One intriguing question that has puzzled scholars in the study of history has been: why did science as we know it today develop in the West and not the East? After all, one could argue that Asian cultures had empirical interests and cultural humility that could have fostered a similar sort of study.
In the first volume of his massive four-volume history of the university, editor Walter Rüegg provides us with one possible answer. He sets forth a list of seven beliefs, informed by Christian thought, that made possible the first medieval Christian European universities. He described three of these beliefs as follows:
1. The belief in a world order, created by God, rational, accessible to human reason, to be explained by human reason and to be mastered by it…
2. The ancient understanding of man as an imperfect being and the Judeo-Christian idea of a creature fallen into sin, and the proposition deriving from these ideas about the limitation of the human intellect operated in the Middle Ages as driving forces impelling intellectual criticism and collegial cooperation…
3. … the subjection of one’s own assertions to the generally valid rules of evidence, openness to all possible objections to one’s argument, and the public character of argument and discussion.1
When we examine some of the reasons scholars suggest for why science did not emerge in the East, we find that the absence of these beliefs played a key role. In particular, these beliefs made the exercise of the right kind of intellectual humility possible in the West, and their absence resulted in a problematic form of intellectual humility in the East.
Why Science Emerged in the West
There have been numerous explanations for why science emerged in the West, but I am going to focus on two that relate to Rüegg’s beliefs outlined above. The first explanation pertains to how one Asian culture understood the creation order. Rodney Stark, in his book For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery, observed that the Chinese did not share the first belief that God created an orderly world that a rational human could discover:
As conceived by Chinese philosophers, the universe simply is and always was. There is no reason to suppose that it functions according to rational laws, or that it could be comprehended in physical rather than mystical terms. Consequently, through the millennia, Chinese intellectuals pursued “enlightenment,” not explanations. This is precisely the conclusion reached by the Marxist historian Joseph Needham, who devoted most of his career and many volumes to the history of Chinese technology. Having exhausted attempts to discover a materialist explanation, Needham concluded that the failure of the Chinese to develop science was due to their religion, to the inability of Chinese intellectuals to believe in the existence of laws of nature, because “the conception of a divine celestial lawgiver imposing ordinances on non-human Nature never developed.” Needham continued: “It was not that there was no order in Nature for the Chinese, but rather that it was not an order ordained by a rational personal being, and hence there was no conviction that rational personal beings would be able to spell out in their lesser earthly languages the divine code of laws which he had decreed aforetime.”2
I find this answer persuasive based on my own study of and experience with Eastern cultures–even Christian ones. For example, I found Russian Eastern Orthodox thinkers have historically eschewed creating systematic theology that recognizes the positive, rational character of God or the rationality of God’s created order. Perhaps that is also why Eastern cultures, such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Vietnam, rejected capitalist approaches to economics built on laws of nature in creation (e.g., Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”) and were more willing to implement ideological systems based on grand theories of history instead of empirical study (e.g., the communist systems associated with Marxism).
I recently came across a second explanation, however, when reading Simon Winchester’s popular history, titled Pacific, which sheds more light on why the last two beliefs Rüegg listed were so important. Now, why should we consider Winchester’s opinion? Because he wrote the biography of the scientist that Stark quoted, Joseph Needham, The Man Who Loved China. In the second chapter of Pacific, Winchester describes the history of the famous Japanese company Sony. He provides a slightly different reason for the East’s delayed scientific development than Stark. He wrote:
I am sure I am not alone in believing that many East Asian sciences, in particular, have long suffered, have long been held back, by the basic Asian concept of “face,” of what the Japanese term mentsu. This (which, very broadly, relates to the giving of respect and the protection of one’s own dignity and regard) plays a profoundly important role in the social exchanges of many countries in the northwestern Pacific. The socially lethal consequences of losing face or, more dangerously, of causing others to lose it, may well have inhibited certain kinds of scientific progress, in large part because such consequences militate against experimentation, which invariably embraces failure, even public failure. Picking oneself up and beginning again, making the experiment subtly different, and performing many experiments until finally one works—such is the essence of scientific advance. And this was not always an easy concept for Asian scientists to accept.3
He goes on to note that the East does have the concept of serving and failing under a master. He uses the example of a sushi chef, but one could easily think about any martial arts movie from the East. In this understanding, one needs mentors to advance to the level of an expert.
But what happens if one is attempting to discover or try something on one’s own that an expert has never discovered or tried before? That is different. That requires setting out on one’s own or with a team (e.g., the Wright Brothers) and trying repeatedly despite failure. Moreover, in scientific discovery, one must undertake this process in community and in public (as noted by Rüegg’s beliefs two and three).
Overall, both explanations likely played a role. Stark’s account focuses on what the East lacked: a Christian doctrine of creation as found in Catholic and Protestant traditions. Winchester’s explanation focuses on what the East had developed: a distorted sense of humility and shame.
This distorted humility fails to recognize that God made us to discover and try new things and that failing publicly is part of the process. I contend that we would have faced this process in a nonfallen creation just as we see it with young babies and infants. Human failure, we must recognize, is part of God’s ordained process for us to discover something about creation. All of us can discover more about creation through repeated failures. Genesis 1 describes us as image bearers of God—a title that in the ancient world would normally only be given to royalty. What is unique about Genesis 1 is that it gives it to all humanity to exalt humanity. Thus, when the writer of Proverbs declares that it is the glory of kings to search out mysteries (Prov. 25:2), I suggest that he is not necessarily talking about political kings. He is referring to all of us as image bearers made in the King’s image. We, as image bearers, can create or discover God’s mysteries, but it takes a certain kind of discovery process that embraces both public failure and success.
The distorted sense of shame causes us to run from this God-bestowed and gifted ability and glory due to the Fall. Twenty-five years ago, I remember sitting through a devotion led by my boss at the time, who was testing some ideas he would later write about. It was one of the most revealing devotionals I can remember. He asked us to share about times when we have run from our glory. Everyone could immediately think of a time. We all could share about an instance when we used our abilities to do something wonderful, act in a play, write a book, create a particular piece of art, discover something, etc. Yet, when completed and praised for it, we felt an odd shame that made us want to run from the praise we received. Like the Fall, we encountered shame when we should not have. As a result, we ran from our glory as image bearers who are meant to create and discover.
Christians recognize that these distorted senses of humility and shame are the devious result of the Fall. I now see that moment in students as one of the most demonic and dangerous life moments. Satan does not want us to recognize and embrace the glory God gave us to discover and shine. Thus, Satan leads us to embrace false humility and shame, and as Winchester noted, “The socially lethal consequences of losing face or, more dangerously, of causing others to lose it, may well have inhibited certain kinds of scientific progress.” We need to encourage our fellow image bearers to embrace the failures that come with seeking to discover more about God’s creation and encourage them to celebrate their glorious successes when they do. In that way, we can press forward with discovering more about God’s creation.
Footnotes
- Walter Rüegg, “Themes” in A History of the University in Europe: Vol. I. Universities in the Middle Ages, ed. Hilde de Ridder-Symoens (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 32–33.
- Rodney Stark, For the Glory of God : How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery. [Nachdr.]. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 151. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400866809.
- Simon Winchester, Pacific (Harper, 2015), 101
