The 300-year history of the relationship between science and Christianity is often described as a "series of strategic retreats." As empirical methodology moved from the margins of society to the center of human knowledge, the Church was forced to transition from being the absolute arbiter of physical truth to a guardian of subjective moral meaning. This shift represents one of the most significant intellectual migrations in human history.
Below is an expansive analysis of the concessions made by Christianity across various scientific disciplines, organized by the specific "wars" of ideas that triggered them.
1. The Cosmological Concession: Losing the Center of the Universe
For over 1,500 years, the Church operated under the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic model, which placed the Earth at the center of a fixed, hierarchical universe. This was supported by a literal reading of scriptures like Psalm 93:1, "the world is established; it shall never be moved."
The Conflict: The 18th century saw the full acceptance of the Heliocentric model (Copernicus and Galileo) despite the 1633 condemnation of Galileo. However, the real concession came later with the discovery of the Stellar Parallax in 1838, which proved the Earth’s motion beyond doubt.
The Concession: The Church had to concede that the Bible does not describe the physical structure of the universe. They adopted the "Principle of Accommodation," suggesting that God spoke in the language of the "common man" of the time.
Expert Quote: “The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes.” — Cardinal Baronius (frequently quoted by Galileo).
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2. The Geological Concession: The Death of the Young Earth
In the mid-1600s, Bishop James Ussher calculated the date of creation to be 4004 BCE based on biblical genealogies.
The Conflict: The rise of Uniformitarianism in geology, led by James Hutton and Charles Lyell, suggested that the Earth’s features were formed by slow processes over millions of years, not a sudden 6-day creation or a global flood.
3 The Concession: This led to the creation of "Gap Theory" (suggesting a long period of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2) and the "Day-Age Theory" (interpreting the word Yom as an eon rather than 24 hours). By the late 1800s, almost all mainstream Christian denominations had abandoned the 6,000-year timeline.
Source: Principles of Geology (1830) by Charles Lyell, which effectively "freed the science from Moses."
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3. The Biological Concession: The Origin of Species
This remains the most profound and traumatic concession in Christian history. Before 1859, the "Argument from Design" (pioneered by William Paley) suggested that the complexity of the eye or the hand proved a Divine Designer.
The Conflict: Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) provided a purely material mechanism for complexity: Natural Selection.
The Concession: The Church was forced to abandon the concept of "Special Creation"—the idea that every animal was created in its current form. Today, the majority of denominations (including the Roman Catholic Church) accept Theistic Evolution, conceding that humans emerged from a long line of ancestral primates.
Expert Quote: “New knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis.” — Pope John Paul II (1996 Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences).
4. The Archeological and Historical Concession: The Documented Torah
For millennia, it was dogma that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible.
The Conflict: The 19th-century Historical-Critical Method, specifically the Documentary Hypothesis by Julius Wellhausen, showed that the Torah was a composite of four different sources (J, E, D, P) written centuries after Moses lived.
The Concession: Mainstream biblical scholarship had to concede that the Bible is a human library with internal contradictions, political agendas, and historical inaccuracies. This shifted the focus from the Bible as an "Inerrant History" to the Bible as a "Spiritual Narrative."
5. The Medical Concession: From Demons to Germs
In the 18th century, illness was frequently attributed to sin, divine judgment, or demonic influence.
The Conflict: The Germ Theory of Disease (Pasteur and Koch) and the discovery of the double helix (Crick and Watson) provided biological causes for all physical ailments.
The Concession: Intercessory prayer was moved from the "primary treatment" to a "supplemental comfort." The Church conceded that the physical body operates on biological laws that function regardless of a person’s spiritual standing.
Source: A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom by Andrew Dickson White.
6. The Psychological Concession: The Material Soul
The Bible teaches a dualistic view—a body and a soul.
The Conflict: Modern Neuroscience has shown that memory, personality, and even "spiritual experiences" are localized to specific brain regions. Drugs and brain injuries can fundamentally change a person’s moral character.
The Concession: The "Soul" has been pushed into an untestable metaphysical space. The Church has largely conceded that human behavior and morality are deeply tied to neurobiology, reducing the scope of "sin" to things within a person's biological control.
Summary of Concessions
| Field | Previous Biblical Position | Current Scientific Position | Theological Result |
| Physics | Earth is stationary | Earth moves at 67,000 mph | Scripture is "poetic" |
| Biology | Immediate creation of man | Common ancestry with apes | Adam is an "Archetype" |
| Medicine | Epilepsy is demon possession | Electrical brain storm | Exorcism replaced by Neurology |
| History | Worldwide Noahic Flood | Localized floods / Myth | Flood is "symbolic" of judgment |
Conclusion: The "God of the Gaps" Problem
As the noted philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn pointed out, once a paradigm shifts, you cannot go back. Christianity has survived by moving its claims into the "Gaps" of knowledge. However, as science continues to explain the origin of the universe (Big Bang) and the origin of morality (Evolutionary Biology), the "Gaps" are getting smaller.
The final concession of the last 300 years is the admission that reason and evidence, not revelation, are the ultimate tools for understanding the physical universe. This has left Christianity as a "Faith of the Heart" rather than a "Fact of the World."
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