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Ancient Greek philosophers were the first to postulate the possibility of explaining nature in theoretical terms and to initiate attempts at this. With the rise of monotheistic religions of revelation claiming supremacy over human reason and envisaging a new world to come, studies of the natural order of the transient world were widely considered undesirable. Later, in the Middle Ages, the desire for human understanding of nature in terms of reason was revived. This article is concerned with the fundamental reversal of attitudes, from “undesirable” to “desirable”, that eventually led into the foundations of modern science. One of the earliest, most ingenious and most interesting personalities involved was Eriugena, a theologian at the Court of Charles the Bald in the 9th century. Though understanding what we call nature is only one of the several aspects of his theological work, his line of thought implies a turn into a pro-scientific direction: the natural order is to be understood in abstract terms of ‘primordial causes’; understanding nature is considered to be the will of God; man encompasses the whole of creation in a physical as well as a mental sense. Basically similar ideas on the reconciliation of scientific rationality and monotheistic religions of revelation were conceived, independently and nearly simultaneously, by the Arab philosopher al-Kindi in Bagdad. Eriugena was more outspoken in his claim that reason is superior to authority. This claim is implicit in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa with his emphasis on human mental creativity as the image of God’s creativity; and it is the keynote of Galileo’s ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’ some 800 years later, the manifesto expressing basic attitudes of modern science. This article in English is based on the monography (in German): A. Gierer “Eriugena, al-Kindi, Nikolaus von Kues - Protagonisten einer wissenschaftsfreundlichen Wende im philosophischen und theologischen Denken”, Acta Historica Leopoldina 29 (1999), Barth Verlag in MVH Verlage Heidelberg, ISBN: 3-335-00652-6
The development of modern science has depended strongly on specific features of the cultures involved; however, its results are widely and transculturally accepted and applied. The science and technology of electricity, for example, emerged as a specific product of post-Renaissance Europe, rooted in the Greek philosophical tradition that encourages explanations of nature in theoretical terms. It did not evolve in China presumably because such encouragement was missing. The transcultural acceptance of modern science and technology is postulated to be due, in part, to the common biological dispositions underlying human cognition, with generalizable capabilities of abstract, symbolic and strategic thought. These faculties of the human mind are main prerequisites for dynamic cultural development and differentiation. They appear to have evolved up to a stage of hunters and gatherers perhaps some 100 000 years ago. However, the extent of the correspondence between some constructions of the human mind and the order of nature, as revealed by science, is a late insight of the last two centuries. Unless we subscribe to extreme forms of constructivism or historical relativism, we may take the success and the formal structure of science as indications of a close, intrinsic relation between the physical and the mental, between the order of nature and the structure of human cognition. At the metatheoretical level, however, modern science is consistent with philosophical and cultural diversity.
Die moderne Naturwissenschaft hat auch ihre prinzipiellen, intrinsischen Grenzen zum Thema gemacht; auf der „metatheoretischen“, nämlich der philosophischen und kulturellen Ebene erweist sie sich als offen für verschiedene, wissenschaftlich und logisch konsistente Deutungen – sowohl religiöse als auch agnostische. Die Wahl ist nicht nur eine Frage des Wissens, sondern der Weisheit und der Lebenskunst, und die wiederum spricht für anthropologischen und metaphysischen Optimismus. Diese Zusammenfassung des letzten der hier wiedergegeben Texte kann auch über der ganzen Reihe stehen. Die Arbeiten entstanden von 1985 bis 2014, und sie betreffen und betonen recht verschiedene Aspekte, wenn sich auch eine gewisse Redundanz nicht vermeiden lässt. Es geht um ein religionsfreundliches Selbst- und Weltverständnis, das die Reichweite der menschlichen Vernunft ebenso wie deren intrinsische Grenzen achtet.