God's Philosophers Quotes

“Popular opinion, journalistic cliché and misinformed historians notwithstanding, recent research has shown that the Middle Ages was a period of enormous advances in science, technology and culture.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers

“Before we criticize Gerbert and his compatriots for their foolish adherence to ancient Greek and Hebrew authority, consider this: if someone asked you today to demonstrate that the earth orbits the sun, you almost certainly could not do it. You could show them every book and ask every expert, but you could not provide them with direct evidence without a telescope, a lot of time, and a lot of mathematics. Gerbert lacked the telescope and the math, so we cannot blame him for believing his books when they so clearly echoed common sense. The idea that the earth moves was absurd, and it would take a great deal of careful thought before people realized that it was even possible.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

“In traditional histories, the rise of humanism is usually portrayed as ‘a good thing’, but the truth is that the humanists almost managed to destroy 300 years of progress in natural philosophy.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers

“One of the essential lessons of history is that if we use our own categories to describe the past we will seriously misjudge it. Instead, it is important to understand where people in the Middle Ages were coming from and to understand them on their own terms. Part of doing this involves looking at subjects that we would consider unscientific today. To medieval people magic, astrology and alchemy were all considered to be ‘sciences’. More surprisingly, these arcane disciplines contributed directly to modern science by providing alternative ways of comprehending and manipulating the natural world.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers

“Most significantly, the Middle Ages laid the foundation for the greatest achievement of western civilisation, modern science. It is simply untrue to say that there was no science before the ‘Renaissance’. Once medieval scholars got their hands on the work of the classical Greeks, they developed systems of thought that allowed science to travel far further than it had in the ancient world. Universities, where academic freedom was guarded from royal interference, were first founded in the twelfth century. These institutions have always provided scientific research with a safe home. Even Christian theology turned out to be uniquely suited to encouraging the study of the natural world, because this was believed to be God’s creation.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers

“In traditional histories, the rise of humanism is usually portrayed as “a good thing,” but the truth is that the humanists almost managed to destroy 300 years of progress in natural philosophy. By discarding the advances made by medieval scholars together with so many of the manuscripts that contained them, they could have set back the advance of science by centuries. Einstein might have had to do the work of Newton. The reason that progress in science was not so held back (although it arguably didn’t move forward as quickly as it might have done) was that the invention of printing had guaranteed that, if nothing else, the old books were preserved. Most people forgot about them, but a few, like Galileo, used the knowledge found within.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science

“According to the traditional history of science, Galileo was a man of unparalleled originality. He was, supposedly, the first person to show that objects of different weights fall at the same speed, the first to claim that vacuums could really exist and the first to realise projectiles move in curves. He rejected Aristotle when everyone else followed him slavishly. It is said that he proved Copernicus was right and that the Inquisition cast him into prison as a result. As it turns out, none of these things is exactly true. Galileo never proved heliocentricism (as we have already seen, it was Kepler who effectively did that) and his trial before the Inquisition was based more on politics than science. Galileo’s scientific achievement was solidly based on the natural philosophy that came before him. Appreciating that fact should not diminish our admiration of his genius. While almost all his theories can be traced back to earlier sources, he was the first to mould them into a coherent whole and the first to show how they could be experimentally demonstrated. In that sense, the long road to modern science really does start with him.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers

“It would be a mistake to see the restrictions that the 1277 condemnations placed on natural philosophers as evidence that the Church was anti-science. True, there was no such thing as completely free inquiry, but placing limits around a subject is not the same thing as being against it. The limits imposed on natural philosophy served a dual purpose. While they did prevent it from impinging on theology, they also protected natural philosophers from those who wanted to see their activities further curtailed.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers

“According to this schema, the early Middle Ages (which used to be called the Dark Ages) extend from the fall of the western Roman Empire in AD476 up until 1066; the Middle Ages proper start at that point and end in 1500 when we enter the early modern period. All dates are AD unless otherwise stated and AD/ BC designators are used whenever there might be some confusion. There is a trend among historians today to replace the old system of AD and BC with CE (for Common Era) and BCE (for Before Common Era) as a non-Christian alternative. That seems right for a history of China or Mesoamerica, but for the European Middle Ages AD and BC remain entirely appropriate.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers

“During the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church actively supported a great deal of science, but it also decided that philosophical speculation should not impinge on theology. Ironically, by keeping philosophers focused on nature instead of metaphysics, the limitations set by the Church may even have benefited science in the long term. Furthermore and contrary to popular belief, the Church never supported the idea that the earth is flat, never banned human dissection, never banned zero and certainly never burnt anyone at the stake for scientific ideas. The most famous clash between science and religion was the trial of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in 1633. Academic historians are now convinced that this had as much to do with politics and the Pope’s self-esteem as it did with science. The trial is fully explained in the last chapter of this book, in which we will also see how much Galileo himself owed to his medieval predecessors.”
― James Hannam, God's Philosophers