Accommodating Faith in the Military

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Over the past few years, there have been several controversies over religion's role in the military. Most recently, students and staff at the U.S. Naval Academy and West Point have complained of pressure from their supervisors to engage in religious activities. Three years earlier, there were similar allegations at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Other controversies have arisen over whether military chaplains may offer faith-specific prayers at official military events. With cadets, military officers and chaplains asserting competing constitutional rights, these disputes have raised multifaceted and complicated questions. To clarify these issues, the Pew Forum turns to church-state scholar Robert W. Tuttle.

Featuring:
Robert W. Tuttle, David R. and Sherry Kirschner Berz Research Professor of Law and Religion, George Washington University Law School

Interviewer:
Jesse Merriam, Research Associate, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

In this Q&A:
Background on the controversies
The chaplaincy paradox
Will there be more litigation in the future?

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Question & Answer

Recently there have been several disputes over religion’s role in the military. Can you give us some background on these controversies?

There is a very long relationship between religion and the military in the United States, going back to the early days of the Army, which had chaplains funded by the Continental Congress. But over the last 30 years, the military, like many other parts of our society, has become much more religiously diverse. This diversity has produced some of the recent controversies.

For example, a few years ago there were complaints that some Air Force Academy faculty members and more-senior cadets were pressuring cadets to participate in religious activities. Those who investigated the complaints expressed concerns about a culture of proselytizing at the academy. There also have been a number of stories of service men and women in various branches of the military being pressured to participate in prayers.

When thinking about these controversies, it’s important to distinguish between mandatory and voluntary religious activities. All service academies used to require everyone to attend religious services. Although the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found this requirement unconstitutional in Anderson v. Laird (1972), the Naval Academy still holds pre-meal prayers, and attendance at these meals is required. This has recently stirred up some controversy, leading some students at the Naval Academy to seek legal help from the American Civil Liberties Union. A similar practice of mealtime prayer at the Virginia Military Institute was held unconstitutional by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Mellen v. Bunting (2003).

Most of the recent controversies over this issue, however, have involved social pressure rather than official requirements. These disputes are about whether a person in authority has been too aggressive in urging others within the military to participate in some religious activity. In the past, this might not have caused a dispute, but now there are serious controversies over this issue because people are much more willing to object to the pressure.

The military chaplaincy seems to present a constitutional paradox in that the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause restricts the government’s authority to fund and endorse religion, but the military funds chaplains who promote religious messages. Can you explain why, despite these constitutional restrictions, the chaplaincy exists?

The chaplaincy does present something of a paradox. The government pays the chaplains’ salaries. The government also pays for the places of worship and even for the worship materials themselves. So the chaplaincy does appear to be an oddity under the Establishment Clause.

The reason that the chaplaincy is likely constitutional, despite the Establishment Clause restrictions you mentioned, has to do with the principle of religious accommodation. While the Establishment Clause generally prohibits the government from funding and sponsoring religious activities, there is one important exception to this rule: The government may fund or sponsor a religious activity if the government does so to accommodate the religious needs of people who, because of government action, no longer have access to religious resources. Thus, when the military has isolated service members from their normal worship opportunities, the government may then facilitate worship by providing the necessary religious resources, like chaplains. In such situations, the government is merely responding to a religious need and is therefore not promoting religion.

Have courts upheld the constitutionality of the military chaplaincy on the basis of this accommodation principle?

The U.S. Supreme Court has never heard a case directly involving the military chaplaincy. But in Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), a landmark decision that prohibited public schools from leading Bible reading, several justices argued that the military chaplaincy is a valid accommodation of religion under the Establishment Clause. The court in Schempp rejected the argument that school-sponsored Bible reading is a permissible way of accommodating students with religious needs. The court said that since students have plenty of opportunities to read the Bible outside of school, whether before or after the school day, school-led Bible reading doesn’t accommodate religious students but rather promotes religion.

In their written opinions on the case, some of the justices contrasted the religious needs of students with those of service members. Because military duties might take service members into isolated and hostile environments, service members might not be able to participate in civilian worship communities or receive spiritual counsel from civilian clergy. Given this inability of service members to worship outside the military base, some of the justices concluded that the military may provide chaplains to accommodate the religious needs of service members. These comments about the chaplaincy, though, don’t have any direct legal effect because the Schempp case dealt only with the constitutional question of Bible reading in public schools.

The only federal court decision directly dealing with the military chaplaincy’s constitutionality is Katcoff v. Marsh (1985), a case decided by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In Katcoff, the 2nd Circuit upheld the U.S. Army’s chaplaincy on the ground that service members have a constitutional right under the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause to engage in religious worship, a right that the Army would unduly burden if it did not provide chaplains.

Today, it is very unlikely that a court would follow the reasoning in Katcoff because courts have interpreted the Free Exercise Clause much more narrowly over the last 20 years. (For more information on how courts have narrowed the religious liberty guaranteed by the Free Exercise Clause, see A Delicate Balance: The Free Exercise Clause and the Supreme Court.) Nevertheless, courts today would probably reach the same outcome – upholding the chaplaincy’s constitutionality – but for different reasons. Instead of finding that the Free Exercise Clause requires the military to establish a chaplaincy, as the Katcoff court did, most courts today would likely find that the Establishment Clause permits the military to provide chaplains so long as it does so in response to the religious needs of service members.

But what if the government responded to these religious needs by providing chaplains in a way that favored some religions over others?

That precise question has been raised in a series of cases, going back a decade, over the way that the U.S. Navy selects chaplains. These lawsuits allege that the Navy has hired chaplains using a “thirds policy.” According to the people bringing the suits, the Navy used a formula dividing its chaplains into thirds: one-third consisting of liturgical Protestant denominations (such as such as Methodists, Lutherans, Episcopalians and Presbyterians); another third consisting of Catholics; and a last third consisting of non-liturgical Protestant denominations (such as Baptists, evangelicals, Bible churches, Pentecostals and charismatics) and other faiths. The lawsuits claim that the Navy’s criteria are unconstitutional because they disfavor non-liturgical Protestants, who make up a great deal more than one-third of the Navy, while Catholics and liturgical Protestants each make up less than one-third.

