The American Crisis: Defined
Journal Entry #16
Much is spoken today about the power of science, and rightly. It is awesome. But little is said about the inherent limitations of science, and both sides of the coin need equal scrutiny. –Vannevar Bush

One of the severest tests of a scientific mind is to discern the limits of the legitimate application of scientific methods. –James Clerk Maxwell
-Both quotes are from The Relevance of Physics; Stanley L. Jaki (Benedictine monk; Ph D, Physics; Visiting member of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study); University of Chicago Press; 1966. Preface.

It is a curious and revealing misperception of our modern age that a secularized intellectual climate was essential for modern science to emerge and flourish. To provide for this climate, it was necessary for the humanism of the Renaissance (the rebirth) to prepare the way for the Scientific Revolution and the European Enlightenment, which would give rise to the subsequent Industrial Revolution; all of which was accomplished despite the oppressive intellectual orthodoxy the medieval Church struggled to maintain.

Accordingly, naturalistic theories of physical phenomena came to supplant Aristotle’s Physics and supernatural explanations of the universe and its processes. The implication being that Christianity is not only incompatible with the free use of reason and the naturalistic observations of science, but an actual impediment to these. Ultimately, modern science has come to represent an unprejudiced, objective, positive and certain endeavor.

Of course, the historical record presents a vastly different picture. Nearly fifty years after Rome was sacked (476 A.D.) by Visigoth and Hun barbarians and almost a century before the appearance of Islam (622 A.D.), the Order of Benedict built its monastery- one of many throughout Western Europe- on Monte Cassino in 529 A.D., near the road from Naples to Rome.

In addition to their reputation for piety, the Benedictines were known for their encouragement of learning and their fidelity to the preservation of the sum of Western literature and knowledge. Most, if not all, of the books circulated in Western Europe before Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing process and technology in the mid-fifteenth century (1450 A.D.), were skillfully produced by Benedictine monks.

Of equal importance were the numerous original Greek New Testament manuscripts that were faithfully, painstakingly preserved, copied and translated by the Benedictines in their humble monasteries. Such dedication to the preservation and dissemination of Western knowledge would prove crucial to the rise in the West of the University (originally a uniquely Western institution), and scientific, social, intellectual and political FREEDOM, as we shall soon see…