Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary
Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary
tells about itself, the story that shapes the way every individual reason and conscience works (Newbigin, 1996:74). Periodic, critical, self-examination is beneficial for people and institutions of all ages. Yet, even with this need, criticism is seldom welcome, and change is often fiercely resisted. As Newbigin asserts, modernity’s protest against Christendom’s overzealous oppression of human freedoms was legitimate at the time (Newbigin, 1996:64). Those brave souls who dare to challenge the powers of their day -- in any age -- sometimes meet staunch resistance, even sometimes paying with their lives. Some of the cultural and ideological battles waged during the modern period remain pertinent in our day. Consider, for example, the ongoing controversy surrounding one of the greatest scientists ever, a story that so exemplifies the often-tense relationship between modernity, or science, and Christianity. The great Christian Scientist, Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 - 8 January 1642), was a man with revolutionary ideas. His differences with the conventional thinkers of his time and with the Roman Catholic Church are most interesting, and relevant yet today. The drama was not a battle between science and religion -- as has been and still is so often reported -- but rather a difference of opinions concerning Copernican and Aristotelian (or Ptolemaic) based science, and Scriptural supports of these constructs. To be sure, popularized accounts of the controversy are frequently full of historical inaccuracies and bias. The story centres on Aristotle’s belief that the cosmos was finite and spherical, with the earth at its centre -- a very understandable assumption for people without telescopes. This geocentric theory was endorsed by Aristotle and given mathematical plausibility by Ptolemy. It remained the prevailing model until Nicholas Copernicus, the churchman who first advanced the heliocentric concept. Common to the culture of Medieval Europe, the sciences were passed through the filter of Scripture to see if they accorded with the Bible. Such was the case here, as passages like Psalm 93:1d and 104:5 were cited to biblically affirm the Aristotelian notion of a geocentric cosmos. One of the reasons the Roman Church battled ‘heresies’ so vigorously, was because animistic beliefs and practices (i.e., Paganism) were still rampant across Europe. Historian Durant says: 22 University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Occultism flourished among the Britons under Elizabeth and the early Stuarts. In 1597 King James VI published an authoritative Demonologie, which is one of the horrors of literature. He ascribed to witches the power to haunt houses, to make men and women love or hate, to transfer disease from one person to another, to kill by roasting a wax effigy, and to raise devastating storms; and he advocated the death penalty for all witches and magicians, and even for their customers. When a tempest nearly wrecked him on his return from Denmark with his bride, he caused four suspects to be tortured into confessing that they had plotted to destroy him by magic means; and one of them, John Fain, after the most barbarous torments, was burned to death (1590)….. In this matter the Kirk agreed with the King, and lay magistrates lenient to witches were threatened with excommunication. Between 1560 and 1600 some eight thousand women were burned as witches in a Scotland having hardly a million souls (Durant, 1961:162). The great variety of animistic practices were never fully vanquished from the continent as is so often claimed, a critical truth that still concerns us today, and is more fully developed later. Even the fierceness of the Inquisition could not remove these pre- Christian beliefs and practices. Christianized culture -- or Christendom -- became a cultural veneer that merely drove animistic beliefs below the surface, as it were. Will Durant -- not always kind to Christianity -- comments: Religions are born and may die, but superstition is immortal. Only the fortunate can take life without mythology. Most of us suffer in body and soul, and nature’s subtlest anodyne is a dose of the supernatural. Even Kepler and Newton mingled their science with mythology: Kepler believed in witchcraft, and Newton wrote less on science than on the Apocalypse (Durant, 1961:575). The historical record discloses that Copernicus advanced the heliocentric theory first, but did not have Galileo’s boldness, fearing as much the mockery of fellow academics as 23 University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
- Page 1 and 2: 1 POSTMODERNITY: IMPACT AND IMPLICA
- Page 3 and 4: 3 Key Terms Postmodern, postmoderni
- Page 5 and 6: 5 An Apologetic Response 115 Compro
- Page 7 and 8: killed massively in the name of goo
- Page 9 and 10: 9 together in an eclectic, rather d
- Page 11 and 12: 11 Postmodernity: Impact and Implic
- Page 13 and 14: 13 heights” (Veith, 1994:30). For
- Page 15 and 16: 15 autonomy proper to human reason
- Page 17 and 18: inviolability and Divine origin, th
- Page 19 and 20: diminished” (Bosch, 2000:6). The
- Page 21: ‘god’ to keep and to save him.