In April 2007, a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., rejected one of these challenges to the Navy’s chaplain selection criteria. The court held that the Navy had abandoned the thirds policy and said that its current criteria were constitutional because the Navy has broad discretion to determine how to accommodate the religious needs of its service members. This decision was affirmed in 2008 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

What if the military asked a chaplain to pray at an official event and the chaplain offered a prayer specific to his faith tradition – for example, by praying in Jesus’ name? Would that be constitutional?

Your question touches on what has become, over the past couple of years, the most public and heated controversy within the military chaplaincy. To understand this issue, it’s important to distinguish between what is and isn’t involved here. We’re not talking about a faith group’s private worship. Rather, this controversy is about public events, such as a ceremony for a change of command, at which the military might ask a chaplain to give an invocation. In addition, the controversy isn’t about whether the Constitution allows chaplains to provide an invocation at these public events. Instead, this controversy is about whether the chaplains may provide faith-specific prayers.

Some argue that chaplains violate the Establishment Clause by offering faith-specific prayers at public events because such prayers represent the government’s official endorsement of that particular faith and also impose religious experience on those who are required to attend the event. But others say that the military must permit these faith-specific prayers because the chaplains have a constitutional right to pray as their specific faith requires; they argue that this right is guaranteed by either the Free Exercise Clause, which protects religious liberty, or the Free Speech Clause, which limits the government’s ability to restrict the content of private speech. So one side is arguing that the Constitution prohibits faith-specific prayers and another side is arguing that the Constitution guarantees chaplains a right to offer faith-specific prayers.

While no court has yet had to address this question, I think that if this issue were presented, a court would likely disagree with both sides. On the one hand, the Constitution probably permits faith-specific references in prayers at official events, even if service members are required to attend those events, as long as chaplains don’t use the prayers to proselytize. But there would of course be stronger arguments against such faith-specific prayers if they were offered on a regular basis. On the other hand, the Constitution probably permits the military to prohibit chaplains from making any faith-specific references during a public invocation because the government has broad authority to control what public officials say. And I think a court would find that chaplains act as public officials when they speak at official events. Thus, courts are likely to hold that the military has the discretion to decide whether chaplains may offer faith-specific prayers at public events.

How does the “war on terror,” a conflict with obvious religious overtones, relate to this notion of accommodating religious needs? What if, for example, the military wanted to build mosques and fund imams to serve the many devout Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, who, due to the war, might be deprived of adequate religious resources? Would that be constitutionally appropriate?

That’s an interesting and very relevant question, but it’s hard to answer because it raises the unresolved issue of whether the Establishment Clause applies to action taken by the U.S. government outside its territory. Although the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Lamont v. Woods (1991) ruled that the clause does apply overseas, the Supreme Court has never addressed this issue, and there are good arguments on both sides. Some say that the clause should not apply abroad because the two primary purposes of the clause – protecting religious liberty and avoiding religious conflict in America – deal only with actions either occurring within the United States or affecting U.S citizens. Others say that the clause should apply to the government’s overseas conduct because the government’s overseas expenditures on religion can burden American taxpayers in the same way that domestic expenditures do.

Do you anticipate an increasing or decreasing amount of litigation over religion’s role in the military?

I think that the litigation is likely to increase. Service members feel increasingly entitled to have their beliefs respected by those in positions of authority. At the same time, supervisors feel that they are entitled to express their religious beliefs to peers and subordinates. This conflicting sense of entitlement often produces litigation.

Do you expect any of these cases to go to the Supreme Court?

I would be very surprised if the Supreme Court heard any of these cases. I say this for two reasons. One, I think that the military has been working very hard to follow this accommodation principle we’ve been discussing. The military has instructed its chaplains and commanding officers to respect the rights of non-believers and to facilitate the religious needs of all service members. Two, the court has generally deferred to military authorities and hesitated to intervene in issues involving the military. For these two reasons, I think it’s unlikely that the court would agree to hear any of these cases.

http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=191

Political Philosophy, Revelation, and Modernity

James V. Schall. Roman Catholic Political Philosophy. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2004. xx + 209 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $68.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7391-0745-4.

Reviewed by: William F. Byrne, Department of Government and Politics, St. John's University, New York.

There is a real need for a book on Roman Catholic political philosophy. The Catholic tradition has generally placed a great premium on philosophical study, including political philosophy. There are many Catholic political philosophers, some of whom are quite explicit in their efforts to integrate their understanding of Christian revelation into their work. However, it remains difficult to say just what "Roman Catholic political philosophy" is, or to identify the precise characteristics (other than perhaps authorship) which distinguish any particular political-philosophical thought as Roman Catholic.

One of the most fitting authors for a book entitled Roman Catholic Political Philosophy would certainly be James Schall. A fixture of Georgetown's Department of Government, and a prolific writer for decades on matters of both political philosophy and religion, Fr. Schall is without question one of the most well-known and respected Catholic political philosophers in America. His more recent books often take the form of long reflective essays, or a series of linked reflective essays; this one is no exception. The present book makes for an illuminating and inspiring read. However, despite its title, it is not the book on Catholic political philosophy; that book remains to be written, if indeed it can be.

Fr. Schall makes clear what this book is not. It is not a book "on what is called 'the social doctrines of the Church'" (p. xiii). Nor is it an effort to reconcile Catholicism with any particular strain of modern political thought, or to explain which regime types are most compatible with Catholic thought. Notably, it is also not "a history or summary of the views of classic or modern Catholic thinkers on politics"; nor is it a book "on comparative religion or philosophy" in a political context (pp. xii-xiii). While each of these topics would, at a minimum, require a sizable book of its own, greater incorporation of at least some of this material would help to justify this book's title. Nevertheless, it should be appreciated for what it is.

