolaus Copernicus's remapping of the macrocosm wasn't the only sixteenth-century breakthrough on a scientific frontier. Equally stunning was a bold trek into the microcosmic world of our physical selves. This voyage, led by the anatomist...

Milestones to modern science. (A Christian History Timeline).(Chronology)
November 1, 2002... Milestones to Modern Science 1500 1550 1600 Medical and 1543 1599 Biological < Andreas Vesalius Ulisse Aldrovandi Science publishes publishes the...

A priest serving in nature's temple; Robert Boyle's career blended faith, doubt, and the use of science to heal disease and fight atheism.(Biography)
November 1, 2002... It was truly a dark and stormy night. An adolescent boy, deep asleep, was jarred awake by the concussion of thunder right overhead. Lightning repeatedly ripped the sky outside his window. He was terrified. The flaming night pressed in on...

Newton vs. "Newton": Robert Boyle bankrolled lectures that used Newton's own ideas to put God back into the "Newtonian" cosmos.
November 1, 2002... "Atheism is so much the worse that it is not buried in books," worried Richard Bentley in an early Boyle lecture, "but is gotten [into life], that taverns and coffee-houses, nay Westminster-hall and the very churches, are full of it." This...

Quotable Boyle: a taste of his spiritual writings.(Robert Boyle)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2002... Robert Boyle was not only a brilliant and innovative scientist, but also an accomplished writer on religious subjects. Puritan preacher and theologian Richard Baxter once wrote warmly to Boyle, "Your pious Meditations & Reflections, do call to...

Creation's symmetries, God's mystery: Blaise Pascal pioneered in math and physics but drew faith from revelation alone.(Biography)
November 1, 2002... Pascal today means a unit of pressure, a computer language, a law in fluid mechanics, and an array of numbers with certain properties. Few who use his name in these ways know that Blaise Pascal was also a devout Christian and a profound...

Cosmic codebreaker, Pious heretic: Isaac Newton wrote theology, distributed Bibles to the poor, and hoped his scientific theories would help people believe in God. But he harbored a dark secret ...(Biography)
November 1, 2002... Born prematurely on Christmas Day 1642, the year of Galileo's death, Isaac Newton was sickly and not expected to live. He spent the first few days of his life in a shoebox behind the woodstove. His father had died a few months earlier, and...

The Christian virtuosi: a curious blend of Anglicans and Puritans, the Royal Society defended religion but laid the groundwork for irreligion.
November 1, 2002... On November 28, 1660, a group of English thinkers gathered at Gresham College, London, to hear a lecture by the young astronomy professor and future architect of St. Paul's Cathedral, Christopher Wren. As they talked among themselves after...

No vein inquiry: William Harvey founded modern physiology by seeking God's purposes for the body's design.(Biography)
November 1, 2002... William Harvey (1578-1657) founded the science of physiology by revolutionizing ideas on the movement of the heart and blood that had prevailed since Galen (ca. 130-ca. 200). He not only discovered that the blood circulates and learned the true...

Microscopic magnificence: Antony van Leeuwenhoek found God's great glory in His tiny creations.(Biography)
November 1, 2002... During the last years of Anto. ny van Leeuwenhoek's (say it "la `vnhook'") life, dignitaries from all over Europe, including Russian czar Peter the Great, King James II, and Frederick II of Prussia, visited his shop in Delft, Holland, to see...

Natural adversaries? Historian David Lindberg shows that Christianity and science are not at war--and never have been. (The Link Interview).(Interview)
November 1, 2002... Has Christianity always warred with science? Or, conversely, did Christianity create science? CH asked David Lindberg, Hilldale Professor Emeritus of the History of Science and currently director of the Institute for Research in the Humanities...

The Christian face of the scientific revolution. (Recommended Resources).(Bibliography)
November 1, 2002... The field of science and religion has experienced something of an academic boom in recent years--no doubt due in part to funding organizations such as the John Templeton Foundation. Most of the following resources go beyond the scientific...