The Victory of Reason
A few years ago, I introduced you to a book by Vishal Mangalwadi, titled The Book that Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilization. He is the one who introduced me to sociologist Dr. Rodney Stark and his writings. Six years before Mangalwadi wrote his book, Stark wrote one titled The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success.
Alchemy was an old “science” which believed it was possible to turn base metals into gold. Many civilizations practiced alchemy. But it only turned into the more scientific study of chemistry in Europe. Why? Europe, for years, also had an almost exclusive handle on the use of chimneys, glasses, clocks, and musical notations. Why?
Why did capitalism rise in Europe? Although, as Stark shows, capitalism existed long before 1776, why was The Wealth of Nations explicated by a Scotchman? Stark explores the answers to these questions and more in this study, The Victory of Reason.
His studied answer is: Christianity. “Christianity alone [of all world religions, p.h.] embraced reason and logic as the primary guide to religious truth” (x). He goes on to write: “But from early days, the church fathers taught that reason was the supreme gift from God and the means to progressively increase their understanding of scripture and revelation. Consequently, Christianity was oriented to the future, while the other major religions asserted the superiority of the past” (emph. in orig.).
The material substances for progress and great civilizations existed in various other countries, in various other continents, among various other religions around the world – China, Islam, India, Byzantium, Rome, and Greece. Stark argues that Europe’s (and subsequently, America’s) premier advance in civilization is due to the “Christian commitment to rational theology” (xiii).
Taste of gokshura is sweet and its action is cool. tadalafil online india Silagra and other forms of generic sildenafil are giving branded viagra pills price a run for its money. vardenafil pharmacy This depressive state in males may probably be due to an outdated or corrupted driver. They understand how awkward it can be for males that suffer from erectile dysfunction and strive to make it as straightforward as possible cialis overnight.
This emphasis on rational thinking and logic is, indeed, quite biblical. The word “grow” is found 19 times in the New Testament (ESV). “Know” or a variant, 436 times. “Mind,” 83 times. The Bible was written to our minds and God calls on us to use our minds, to love Him with all of our mind (Matt. 22:37). There is nothing God calls on us to believe that is irrational. Nor is there anything God calls on us to believe blindly or through some leap in the dark type of faith. The virgin birth is not irrational. We believe it, regardless of its singularity, based on the existence and nature of God and the existence and nature of the Bible which reveals it. It is neither a blind faith nor an unsupported faith.
The very last paragraph of Stark’s book is a quotation from a Chinese scholar from a book titled, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (2003) by David Aikman. This Chinese scholar said:
“One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world. We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West is so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this” (pg 235; pg. 5 in orig.).
Three final thoughts. Rather than “exporting” democracy – or making the world “safe for democracy” – how about we export Christianity? Rather than turning our economy into one like China’s (centralized, command and control), how about we turn China’s into a Christian culture? Finally, once again, neither the Democratic Party nor the Republican Party is going to save America if we quit preaching the Gospel.
–Paul Holland