The book's actual subject is a very important one. It is political philosophy itself, in relation to the Roman Catholic account of revelation. This work is "a relaxed, literate 'attempt' to present from various angles a rarely heard argument about how the highest things of philosophy, politics, and revelation relate to each other" (p. xiii). Schall's explorations are indeed literate, and go beyond political philosophy narrowly construed to take in broadly the relationship between reason and revelation. To Schall, political philosophy provides a context in which to illuminate and develop some of the themes of Fides et Ratio. It is a sort of nexus at which the relationships of reason and revelation, and of philosophy and faith, play out.

The distinction between political and religious concerns, though important to recognize, is not as great as is supposed by many--especially by modern secularists, who tend to compartmentalize religion when they think of it at all. For one thing, every person, no matter how oriented toward revelation, must live in the world, and cannot wholly escape political matters or the concerns of the social sciences. Moreover, because politics does not represent humankind's ultimate end, good political philosophy must point beyond itself, and the good state must point beyond itself. A point central to Schall, and in his view a key mark of Roman Catholic political philosophy, is this recognition that "the ultimate destiny of each human being, the political animal, is not located in politics" (p. 158). Following Eric Voegelin, Schall recognizes the rise of ideology, and then the exhaustion of ideology, as symptoms of modern society's failure to recognize this basic reality. In closing itself to revelation and rejecting metaphysics, politics becomes its own monstrous metaphysics. Paralleling the phenomenon of political modernity is modern philosophy's hubristic tendency to identify the wholeness of reality with what is knowable through philosophy's methods. We neglect the vital role of revelation at our peril.

Negotiating the relationship between revelation and reason, or between the things of God and things of Caesar, is not easy. Openness to revelation does not, of course, imply some sort of biblically driven public policy in the crude sense; indeed, care must be taken not to put religion in service to a political ideology. Schall explains, "revelation … does not directly teach us about tax policy.... But it does indicate the immense importance of each human being" and gives us some sense of the meaning of the world (p. 76). This does not make political philosophy unimportant; it has its own extremely important (but not completely independent) sphere, and is in need of greater attention. In particular, those with a religious orientation must pay more attention to political philosophy--and, ideally, those already engaged in political philosophy must become more open to revelation--since, "indirectly, revelation has the effect of confirming or strengthening philosophy and political philosophy by providing answers that, when sorted out, make philosophy to be more philosophic and politics to be more 'politic'" (p. 179).

In his reflections Schall draws not only upon key Catholic Christian thinkers such as Augustine, Aquinas, and John Paul II, but on a great variety of other classic and modern sources including Plato and Aristotle and, a Schall trademark, the Peanuts comic strip. Indeed, the book's bibliography could be adopted as a wonderful life reading list. However, Schall identifies his most important sources as Voegelin and Leo Strauss, and it is Strauss's presence which is most heavily felt. This is somewhat problematic in a book on "Roman Catholic political philosophy," not simply because Strauss does not speak from a Catholic or Christian tradition, but because some of Strauss's writings suggest belief in a sharp divide between reason and revelation as well as incompatibility between philosophy and religion. One could argue that Strauss would deny that there could be such a thing as Roman Catholic political philosophy--either it would not really be Roman Catholic, or (more likely) would not really be philosophy.

This is not to say that Schall should not draw upon Strauss. Schall makes excellent use of Strauss; in fact, one of this book's greatest strengths is its effective synthesis of elements of Strauss with elements of Catholic and related thought. It would be helpful, however, if Fr. Schall acknowledged (beyond a passing reference) the tensions which appear to exist among his sources, and engaged those tensions more directly.

Nonetheless, Schall's message is an important one. Once upon a time, much of what he says would have been taken for granted--although it may not have been expressed so precisely or eloquently. Today, he is a much-needed corrective to a de-sanctified world and its fragmented pursuit of knowledge.

Citation: William F. Byrne. "Review of James V. Schall, Roman Catholic Political Philosophy," H-Catholic, H-Net Reviews, July, 2007. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=237531213374361.

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Religion and Economic Development

Rachel M. McCleary, Stanford & Harvard University
Policy Review, April-May 2008
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Reading the historian Arnold Toynbee’s lectures on the British Industrial Revolution, it is quickly apparent that conditions in England prior to 1760 were in many respects similar to those in developing countries today: Poor infrastructure and communication, lack of technological innovation, no division of labor, a focus on local commerce, and a weak banking system.¹ Surprisingly, the modern study of religion and economics begins with Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), an examination of conditions leading to the Industrial Revolution. In his book, Smith applies his innovative laissez-faire philosophy to several aspects of religion. However, Smith’s fundamental contribution to the modern study of religion was that religious beliefs and activities are rational choices. As in commercial activity, people respond to religious costs and benefits in a predictable, observable manner. People choose a religion and the degree to which they participate and believe (if at all).

Smith’s contribution to the study of religion is not simply theoretical. He held substantive views, for example, on the relationship between organized religion and the state. Smith argued strongly for a disassociation between church and state. Such a separation, he said, allows for competition, thereby creating a plurality of religious faiths in society.² By showing no preference for one religion over others, but rather permitting any and all religions to be practiced, the lack of state intervention (short of violence, coercion, and repression) creates an open market in which religious groups engage in rational discussion about religious beliefs. This setting creates an atmosphere of “good temper and moderation.” Where there is a state monopoly on religion or an oligopoly among religions, one will find zealousness and the imposition of ideas on the public. Where there is an open market for religion and freedom of speech, one will find moderation and reason.

A contemporary of Smith (though they were not acquainted) and a public intellectual during the British Industrial Revolution, John Wesley had much to say about the relationship between religion and economic development, though his perspective differed radically from Smith’s. Wesley (1703–1791), a theologian and the founder of Methodism and the Holiness Movement, championed the two-way causation between religion and economic growth, preaching in 1744, “Gain all you can, Save all you can, Give all you can.” Later, in his famous sermon of 1760, “The Use of Money,” Wesley expounded upon these three points, emphasizing hard work, self-reliance, and mutual aid. Finally, just two years before his death (he lived to be 88), Wesley berated his congregants from the pulpit for their comfortable lifestyle and urged them to give away their fortunes. In the 45 years between these two sermons, Wesley’s followers, by working hard and saving, had raised themselves up into the comfortable middle class. Wesley understood very well the direct causal relationship between religious beliefs and productivity. He also understood well that wealth accumulation could weaken religiosity both in terms of beliefs and participation. Wesley concluded that economic growth was detrimental to religion. Is it? And, if so, must it be?

