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The rise of Christianity, the path to prosperity
Scholars have frequently debated why Western Europe, and not other parts of the world, developed a prosperous civilization. In “The Victory of Reason,” Rodney Starks posits the controversial theory that it was because of Christianity.
Men such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Starks says, celebrated reason as the means to gain greater insight into divine intentions. Their deductive reasoning led to the development of doctrines within Christianity, he claims, and these led to individual freedom, science and capitalism. The fact that capitalism developed in only some places, he says, is because freedom was essential to its development.
Starks objects to calling the centuries between the fall of Rome and the 15th century the “Dark Ages,” or centuries of ignorance. He says that anti-Catholic 18th-century intellectuals, who claimed that the Protestant Reformation was responsible for the rise of capitalism, promulgated this idea. On the contrary, he says, “the era from the fall of Rome through the Middle Ages was a time of spectacular technological and intellectual progress.”
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Scholars have frequently debated why Western Europe, and not other parts of the world, developed a prosperous civilization. In “The Victory of Reason,” Rodney Starks posits the controversial theory that it was because of Christianity.
Men such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, Starks says, celebrated reason as the means to gain greater insight into divine intentions. Their deductive reasoning led to the development of doctrines within Christianity, he claims, and these led to individual freedom, science and capitalism. The fact that capitalism developed in only some places, he says, is because freedom was essential to its development.
Starks objects to calling the centuries between the fall of Rome and the 15th century the “Dark Ages,” or centuries of ignorance. He says that anti-Catholic 18th-century intellectuals, who claimed that the Protestant Reformation was responsible for the rise of capitalism, promulgated this idea. On the contrary, he says, “the era from the fall of Rome through the Middle Ages was a time of spectacular technological and intellectual progress.”
more