By Dr. Gabriel Williams
When most people think of classical education, they think of the original seven liberal arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric (i.e., the trivium), arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy (i.e., the quadrivium). For this reason, many believe that classical education has an inherent bias toward the humanities and against the natural sciences. However, as I will argue, the natural sciences belong within the classical curriculum, and the proper study of the natural sciences can greatly benefit from using the pedagogical tools associated with classical education. At the end of this article, I will give a detailed example of how these concepts are properly integrated within a college-level astronomy course.
Understanding the Pre-Modern Christian Mind
To understand why the natural sciences belong within the classical curriculum, it is important to understand the worldview from which classical education arises. The concept of the university was the product of Christian thinking that matured throughout the High Middle Ages (i.e., from the 11th and 12th centuries). During this period, theology was viewed as the queen of the sciences with the discipline of philosophy, the love of wisdom, as her handmaiden. Thus, theology and philosophy were the foundations of human knowledge, and all other fields of study found their coherence within them.
In the classical Christian world, the universe is a great chain of being in which creation is organized in a hierarchy. This figure is a drawing of the Great Chain of Being from 1579 by the Franciscan missionary Diego Valades. There are five general parts of this hierarchy:
At the bottom, we have inanimate objects, such as rocks, stones, and minerals. These were at the bottom because they cannot move, sense, grow, or reproduce. Thus, they do not have souls in any sense.
Next, we have plant life or vegetation. Although plants lack sense organs and the ability to move, plant life reveals itself in acts of nutrition, growth, and reproduction. For this reason, we say that plants have a vegetative soul.
Next, we have animal life. Like plants, animals can grow and reproduce. However, animals also have senses, the ability to move, and physical appetites. For this reason, we say that animals have a sensitive soul.
Above this, we have humanity. Acts of rational cognition and rational appetite distinguished mankind from the creatures below him. Just as the act of thinking is different from the act of sensing, so the power of thinking is different from the power of sensing. Thus, man has a “reasonable soul” or “rational soul,” as WCF Ch. 4, Paragraph 2 indicates.
Next, we have angelic beings. As the Apostle Paul states, these beings are “everything invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers, or authorities” (cf. Colossians 1:16) and “principalities, powers, might, and dominions” (cf. Ephesians 1:21). Like mankind, angels have rational souls, but unlike mankind, they do not have corporeal bodies. As we see in the figure, there are some angels who dwell in the immediate presence of God such as seraphim and cherubim, while there are other angels who are sent as messengers to men.
At the top of the chain of being is God, “who is infinite in being and perfection, most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions, immutable, immense, eternal, incomprehensible, almighty, most wise, most holy, most free, most absolute” (WCF 2.1). Since He is at the top of this chain, He “works all things according to the counsel of His own immutable and most righteous will” (WCF 2.1).
Thus, in the pre-modern world, God is not just an explanation for topics that we don’t quite understand (i.e., God of the gaps). In contrast, He is the cause of all things, as the great chain extending from God to creation indicates. Regarding creation, all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being (cf. John 1:3). Since God is of Himself, He gives existence and essence to all things, which means that nothing can continue to exist apart from Him. Using the language of Aristotle,
He is the material cause of creation since there was no pre-existing material before Him. He made all things (such as matter, energy, time, and space) from His word.
He is the formal cause, since the pattern and form by which all things exist is from the mind of God.
He is the efficient cause since He is the agent through which creation exists. Indeed, since He is pure actuality with no potentiality, He is the only possible first cause — otherwise there is an infinite regress of causes, which is impossible.
He is the final cause since all things were made by Him and for Him (cf. Colossians 1:16).
The Sciences within the Pre-Modern Christian Mind
The concept of final causes is especially important because it is the most important to understanding the nature of reality. Hence, the need for a teleological explanation for the world provides the impetus for seeing theology and philosophy as central to other fields of study. One common picture to visualize this truth is to think of a solar system model in which all the various disciplines of study function as planets, and theology and philosophy function as the Sun. Without the Sun, each planet flies away from each other. Analogously, without theology and philosophy at the center, every other subject loses its integration, and they become atomized (which is a picture of the modern university).