The two-way causation

Let us look at the two-way causation and, thereby, the relationship between religion and development. First, how does a nation’s economic and political development affect its level of religiosity? When we look at the effects of economic development on religion, we find that overall development — represented by per capita Gross Domestic Product (gdp) — tends to reduce religiosity.³ The empirical evidence supports, to a degree, the secularization thesis which holds that with increased income, people tend to become less religious (as measured by religious attendance and religious beliefs). Economic development causes religion to play a lesser role in the political process and in policymaking, in the legal process, as well as in social arrangements (marriages, friendships, colleagues). There are four primary indicators of the influence of economic development on religion.

Economic development implies a rising opportunity cost of participating in religious services and prayer.

Education. The more educated a person is, the more likely he is to turn to science for explanations of natural phenomena, with religion intended to explain supernatural phenomena and psychological phenomena for which there is no rational explanation. According to this view, the higher the levels of educational attainment, the less religious people will be (negative effect). On the other hand, an increase in education will also spur participation in religious activities, because educated people tend to appreciate social networks and other forms of social capital. Education increases the returns from networks and networking. On this view, religion is just another type of social capital (positive effect). Thus, we cannot conclude that richer societies are less religious because people are better educated.

Value of time (measured by effects on per capita GDP). Economic reasoning tells us that anything that raises the cost of religious activities would — ceteris paribus — reduce these activities. We know that economic development and participation in the workforce raise the value of a person’s time as measured by the value of market wages. Thus, economic development implies a rising opportunity cost of participating in time-intensive activities, such as religious services and prayer. Hence, people will participate less in religious activities because their time is now more valuable to them. So, as a country’s per capita gdp increases, we expect to see a decrease in participation in formal religious activities. Older people and young people — in other words, those persons with a low value of time — will tend to participate more in religious activities.

Life expectancy. People are living longer all over the globe, not just in industrialized countries. Longevity has been rising almost everywhere in the world. Since 1950, it has climbed by larger absolute and percentage amounts in poor countries. With people living longer, participation in certain religions will be low and then rise as the population ages.

Urbanization. Urbanization is another aspect of economic growth that is said to have a substantial negative effect on religious participation. Why? Because in urban areas religious activities compete with others, such as the symphony, theatre, museums, and volunteer activities. Thus, religion takes up your leisure time and competes with other leisure activities, not just work.

We know empirically by doing cross-country analysis that per capita gdp has a significantly negative effect on religion, both in terms of beliefs and participation. This tendency is gradual as countries grow richer. Furthermore, a steady pattern of secularization only applies to a few countries, such as Britain, France, and Germany. Although religiosity declines overall with economic development, the nature of the interaction varies with the dimension of development. For example, increased education has very different effects on religious participation and religiosity from rises in life expectancy or urbanization.

Second, how do religion and religiosity influence economic performance and the nature of political, economic, and cultural institutions? We find that, for a given level of religious participation, increases in core religious beliefs — notably belief in hell, heaven, and an afterlife — tend to increase economic growth. Our interpretation, reminiscent of Max Weber’s famous thesis in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, is that religious beliefs raise productivity by fostering individual traits such as honesty, work ethic, and thrift. In contrast, for given religious beliefs, increases in church attendance tend to reduce economic growth. We think that this negative effect reflects the time and resources used by the religion sector as well as adverse effects from organized religion on economic regulation — for example, restrictions on markets for credit and insurance. To put it another way, the main growth effect that we find is a positive response to an increase in believing relative to belonging (attending). Striking patterns of relatively high belief appear in the Scandinavian countries, Britain, and Japan. Although these countries are not generally viewed as religious, the belief levels are high when compared to the low levels of attendance at formal religious services. Countries with low levels of belief relative to religious participation are Latin American nations and India. We also have some evidence that the stick represented by the fear of damnation is more potent for growth than the carrot from the prospect of salvation.

Now let’s look at how religion influences the four primary indicators of economic development.

Education. We find that religious beliefs are compatible with increased education and knowledge. Religion is attractive to people with higher levels of educational attainment because religious beliefs can be neither proved nor disproved. Educated people engage in speculative reasoning and are better able to think abstractly. Therefore, religion can offer something to them.

Religious beliefs matter for economic outcomes. They reinforce character traits such as hard work, honesty, thrift, and the value of time. Otherworldly compensators — such as belief in heaven, hell, the afterlife — can raise productivity by motivating people to work harder in this life. The Calvinist view of salvation through grace posits that since you cannot know whether or not you are saved, you work conscientiously your whole life (a life of good works). Religious rewards — such as absolution of sin, earning salvific merit by giving to charity — also motivate people to work hard and cultivate virtuous behavior.

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Does the universe have a purpose?

This is the first in a series of conversations about the “Big Questions” the John Templeton Foundation
is conducting among leading scientists and scholars.

Unlikely. Lawrence M. Krauss is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.

Yes. David Gelernter is a professor of computer science at Yale and a National fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Perhaps. Paul Davies is a physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist. He is the director of the Beyond Center at Arizona State University.

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No. Peter William Atkins is a Fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Indeed. Nancey Murphy is Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Yes. Owen Gingerich is Professor Emeritus of Astronomy and of the History of Science at Harvard University and a senior astronomer emeritus at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

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Very Likely. Bruno Guiderdoni is an astrophysicist and the Director of the Observatory of Lyon, France.

No. Christian de Duve is a biochemist. He received the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.

Yes. John F. Haught is Senior Fellow, Science & Religion, at the Woodstock Theological Center, Georgetown University.

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Not Sure. Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist and the Director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium.

Certainly. Jane Goodall is the founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace.

