You're leaving out the pre-historic part. Among primitive peoples,
explanations are mixtures of supernatural agency, empirical knowledge,
and magic. Magic and empiricism gave rise to alchemy and attempts to
control supernatural agents thru spells and incantations; which led
eventually to astronomy and science. I don't identify science only with
mathematical reasoning. The guy who learned to fletch arrows to make
them fly true was doing science. So was they guy who found his crops
grew better if he added manure. So was the guy who learned the stars
could predict how long until springtime.
Supernatural agency plus magic gave rise to shamans and priests and
religion. It gave comfort and control (c.f. The Grand Inquisitor). It's
telling that among the most primitive people the agents are natural
phenomenon, like storms and volcanoes, or powerful animals, like bears
and lions. But as humans became dominant the agents became super men
and women.
So I don't think of theology as pre-dating science. I just think
science and magic and religion were a single kind of thing which
eventually separated into the threads we identify today.
Brent
On 5/4/2020 3:52 PM, Lawrence Crowell wrote:
Theology has nothing to do with science. There are what might be
called pre-scientific thinking as a branch of philosophy. Science
though came about from the ideas of Roger Bacon and were applied and
firmed up by Galileo. Theology predates that by centuries. I would say
Christian theology came about with Augustine in the early 5th century.
It is reasonable to say that science emerged from philosophy combined
with the practical arts such as metallurgy, glass making, tool making
and so forth. There were some pre-scientists, Greeks such as a
Democritus and medieval scholars such as Oresme and Grosseteste did
some attempts at science, but they did not have the discipline with
empiricism quite right. This was emerging as a branch of philosophy.
Theology predated medieval pre-science by centuries.
LC
On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 4:00:54 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote:
On 5/4/2020 4:12 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote:
> I might disagree. Especially if you keep in mind that theology
ws born
> as a science, before becoming an institionised oppression
system, when
> separated from science for that purpose.
Yes, it was born as explanation for natural phenomena in terms of
human
emotions, because human emotion was directly experienced and
seemed to
need no explanation. So when a storm was explained as the sky became
angry that seemed easy to believe and one had only to discern why the
sky was angry. The priest or chief or your mother explained it was
because you didn't sacrifice a goat to him, or you disobeyed a
rule, or
you didn't eat your spinach. But there were many phenomena.
Monotheism
simplified the system and provided one-stop shopping...as soon as
a few
wars and inquisitions settled which one God was the really real one.
Brent
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