However, theology and philosophy are more than anchors for the other disciplines. The task of a classical Christian college is to integrate faith and learning across multiple disciplines, and the image of the Great Chain of Being can illustrate how this is done.
Notice that each sphere of the hierarchy is connected to each other by this great chain, and the great chain flows downward. Thus, in this image, higher beings share features in common with lower beings, and yet the essential organizing principle flows downward. We can use this analogy to understand how the study of the natural sciences fits within this conceptual framework. For example, the careful study of the entities within the sphere of inanimate objects is directly connected to our modern perceptions of the physical sciences (such as chemistry, physics, and astronomy).
The examination of plant life, vegetative life, and animal life (i.e., beings with vegetative and sensitive souls) is naturally connected to our modern study of the biological sciences (such as biology, ecology, and botany).
Since plant life, vegetative life, and animal life are composed of materials that are in common with inanimate objects, this means the fields of chemistry and physics are necessary to understand biological life (which is evident to all who have studied biochemistry). However, since plant life, vegetative life, and animal life are animate beings, chemistry and physics cannot be sufficient for understanding this sphere. This is a key distinction between the biological sciences and the physical sciences.
A similar concept is in view when we examine humanity. When we ponder the nature of man (as David does in Psalm 8), we see man as a microcosm between heaven and earth since he uniquely shares spiritual attributes with God and the angels above them (i.e., such as reason) and physical attributes with animals below him (i.e., such as hunger, thirst, etc.). Since man relates to the creatures below him, the fields of chemistry, physics, and biology are necessary to understand him. This is why we can learn much about man by studying how man interacts with the physical world around him and by studying the physical composition of man. However, since the soul of man is immaterial, the tools of the natural sciences cannot provide full insight into his nature, and this explains why the natural sciences are insufficient to understand him. To truly understand man, we must study the soul of man, and this explains why the humanities, liberal arts, and psychology are distinct from the natural sciences. Furthermore, the hierarchy of being (which reflects the eternal law) provides humans with a natural order so that mankind can “participate in the eternal law,” as Thomas Aquinas notes. This participation, or natural law, informs how mankind lives within society, and thus, we see how sociology, economics, political theory, and other fields of study that involve human agency naturally develop.
In summary, we see that investigating the world around us is integral to what it means to be truly human. This is an important point to emphasize. Our conception of mankind as body and soul implies that it is foolish to believe that we can fully understand man only by studying the natural sciences. This is why the liberal arts and humanities will always remain relevant. However, it is also foolish to believe we can fully understand man by ignoring or neglecting the natural sciences. Because mankind is body and soul, the study of the natural sciences beautifully complements the liberal arts.
Modern Sciences and the Rejection of the Classical Mind
This is the picture of the world that developed from Christian thinking of a previous era, and it is not surprising that this view of the world led to the flourishing of the natural sciences in the Christian West. However, we know that this is NOT the world in which we currently live. The popular story is that the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment refuted this view of the cosmos.
First, Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler refuted the standing model of the universe from Ptolemy, and their discoveries led to a heliocentric view of the solar system. These discoveries removed Earth from the center of the universe, and as the popular story goes, Earth is now an insignificant tiny speck of the universe (think of Carl Sagan’s statement that “we are all stardust”).
Second, Darwin’s theory of evolution refuted the medieval understanding of man as the crown of creation. Rather than man being made in the image of God (and is therefore higher than the animals), man is essentially no different than any animal below him since we all have a common ancestor dating back to the so-called “primordial slime”. This is one reason why the soul of man has been rendered as a mere relic of an antiquated era, and the study of the soul has been largely replaced by the study of the brain (i.e., neuroscience). This view of man was buttressed by the work of Freud and others, which attempted to show that man is not a rational animal (as Aristotle has claimed). Rather, mankind is full of unconscious thoughts and passions that cannot be fully understood.