I Hope So. Elie Wiesel is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and University Professor at Boston

John Templeton Foundation
BIG Questions

The Foundation has sponsored three online exchanges on questions that illuminate our philanthropic mission.

• Does science make belief in God obsolete?
• Will money solve Africa's development problems?
• Does the universe have a purpose?

. Join the conversation»

Science and Religion, 400 B.C.-A.D. 1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus

Edward Grant. Science and Religion, 400 B.C.-A.D. 1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus. Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion Series. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004.
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Reviewed by: Anna Marie Roos, Wellcome Unit, Oxford University.
Published by: H-Ideas (October, 2007)
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Objective and Subjective Insights: Theology, Natural Philosophy, and the Medieval World View

Medievalist Edward Grant has devoted much of his career to analyzing to what extent modern scientific culture had its origins in the work of medieval theologians. Countering the popular perception that science and religion have always been at historical odds, a view promulgated by Andrew Dickson White's A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896 and still in print), Grant has convincingly demonstrated that the medieval Church was favorably disposed towards natural philosophy, using its principles in theological discussion and analysis.

Science and Religion, 400 B.C.-A.D.1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus is a lucid and erudite synthesis of Grant's past work. Part of the Greenwood Guides to Science and Religion, this volume is designed as an introduction to laymen and students so they might understand how religious traditions from throughout the globe have interacted with scientific disciplines. Hence, Grant devotes the last chapter of his piece to an erudite consideration of the relationships between science and religion in Byzantium as well as in the medieval Islamic world. The books in the series also provide primary source documents, an annotated bibliography, and a timeline of significant events. As a testament to its popularity for history of science pedagogy, Grant's particular volume has also been republished in paperback by John Hopkins University Press (2006).

Grant begins his largely successful survey with the claim that the "real beginnings of science and religion commenced with Plato and his student Aristotle" (p. 1). Although one could argue that the pre-Socratics in Miletus began such discourse, Grant is right to devote much of the first part of his work to Aristotle's overweening influence in the science-religion dialogue. Aristotle's conception of the Prime Mover which ultimately caused all interaction and change by being an object of desire and love, the Stagyrite's spatial and material distinction between the heavenly and sublunar realms, and his teleological cosmos were all part of a metaphysics that became a "dominant analytical tool" when applied to the Christian God in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages (p. 19). Particularly strong is Grant's overview in chapter 2 of the sheer scope of Aristotle's corpus of work as well as his techniques for analyzing philosophical problems.

Grant then analyzes early Christianity, demonstrating that the early Church fathers studied natural philosophy largely to comprehend the Christian faith, rather than for the sake of knowledge itself. Natural philosophy was a handmaiden to theology. Since God had "created the world as an essentially self-operating entity" functioning by its own laws, it was thought "the mind must penetrate nature to find God" (p. 135). Grant takes the time and care to introduce students to lesser-known theologians such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and John of Damascus, and recounts their attempts to reconcile pagan Greek philosophy with Christianity, rather than just jumping ahead to St. Augustine and his assimilation of Neo-Platonism with Christianity.

In chapter 4, there is also an excellent section on early hexameral literature (commentary on the six days of creation). Grant notes that the problems concerned with the creation of light in the first day (optics), the role of astronomy and astrology in the events of day two, and meteorological analysis of the third day when God made the elements and sublunar region demonstrate the use of hexameral literature as a important and logical means for theologians to discuss natural philosophy. Further, Grant's explanation of why logic became a major subject of study in the eleventh century, his analysis of the extent to which logic was applied to medieval questions of divine revelation, and the role logic played in later struggles between science and religion is also particularly noteworthy. Undergraduates reading this will understand what questiones, scholasticism, and the sententiae of Peter Lombard were all about, mostly likely to the great relief of their instructors.

After a brief discussion of the Latin encyclopedists in the fifth to eighth centuries, the work turns to the twelfth-century medieval Renaissance. As this is a work of science and religion, it is natural that Grant would concentrate upon medieval scholasticism and the rise of universities, as well as the influx of Greco-Arabic natural philosophy and the bearing it had on theological deliberations. However, in his contextual section for the twelfth century, I was a bit surprised that there was little discussion of technological innovations other than the horse collar and three-field system of crop rotation. Since one of its book's purposes is to show the harmony of medieval philosophy and religion with the study of the natural world, it couldn't hurt to mention that medieval engineers created innovations such as the water wheel and water pumps, the lateen sail, or most importantly, the mechanical clock. The mechanical clock was thought to have been invented in 996 to call monastic brethren to prayer by Brother Gerbert, later Pope Sylvester II (999-1003 A.D.), in itself a nice confluence of applied sciences and religious purpose.

I was, however, pleased to see a thorough section describing the work of what Tina Stiefel has termed the "impious men" of the twelfth century--William of Conches, Thierry of Chartres, and Adelard of Bath.[1] This trio attempted to create a rational methodology for the investigation of nature well before the appearance in the West of the Aristotelian corpus and the university. When Aristotle did become part and parcel of the medieval university, their methodology contributed to powerful changes in the relationship between science and religion in the following two centuries, the subject of the masterfully written chapters 6 and 7.

In the thirteenth century, the extensive application of logic and region in the new universities to divine questions produced tensions between faculties of arts and theology in the medieval university, as natural philosophy became more than theology's handmaiden. Utilizing the 1277 papal condemnation of heretical opinions at the University of Paris as a backdrop, Grant shows how the condemned precepts included ideas of the eternity of the world, and limitations on God's power. These precepts reflected the natural philosophers' use of pagan philosophy and reasoned speculation about creation, both of which were seen as threatening theology's primacy as "queen of the sciences." As Grant astutely comments, "The thirteenth century laid a foundation for the interrelations between science and religion in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries…. Theology and the power of the church were sufficient to curb and limit the ambitions of the arts masters, who sought … to give free reign to their efforts to interpret the physical cosmos in straightforward Aristotelian terms, unencumbered by theological restrictions and limitations. As the dust settled in the fourteenth century, it became obvious that theologians had an enormous degree of latitude to use natural philosophy … as they pleased in their theological treatises…. By contrast, arts masters usually sought to avoid introducing theology into their commentaries and questions on the books of Aristotle's natural philosophy" (p. 189).

