Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
conviction regarding the dignity and spiritual value of labor, initially
manifested, as mentioned earlier, in monastic life. Christian compassion,
moreover, demanded the development of labor-saving devices and the
cultivation of a mechanistic attitude previously maligned in Western
civilization.
But why, one might ask, did this transformation not occur under the
auspices of Byzantine Christianity? Why did Western technology turn
when it did in a more mechanical and aggressive direction? These ques-
tions, so obviously relevant to our understanding of modern science and
technology, led White to search for an explanation in the sphere of reli-
gion. From the beginning, he argues, Byzantine theology was essentially
Greek in its outlook and thus oriented toward contemplation as the
highest human activity and toward a conception of sin as ignorance. In
contrast, Latin Christianity was born out of the voluntarism of the
Roman world, emphasizing good works as a bulwark against moral evil.
The voluntaristic tone of Western theology was much more apt, in
White's account, to engender a spiritually sanctioned technological
approach to the world than was the contemplative religiosity of the East.
Although Europe was for much of the Middle Ages dependent on
Byzantium (as well as Islam) for much of its technology, what it even-
tually did with that inheritance is unique in the history of humankind,
sparking an epochal change in humanity's relation to and understanding
of the natural world. It is true, of course, that by the end of the medieval
period, traditional religious and philosophical convictions seemed secure.
Aristotelian science in particular had been successfully adapted to a
theological triumphalism to which the Stagirite would certainly have
objected, but to which his thinking lent itself when placed in the right
hands. In its otherworldly directedness, however, the spiritual life of
Western Christianity, unlike that of the ancient Greeks, became radically
interiorized, permitting medieval society to deal with external things in
a secular, more utilitarian fashion. In its relative isolation from theology
and science, technology was poised to develop in a more mechanical
direction, and thus as a new and more powerful means to spiritual ends
posited outside the sphere of its technical concerns.