The combination of these ideas led to the final death knell to the classical world–namely the rejection of final causes in the world. We no longer live within a cosmos (in the proper sense); we live in a vacuum. Richard Dawkins’s well-known statement captures this sentiment:
The universe we observe has precisely the properties we would expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
There have been many historians of science who have shown that the popular story described above is a significant distortion of the actual science and actual history since the Scientific Revolution rose as a by-product of Christian thinking. However, the popular story persists today in many ways, such as the view that science and faith conflict with one another (largely promoted by the New Atheists movement). A milder form of this view is that science and faith are incompatible with or wholly independent of one another. In this view, science and religion are “based on different aspects of human experience” and “address aspects of human understanding in different ways.”
For these reasons, our modern view of the relationship between the natural sciences, philosophy, and theology has been overturned. The figure below gives an overview of how many today understand the role of the natural sciences in relation to the other fields of knowledge. In this figure, there is a clear hierarchy where mathematics and logic form the basis of the natural sciences. Physics develops first because it is the most general of all natural sciences. From there, chemistry, biology, and sociology develop. Each science depends upon prior developments of its predecessors (i.e., our understanding of chemistry depends upon our understanding of physics), and as one moves up the hierarchy, there is increasing complexity and decreasing generality.
However, since the modern scientific approach rejects the existence of final causes, there is no top-down organizing principle. Rather, the hierarchy flows upwards, which means that the organizing principle starts from the bottom. In other words, for the modern mind, the explanation for reality must arise from our understanding of the natural sciences.[1]
Instead of the Great Chain of Being, which provides a foundation for the interconnectedness of human knowledge, we now have the Great Matrix of Being. William Grassie from the Metanexus Institute describes this in the following way:
Everything that exists in the universe, every process that science has discovered, every power of nature that humanity has harnessed, all that constitutes our human bodies and brains, our histories and cultures — all this and more — can be located within a number of natural hierarchies. These hierarchies define the Great Matrix of Being, and are measured in chronology, size, energy flows, electromagnetic radiation, and thresholds of emergent complexity.
Notice that in the modern description of our universe, theology and metaphysics are nowhere to be seen. This makes sense because in the modern mind, there is no one at the top of the cosmos that brings order and coherence. Rather than the Great Chain of Being which flows downward, our modern understanding is that order and coherence flow upwards. In many ways, theologians and philosophers are derided because they are engaged in endless, irrelevant, solipsistic debates. For modern man, if theology and philosophy are to be “useful,” it needs to embrace the modern view. This means that it must embrace the modern scientific view of history (i.e., the narrative account of the 13.7 billion-year history of our universe, the 4.5 billion-year evolution of our planet, the 6 million-year rise of our species, and the 10,000-year accelerating drama of human civilization) as the primary source of revelation, and it needs to embrace the Great Matrix of Being as foundational knowledge.
Critiquing the Modern Scientific Mind
This is the state of modern science, and it is understandable that there are many who believe that classical education is inconsistent with the natural sciences. However, as I’ve argued already, the study of the natural sciences does not necessarily lead to philosophical conclusions of modern scientists. Rather, it is our conviction that this is where the strength of Christian classical education can directly address the deficiencies in the modern approach. The principal critique of the modern approach is that it is incomplete. Christopher Blum at the Augustine Institute describes the positive features of modern science as follows:
… modern science looks upward with wonder and awe, and with a thoughtful puzzlement, ponders the seemingly inexhaustible order and intelligibility of the cosmos, day by day unfolded in laboratory, classroom, field station, and observatory.
Notice that the motivation for scientific research must assume the coherence of the cosmos, which must ultimately point to a cause beyond itself. Furthermore, the intelligibility of the cosmos by mankind points to the essential dignity of the human person. The “inexhaustible order and intelligibility of the cosmos” provides the basis for scientific realism.[2] Although scientific realism is currently debated among philosophers, any form of scientific realism requires some form of philosophical realism, which is an integral part of classical theism. In other words, what we believe about God cannot be divorced from what we understand about His works.