Using examples from his previous work, Grant analyzes the treatises of Jean Buridan to show the limitations arts faculty in the thirteenth century experienced in their speculative work, sometimes with unexpected consequences.[2] If God could indeed do anything in his power, Buridan reasoned God could create a vacuum within or outside of the world, despite Aristotle's denial of the possibility. Albert of Saxony also speculated if a "body could move in a vacuum that God had supernaturally created," which led other scholars such as Nicolas Oresme and Thomas Bradwardine to consider rectilinear motion as an absolute motion independent of place (p. 196). In a lovely example of the interaction of science and religion, Grant demonstrates to what extent the condemnation of 1277 had unexpected effects on the development of physics.

As the fourteenth century progressed however, the restrictions of the 1277 condemnation did not last. Theology became more of an analytic discipline, using the logical methods of the natural philosophers. Interest in divine infinity was analyzed using tools concerned with the infinite divisibility of a mathematical continuum. Grosseteste's work on optics used theories of illumination to analyze the intensification of grace, and the Mertonian school at Oxford in the 1330s and 1340s "measured" subjective qualities like justice and honor quantitatively.[3] The one area of theology closed to such analysis was that related to revelation, such as the Trinity and the Eucharist. Their inherent paradoxes were regarded beyond the reach of reason and logic.

From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, the revelations of Holy Scripture and where they contradicted observed natural phenomena were also accommodated, the mysteries as the Bible seen as allegorical. Despite the later clash (Grant calls it a "debacle") in the seventeenth century over Galileo's adoption of Copernicus' heliocentrism in contradiction to biblical geocentrism, medieval philosophers had little interest to "convert the Bible into a book that allegedly contained the secrets of nature and its operations" (p. 224). So far, so good. In these areas of Grant's expertise, this book shines and demonstrates to its readers the interaction between science and religion in the medieval period with erudition. But I did note a few omissions. First of all, Copernicus and his significance are given very short shrift (approximately six to eight sentences scattered throughout the book). Perhaps the Copernican debt to earlier belief systems such as the cult of Pythagoras and Neo-Platonism could have been covered more thoroughly to foreshadow the growing influence of Plato in the Renaissance. This approach may have not fit into as neat of a pattern or argument, but the volume does claim to end with the Copernican hypothesis which perhaps should do more than mark the "beginning of the end for the medieval worldview" (p. 1).

Secondly, the choice of primary sources, while offering some excellent selections, starts with Roger Bacon and ends with Nicolas Oresme, and could have been a bit more comprehensive. If the book is used as a pedagogical tool, primary sources from ancient world and the beginnings of the early modern period should be represented.

Third, Grant then claims in his last chapter that the division of the medieval university into faculties of arts and theology foreshadowed the later division in Western societies of church and state, and that was a very good thing for science indeed.[4] For this reader, the Galileo affair which helped precipitate this division was more of a tragedy then something that resulted in an ultimate good. As an early modernist, it seems to me that the church and state were intertwined for a very long time in a complex dialogue which resulted in both benefits and tragedies; in the human condition, it seems realistically one cannot have one without the other. Galileo was condemned by the Church being caught in the political snares of the Counter-Reformation, but he also benefited from the knowledge of its Jesuit astronomers and mathematicians. As Wallace has demonstrated, Galileo's very lecture notes from his student days at the University of Pisa had as their source the lectures of the Jesuits at the Collegio Romano, considered the best in their field.[5] Copernicus, who inadvertently started the whole firestorm, was a church canon, whose motivation for his science was often frankly quite mystical and precipitated a watershed in thought. In the early modern period, the sense of awe at nature and a celebration of scientific discovery were not incompatible with a religious worldview, nor is that necessarily the case now. But that is getting into a wholly different debate outside the scope of this review.[6]

Nonetheless Grant's book is very fine and a pleasure to peruse. For those who want or need to understand the fascinating and often surprising world of Western medieval religion and its interaction with natural philosophy, this book is the one to read. I highly recommend it.

Notes

[1]. Tina Stiefel, "'Impious Men'": Twelfth-Century Attempts to Apply Dialectic to the World of Nature," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 441, no. 1 (1995): 187-204

[2]. Edward Grant, Much Ado about Nothing: Theories of Space and Vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

[3]. Grant here relies on the work of Edith Sylla, "Medieval Quantifications of Qualities: The "Merton School," Archive for History of Exact Sciences 8, nos. 1-2 (1971): 9-39.

[4]. Grant's conclusion seems a variation of Steven Jay Gould's concept of science and religion being described as "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA), which each concerns themselves with fundamentally separate aspects of human experience, coexisting peacefully when each stays within its own domain.

[5]. William A. Wallace, Galileo and his Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo's Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); James M. Lattis, Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

[6]. For the recent state of affairs, see George Johnson, "A Free-for-All on Science and Religion," New York Times, November 21, 2006.

Source: H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online
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Integrating Islam into the West

The rule of law evolves gradually over time, casting judgment on behavior as right or wrong. Media reports that the archbishop of Canterbury suggested Great Britain should adopt some aspects of Shariah or Islamic law ignited immediate protests. “Unfortunately, the media storm masked the real message of the speech, which concerned the authority of the secular state and its impact on religious minorities in general and Muslims in particular,” write Phillip Blond and Adrian Pabst for the International Herald Tribune. “For the genuine target of the archbishop's lecture is the increasingly authoritarian and anti-religious nature of the modern liberal state.” Laws in Europe’s secular societies ban public religious displays including head scarves, crucifixes or nativity scenes, thus alienating religious minorities from society. Societies must take care with laws not to marginalize or segregate minorities, impose one set of beliefs on the entire populace, or squash rationale debate, suggest Blond and Pabst. Some judgments of right or wrong are less ambiguous than others; legal systems must focus on priorities and allow individuals to make choices on the rest. – YaleGlobal

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Phillip Blond, University of Cumbria
Adrian Pabst, University of Nottingham
International Herald Tribune, 21 Feb 2008

LONDON: The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Reverend Rowan Williams – the titular head of the 77-million strong worldwide Anglican Church – ignited a huge controversy last week when he suggested in a lecture in the Royal Courts of Law that Britain should adopt certain aspects of Shariah law. This was done with the benign intention of integrating into British law the practices and beliefs of Britain's 1.8 million Muslims.

