CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS TO SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT.

In the beginning Roman Emperors sentenced Christians to horrible punishments and persecuted them as they wanted to suppress Christianity. 

Even the stoic philosopher Emperor Marcus Aurelius is no exception to the persecution of Christians. Despite all the persecution, Christianity spread and attracted the minds of people. Finally Emperor Theodosius the Great (346-395 AD) converted to Christianity and proclaimed it as the royal religion. Christianity strengthened and so did the power of the Church and the position of the Pope. 

By the 13th century one third of Europe was under the suzerainty of the Pope. Even Emperors obeyed what the Pope said. The 1st Roman Empire ended in 410 AD, and the 2nd ended in 1453 AD when Constantinople was captured by the Turks. In the interregnum science stagnated in Europe for 1000 years under the influence of religious men. Philosophy existed only in the form of theology. 

There are many Christian theologians but we shall discuss only about the important ones 1. St Augustine, 2. St. Anselm, 3. Peter Abelard, 4. Roger bacon, 5. Saint Thomas Aquinas, 6. Martin Luther, 7. Erasmus & 8. Bruno.

 1. St Augustine (354-430AD): He said that religion and philosophy are not related. While one is based on faith, the other is based on logic and deduction. He tried to reconcile both. He said, the world is to be understood for making faith permanent but for understanding the world one requires deep faith.

 2. St.Anselm (1033-1109 AD): He was the Archbishop of Canterbury. He too tried to reconcile rationality and faith. He said do not try to understand for the sake of faith, but for understanding one has to develop faith.

He tried to rationally prove the existence of God. His argument is known as the Ontological argument. As per it, we get numerous ideas and thoughts. What is the greatest idea of all that we get? The idea of God. It is a collection of all the good qualities that humans define. But existence is also one of these good qualities. When we define God as a collective of all good qualities how can existence be not a part of God? Therefore God should have an existence and this argument proves the existence of God.

3. Peter Abelard (1079-1142 AD): It is not due to the will to create God has created the world. Creation is inherent in the qualities of God. He has no choice but to create. He is all goodness; therefore his creation is also full of that goodness. A good person essentially does good things. As God is the ultimate good, this world is also the best of all possible worlds.

4. Roger Bacon (1214-1294 AD): He was a student of Oxford University and later its professor. Despite being a Christian monk, he had scientific temper. He criticized the wrong religious practices and faiths of his day fearlessly. During the medieval times when religion played such a major role in life criticizing religious practices required lots of guts and conviction which he had in plenty. Aristotle lived some 1500 years before his time, yet Aristotle’s books were accepted and worshiped. Bacon said that if he had the power he would first burn all the books of Aristotle.

He said, however great a person may be, never accept anything said by him blindly. Firstly assess what is right and what is wrong by experiment and then decide. It is possible to make mechanical ships without oars; it is possible to make mechanical carts (cars). It is also possible to make artificial wings and tour the sky by sitting between them. Due to his scientific temper, he faced the wrath of religious men and had to undergo 14 years solitary confinement and died a year after his release.

5. St. Thomas Aquinas (1225 AD): He was born into an aristocratic family of Naples in Italy. Historians rate him as the most brilliant of the Christian philosophers from the medieval ages. He led an idealistic religious life and is loved by all. He commented on Aristotle. He believed that the world is created by God but it cannot be proved by rational thought. To reach God is the destination for man and for this only religious life is the way.

6. Martin Luther (1483-1546): Martin Luther raised a banner of revolt on the Pope. He started Protestantism which reformed Christianity in Europe. Not only are religious preachers questioned, even religious beliefs started being questioned.

Luther taught that salvation and subsequently eternity in heaven is not earned by good deeds but is received only as a free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin and subsequently eternity in Hell. His theology challenged the authority of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge from God and opposed Sacredotalism (which means that only priests can commune directly with Gods) by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy priesthood. Those who identify with these, and all of Luther's wider teachings, are called Lutherans even though Luther insisted on Christian as the only acceptable name for individuals who professed Christ.

7. Desidirius Erasmus (1466-1536 AD): The modern era started with the time of Martin Luther and many discoveries were made by scientists. Erasmus emphasized a middle way, with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, and rejected Luther's emphasis on faith alone. His philosophy is called Humanism.

Erasmus remained a member of the Catholic Church all his life due to his respect for traditional faith. Erasmus remained committed to reforming the Church and its clerics' abuses from within. He also held to Catholic doctrines such as that of free will, which some Reformers rejected in favor of the doctrine of predestination. His middle road approach disappointed and even angered scholars in both the camps.

8. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600 AD): He was born at Naples in Italy and imbibed the doctrines of Neo Platonism and Neo Aristotealinism. He started his life as a Christian monk and later resented both the Catholic and Protestant doctrines of Christianity.

He then accepted the Astronomical theories of Copernicus as his religion and became the founding father of modern atheism. He is best known for his cosmological theories, which went even further than the then-novel Copernican model: while supporting heliocentrism, Bruno correctly proposed that the Sun was just another star moving in space, and claimed as well that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited worlds, identified as planets orbiting other stars.

He was living in France, England, Germany and Switzerland as an exile but he received an invitation from his home country Italy and visited Venice. The Inquisition there sentenced him, imprisoned him for 7 years and then finally burnt him at stake. He has sacrificed his life without hesitation for an ideal he believed to be true and became famous in history.