However, since the modern approach rejects final causes, a self-contradiction develops. Christopher Blum sees this as the tragic face of modern science.
This is the face that rejects the search for the first cause, insists that science attends only to what its instruments reveal—but not as a wise and humble matter of practice, rather as a dogmatic injunction—for it holds to be real only those things revealed by its instruments. This is the science that refutes itself by suggesting that all things in nature and human affairs are determined by material causes alone, that these causes themselves are radically unintelligible because they work only by probabilities and chances, and—though it does not trumpet the embarrassing claim loudly, it must ultimately admit what its principles declare—that man is not really a knower. (The Place of the Natural Sciences within the Classical Curriculum
With this background, we can now examine how the natural sciences fit within the classical curriculum. First, it should be noted that the natural sciences often constitute an application of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, which are part of the quadrivium. Let’s take some examples:
Nature itself is a rich source of geometric patterns. Consider the hexagonal patterns of honeycombs; spirals in seashells, pinecones, cyclonic storms, and spiral galaxies; fractals (which are geometric shapes with detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales) in ferns; and radial symmetry in flowers. The importance of this can be understood by examining an analogous idea regarding eternal law and natural law. Eternal law refers to the whole plan of creation in which God creates the whole cosmos and every being within it – in its right place, ordered to its proper goal. In a certain sense, this eternal law exists not only in God’s mind, but it is also “imprinted” in creation. Analogously, the geometric patterns that we see in nature reflect this ordering principle “imprinted” upon creation itself.
The above discussion becomes even more apparent when we examine analytic geometry which can be thought of as the study of geometry using a coordinate system. Analytic geometry is commonly used when studying the motion of physical systems, which is why it is used extensively in physics and engineering. For example, analytic geometry is used in physics and astronomy to study the motion of objects and understand the behavior of celestial objects. It was the work of geometers who saw that the path traced by a projectile followed a parabola and that the motion of planets around the Sun is an ellipse. Extensions of analytical geometry to non-Euclidean geometry play a central role in the formulation of special and general relativity.
Finally, we see the use of geometry in chemistry in the field of molecular geometry in which chemists infer the three-dimensional arrangement of the atoms that constitute a molecule.
Therefore, one method of integrating the natural sciences into the classical curriculum is to teach them as extensions and/or applications of the quadrivium. Just as astronomy is taught as a mathematical art with applications to the motion of heavenly bodies, the natural sciences can also be taught as applications and extensions of the mathematical arts.
Second, an important principle of classical education is that all learning is integrative, and this should also apply to the natural sciences. It is important to remove the artificial compartmentalization of the natural sciences from the other areas of human knowledge. It is well known that the story of Western Civilization cannot be fully told without an understanding and appreciation for the natural sciences. Conversely, we cannot understand the development of numerous scientific theories unless we understand the philosophical and historical settings in which these theories developed. Therefore, the study of the natural sciences should be naturally integrated into the study of other disciplines. However, I must emphasize that all subjects are not equal in priority. Theology is still the queen of the sciences, and philosophy is still her handmaiden.
Third, the proper study of the sciences shares pedagogical principles that classical education already employed in the teaching of the other liberal arts. One important and practical pedagogical tool is mastery learning, which requires emphasizing the essential elements of a topic and eliminating tangential topics. This approach requires continuous review of previous topics, ongoing accountability for retention of previously studied material, and embedding of basic skills into new material. This approach should be contrasted with the pedagogical approach of much of modern American education, which can be called the Cram-Pass-Forget cycle. In this cycle, students cram for their tests, pass their exams, and then forget most of what they learned. Within the standard college environment, this means that students typically complete useless daily assignments, procrastinate with course content until the last moment, and then jump through various hoops to get a good grade. This cycle explains why science education within the United States is mediocre at best, and it explains why many students require remedial math and/or science courses before they can begin college-level courses. In contrast, a curriculum that focuses upon mastery will be reduced in scope, which enables students to learn a reasonable amount of material more deeply instead of paying hurried attention to dozens of topics that they can neither process nor adequately assimilate.