However, the archbishop's apparent suggestion that Muslims could opt out of secular common law for separate arbitration and judgement in Islamic religious courts created the impression of one law for Muslims and another for everybody else.

This incendiary idea (subsequently corrected by the archbishop) provoked a furor about states within states and a widespread fear that any license granted to Shariah law would also license its more extreme aspects. Unfortunately, the media storm masked the real message of the speech, which concerned the authority of the secular state and its impact on religious minorities in general and Muslims in particular.

For the genuine target of the archbishop's lecture is the increasingly authoritarian and anti-religious nature of the modern liberal state. Militant secularism has forbidden head scarves and wall-mounted crucifixes in France. It has also banned Roman Catholic adoption agencies in Britain for not selecting same-sex couples as potential foster parents. Under the banner of free speech, secular Italian leftists recently prevented Pope Benedict XVI from addressing La Sapienza University in Rome on the subject of rational enquiry.

Williams' legitimate religious concerns with freedom of conscience tie in with wider Western worries about the consequences of failing to integrate a growing, devout and alienated Islamic minority within a relativistic and increasingly aggressive secular culture.

However, the solution proposed by the archbishop repeats the errors of 1960s liberal multiculturalism. In conjuring up the idea of communities sharing the same space but leading separate lives, he unwittingly endorses a scenario that entrenches segregation and fractures any conception of a common good binding all citizens. Despite this, Williams at least recognizes that Britain is struggling to find a way of accommodating its increasingly ghettoized and radicalized Muslim population.

Clearly, the integration of Islam into secular democracies is a challenge that confronts the Western world as a whole and Europe in particular. Regrettably, there are problems with all the existing secular models of integration. British and Dutch versions of multiculturalism hoped to ensure the equal rights of all citizens, but both countries – in abandoning the cultural cohesion based around religion – lost the very medium in which majorities and minorities could share.

Germany eschewed its own Christian legacy in favor of an ethnic account of its identity. Though it grants generous socio-economic rights, the German model still refuses Muslim "guest workers" citizenship and thus participation in civic life.

In France, the Republican ideal appeals to immigrants, but its secular reality denies the primary religious form of their identity. Moreover, the Muslim population is discriminated against in the labor market and tends to be confined to the banlieues. The French model's refusal to accommodate religion prevents France from broadening its concept of French identity.

The trouble with all the European models is that they enshrine the primacy of secular law over and against religious principles. Far from ensuring neutrality and tolerance, the secular European state arrogates to itself the right to control and legislate all spheres of life; state constraints apply especially to religion and its civic influence. Legally, secularism outlaws any rival source of sovereignty or legitimacy. Politically, secularism denies religion any import in public debate and decision-making. Culturally, secularism enforces its own norms and standards upon all other belief systems. In consequence, the liberal promise of equality amounts to little more than the secular imposition of sameness. As such, contemporary liberalism is unable to recognize religions in their own right or grant them their proper autonomy.

By contrast, the United States offers a strong integrated vision that allows for the public expression of religion under the auspices of a state that guarantees not just individual rights but also the autonomy of religious communities. Even though minorities in the United States have suffered discrimination, the American model of religious integration explicitly shields religion from excessive state interference. Thus loyalty to the state is not necessarily in conflict with loyalty to one's faith. Perhaps this explains why American Muslims appear more integrated and less alienated than their European counterparts. In part, this is because the European Enlightenment sought to protect the state from religion, whereas the American settlement aimed to protect religion from the state.

Thus, the real reason for Europe's failure to integrate Islam is the European commitment to secularism. Only a new settlement with religion can successfully incorporate the growing religious minorities in Western Europe. Secular liberalism is simply incapable of achieving this outcome. Paradoxically, what other faiths require for their proper recognition is the recovery of the indigenous European religious tradition – Christianity. Only Christianity can integrate other religions into a shared European project by acknowledging what secular ideologies cannot: a transcendent objective truth that exceeds human assertion but is open to rational discernment and debate. As such, Christianity outlines a non-secular model of the common good in which all can participate.

Rather than trying to defend religion through the guise of secular multiculturalism, the Archbishop of Canterbury should have been defending religious pluralism through Christianity. What Muslims most object to is not a difference of belief but its absence from European consciousness. Thus the recovery of Christianity in Europe is not a sectarian project but rather the only basis for the political integration of Muslims and peaceful religious coexistence.

Phillip Blond is a senior lecturer in philosophy and theology at the University of Cumbria. Adrian Pabst teaches religion and politics at the University of Nottingham and is a research fellow at the Luxembourg Institute for European and International Studies.

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http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=10397

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Attitudes Toward Muslims and Islam in the United States

Prospects for Inter-Religious Understanding: Will Views Toward Muslims and Islam Follow Historical Trends?

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

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Although tolerance is an American ideal and freedom of religion is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, American history has often been characterized by inter-religious conflict. Without question, however, much progress has been made in overcoming blatant forms of institutionalized religious discrimination. But historic tensions among American religious groups, not to mention heightened concerns in the post-9/11 world about a clash of civilizations, ensure that the question of inter-religious relations will remain an important issue for the public as well as for religious and political leaders.

Public opinion polls conducted by the Pew Research Center shed some light on inter-religious relations and the prospects for inter-religious cooperation and understanding. The findings confirm that certain historical religious divisions and tensions have largely been put aside. Catholics and Jews, for example, once the objects of widespread and often institutionalized discrimination, are now viewed favorably by a sizable majority of Americans. But the poll findings also suggest that other religious groups, including evangelical Christians and especially Muslims, are not fully accepted by many Americans.

