Abstract
This paper is an invitation to theologians to take up Galileo’s Knife.1 Galileo taught scientists to take their experimental observations so seriously as to allow theories to be refuted by them.2 With this Knife, such operations were performed on the body of scientific knowledge as to give it completely new life. Dare theologians practise similar surgery? Or is the only permissible theological medicine a sort of hallucinatory drug3 and the only permissible reaction to the Knife one of vigorous self-defense?
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Rererences
See Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, trans, by S. Drake (Berkeley, 1962) — for instance, Salviati’s disproof from experience of Aristotle’s explanation of projectile motions (pp. 150–154) — and his Dialogues Concerning Two New Sciences, trans, by H. Crew (New York, 1914). I do not contend that Galileo invented the aim of eliminating error as far as possible: it was probably invented by Thaïes of Miletus. Neither do I contend that there were no modifications of theories in science before Galileo: the Ptolemaic system often was revised ad hoc to accommodate new experimental observations. I simply contend that the seriousness with which Galileo pursued this aim was new: sufficiently new for him to deserve my (modest) accolade.
Ian G. Barbour, Issues in Science and Religion (London, 1966).
J. Findlay, “Can God’s Existence be Disproved?,” in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. by A. Flew and A. McIntyre (London, 1963), pp. 46–67.
Charles Hartshorne, Anselm’s Discovery: A Re-examination of the Ontological Proof for God’s Existence (La Salle, Illinois, 1965).
J.L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” Mind 254 (1955), pp. 200–212
and a review of J. Hick’s Evil and the God of Love, in Philosophical Books, 7 (1996), pp. 15–17.
A.G.N. Flew, “Divine Omnipotence and Human Freedom,” in New Essays in Philosophical Theology, ed. by A. Flew and A. McIntyre (London, 1963), pp. 144–169.
Hartshorne, Anselm’s Discovery, pp. 29, 82. See also “The Logic of Panentheism” which is the Epilogue in Philosophers Speak of God, ed. by C. Hartshorne and W. Reese (Chicago, 1955), especially p. 513
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© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Settle, T.W. (1987). Galileo’s Knife. In: Agassi, J., Jarvie, I.C. (eds) Rationality: The Critical View. Nijhoff International Philosophy Series, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3491-7_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3491-7_12
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