Astronomy at New Aberdeen
To conclude this talk, let’s apply many of the concepts discussed by examining how an introductory astronomy course would be taught within the classical approach. We can divide this course into four units: (1) Observing the sky, (2) Understanding the geocentric worldview, (3) Understanding the heliocentric worldview, and (4) Understanding modern cosmology.
The goal of the first unit is to familiarize oneself with the motion of the Sun, the Moon, the stars, and the planets as seen from Earth. Thus, students will learn how to identify the astronomical significance of key dates marking the seasons (i.e., vernal equinox, summer solstice, etc.); to calculate the altitude of the sun at its zenith on key dates; to identify constellations and predict the motion of the Sun through the zodiac; to predict the position of the moon within the zodiac based on its phase and the position of the sun; to learn how astronomical instruments are used to measure the locations and sizes of celestial bodies; and to describe the four visible planets. This unit constitutes the observational portion of the course, and the chief goal is to grasp how the sky appears to us.
The goal of the second unit is to explore the geocentric model of the universe. We begin by studying Aristotle’s book On the Heavens, where he defends geocentrism. From here, we look at Ptolemy’s Almagest and Bede’s The Reckoning of Time. The chief goal is for students to understand why the geocentric model was the prevailing model up to the 17th century and to deduce the implications of a geocentric universe. This will also require an extensive review of Unit #1 so that students can compare the predictions of the geocentric model to our observations of planetary motion.
The goal of the third unit is to explore the heliocentric model of the universe. In this section, we will read selections from Galileo’s Starry Messenger, Kepler’s Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, and Newton’s Principia. The chief goal is for students to understand why geocentrism was eventually rejected and to deduce the scientific and philosophical implications of a heliocentric universe. This requires a review of Unit #1 and #2 so that students can contrast the heliocentric model with the geocentric model.
The goal of the fourth unit is to provide an overview of twentieth-century cosmology. We begin by reading sections from The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Science from E. A. Burtt to see how the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton led to the strengths and weaknesses of the modern scientific thought. From here, students would read selections on the works of Slipher on nebulae, Shapley on galaxies (including the Great Debate between Harlow Shapley and Heber Curtis), Hubble on the size and motion of the cosmos, and Lemaitre on the birth of modern cosmology.
Notice that a general course outline involves the study of the primary sources (rather than a standard textbook). This means that students will also get a sense of how the historical, cultural, religious, and philosophical setting influences the formation and reception of various scientific theories. Since each student will be studying the primary sources, the tools for assessment within classical education (such as recitations, oral exams, etc.) can be directly used to push students towards mastery rather than cramming.
To conclude, it is a privilege given to mankind to use the faculty of reason to understand the world around him. Consider the words of Psalm 8:3-8.
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than heavenly beings,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!
You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,
All sheep and oxen,
And also the beasts of the field,
The birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea,
Whatever passes through the paths of the seas.
Because we have been endowed with reason, it is part of our great privilege to study the works of God, and it is our conviction that nature’s beautiful order was created for us to understand, to delight in, and to give thanks for. Christians believe that our universe is a cosmos because it is ordered by our Creator. Therefore, it is our responsibility to study nature attentively, patiently, and carefully. This is why the study of the natural sciences belong within classical education, and the tools that are necessary to study nature are found in the time-tested pedagogical tools of classical education.
[1] One important application of this is that the social sciences are commonly viewed as a direct application of the natural sciences (i.e. sociology and psychology are ultimately based upon biological realities). Thus, it should not be surprising that the methods of the modern natural sciences are often used within the social sciences.
[2] In its simplest form, scientific realism asserts that: (1) well-confirmed scientific theories are, at least, approximately true; (2) the entities they postulate (such as atoms, quarks, etc.) do exist; and (3) we have good reason to believe their main tenets.