- Page 25 and 26: He was a passionate, powerful chara
- Page 27 and 28: 27 record reveals that the church o
- Page 29 and 30: 29 eliminating poverty, hunger and
- Page 31 and 32: may simply transform the nature and
- Page 33 and 34: Contrary to Christian notions that
- Page 35 and 36: 35 ‘modernize’ the nation. To b
- Page 37 and 38: 37 expression. This “first respon
- Page 39 and 40: 39 of his own awareness of God” (
- Page 41 and 42: 41 Existentialism understandably em
- Page 43 and 44: depends upon our decision makes our
- Page 45 and 46: group Socialisme et Liberte. During
- Page 47 and 48: 47 The Mind of Sartre Sartre’s vi
- Page 49 and 50: ethical absolutes (Craig, 1994:67).
- Page 51 and 52: 51 Chapter II Postmodernity: The Es
- Page 53 and 54: 53 Postmoderns promote individualis
- Page 55 and 56: meaning and language. The postmoder
- Page 57 and 58: pointed out that science, far from
- Page 59 and 60: 59 Ferdinand de Saussure at the tur
- Page 61 and 62: considers the Greek logos (i.e., λ
- Page 63 and 64: 63 models and then try not to subve
- Page 65 and 66: marginalized and to the historical
- Page 67 and 68: without essential foundations (Khan
- Page 69 and 70: maximum voluntary community agreeme
- Page 71 and 72: 71 something akin to the virtual re
tells about itself, the story that shapes the way<br />
every individual reason and conscience works<br />
(Newbigin, 1996:74).<br />
Periodic, critical, self-examination is beneficial for people and institutions of all ages.<br />
Yet, even with this need, criticism is seldom welcome, and change is often fiercely<br />
resisted. As Newbigin asserts, modernity’s protest against Christendom’s overzealous<br />
oppression of human freedoms was legitimate at the time (Newbigin, 1996:64). Those<br />
brave souls who dare to challenge the powers of their day -- in any age -- sometimes meet<br />
staunch resistance, even sometimes paying with their lives. Some of the cultural and<br />
ideological battles waged during the modern period remain pertinent in our day.<br />
Consider, for example, the ongoing controversy surrounding one of the greatest scientists<br />
ever, a story that so exemplifies the often-tense relationship between modernity, or<br />
science, and Christianity.<br />
The great Christian Scientist, Galileo Galilei (15 February 1564 - 8 January 1642), was<br />
a man with revolutionary ideas. His differences with the conventional thinkers of his<br />
time and with the Roman Catholic Church are most interesting, and relevant yet today.<br />
The drama was not a battle between science and religion -- as has been and still is so<br />
often reported -- but rather a difference of opinions concerning Copernican and<br />
Aristotelian (or Ptolemaic) based science, and Scriptural supports of these constructs. To<br />
be sure, popularized accounts of the controversy are frequently full of historical<br />
inaccuracies and bias.<br />
The story centres on Aristotle’s belief that the cosmos was finite and spherical, with<br />
the earth at its centre -- a very understandable assumption for people without telescopes.<br />
This geocentric theory was endorsed by Aristotle and given mathematical plausibility by<br />
Ptolemy. It remained the prevailing model until Nicholas Copernicus, the churchman<br />
who first advanced the heliocentric concept. Common to the culture of Medieval Europe,<br />
the sciences were passed through the filter of Scripture to see if they accorded with the<br />
Bible. Such was the case here, as passages like Psalm 93:1d and 104:5 were cited to<br />
biblically affirm the Aristotelian notion of a geocentric cosmos. One of the reasons the<br />
Roman Church battled ‘heresies’ so vigorously, was because animistic beliefs and<br />
practices (i.e., Paganism) were still rampant across Europe. Historian Durant says:<br />
22<br />
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, <strong>South</strong> Africa
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