American society and politics were once characterized by bitter religious divisions, often pitting well-established, well-educated and well-off Protestants against newly arrived, less-educated and less well-off Roman Catholics and Jews. Today, however, these divisions seem to have been largely overcome. In recent polling, approximately three-in four Americans express favorable opinions of Catholics and Jews. Even among white Protestants and seculars, large majorities hold positive views of these groups.

Evangelical Protestants also are viewed favorably by a majority of the public, though substantially fewer Americans express favorable views of evangelicals compared with Jews or Catholics. Seculars, in particular, stand out for their wariness of evangelicals.

In short, this analysis suggests that the tensions that once existed between Protestants and Catholics, and the hostility that Jews faced from both groups, have largely diminished. Though evangelicals are viewed less positively than Catholics or Jews, all three groups are viewed favorably by majorities of the public. These findings strongly suggest that the United States has the capacity to overcome historical religious divisions and prejudices.

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The survey analysis is available at:

http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/Inter-Religious-Understanding.pdf

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The Diffusion of Islam: Its Influence on Our Culture

BIG IDEAS, BIG THINKERS

Thirteen WNET New York

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For a thousand years after the death of Muhammad (570-632), the expansion of Islam formed one of civilization's greatest empires. By the seventh century, Muslims had spread from Arabia to Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, Alexandria, and Isfahan. In the year 711, they invaded Spain via the Straits of Gibraltar and entered into India. Between the lands they controlled and the regions with which they traded, Muslims were in contact with almost the entire known world. Their situation, between the eastern reaches of Europe and the central plains of Asia, allowed for an unprecedented transfusion of knowledge

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Today, historian Glen Bowersock is working to make mosaics an accepted form of historical documentation. He contends, for instance, that a set of 8th century mosaics discovered in the Christian church of St. Stephen in Jordan speaks volumes about the nature of historical change and cultural assimilation. Created by Christians nearly 100 years after the Islamic conquest of Jordan, the mosaics bear the stamp of both Christian and Greek traditions, suggesting that not only had the Christians retained elements of their pagan cultural past, but that the new Muslim rulers had not tried to snuff out either of these influences.

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"I think the Muslims were far too intelligent to suggest that the people they conquered should immediately be flushed out," says Bowersock. "If they were going to survive in the newly conquered territories, they had to absorb and accept what was there -- in terms of religion, in terms of people, in terms of the Greek language."

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In Jerusalem, an architectural masterpiece speaks of the melting pot quality of the medieval Middle East. The Dome of the Rock is an octagonal-shaped building enclosing a domed, cylindrical core. Not a mosque for public worship, but a mashhad, a shrine for pilgrims, the Dome of the Rock was built on the order of Abd al-Malik, the ninth Islamic Caliph, and completed in 691.

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Hardly fifty years after the Muslims had taken control of Jerusalem in 637, the completion of the Dome of the Rock came at a time when the Muslims did not occupy the Christian region of the city. Instead, they limited themselves to the southeastern portion of Jerusalem where the remains of the old Jewish Temples, destroyed by the Babylonians and the Romans hundreds of years earlier, were located. As a way of letting their presence be known to the Christians, the Muslims constructed the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, where its impressive structure would be visible to Christians departing from services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

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"Now, before the Dome of the Rock, you would see nothing," explains Islamic art historian Oleg Grabar. "This was the space of the destroyed Jewish Temple, [a symbol denoting that] Judaism has been replaced by Christianity. King Abd al-Malik wanted to create a monument that would sort of show the presence of the new faith. Not merely its physical presence, but the fact that it now is the final message that superceded the Christian message."

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Islamic art is just one example of the way in which Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and pagan traditions coexisted during the Middle Ages, resulting in the sometimes subtle, often profound, influence Islamic society has had on the Western world. From a study of tessellated Islamic mosaics, for instance, the importance of geometry to the Muslims becomes evident. In fact, Islamic contributions to our current understanding of mathematics were tremendous.

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Sometime around 825, the Muslim mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi wrote ON THE CALCULATION WITH HINDU NUMERALS, the book chiefly responsible for delivering the Indian numeral system to Europe. Far less cumbersome than Roman numerals, the Hindu-Arabic numbers allowed merchants and bankers to multiply and divide easily. al-Khwarizmi also wrote an important book on solving quadratic equations, a revelation that provided the foundation of algebra. In fact, the word "algebra" is derived from the Latin translation of the title of this treatise. The word "algorithm" also found its origin in the Latin translation of this work. The use of the variable "x" in the solving of quadratic equations came from the Spanish translation of the Arabic word "shay," which means "thing."

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A century after al-Khwarizmi's innovations in mathematics, a man named Ibn al-Haytham was changing the way we see. The "father of optics," al-Haytham (ca. 965-1039), wrote the first book on the subject, OPTICS. Based on experimental evidence rather than past authority, OPTICS influenced Descartes and Kepler, among many others in the East and West. In 1050, Ali Ibn-Isa wrote A NOTE FOR OCULISTS, the first book on diseases of the eye.

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Beyond the field of optometry, the medieval Muslims' gifts to medicine were extraordinary. The Egyptian physician Ibn al-Nafis (1213-1288) discovered the pulmonary circulation of the blood. Ibn Sina (980-1037), also known as Avicenna, was a philosopher whose CANON OF MEDICINE was once the most famous medical book in the Eastern and Western worlds. The Muslims were experienced in the administration of medicinal drugs and anesthesia; they were practiced in the use of surgical techniques. They even created a system of medical ethics

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Our understanding of what a hospital should be emerged as medical institutions were built across the Islamic Empire. The construction of hospitals became a common way in which charitable foundations made use of their endowments. These hospitals were secular, offering care to anyone, regardless of his or her background. They kept records of the patients they treated, included pharmacies, and were divided into different wards. Often the establishment of a hospital was followed by the creation of a medical school. Ibn al-Nafis (discoverer of pulmonary circulation) was trained at such an institution, the medical school at Al-Nuri Hospital, which originated from the donation of a medical library by King Nur Al-Din Zinki.