Christianity and Islam — the development of modern science and the genesis of the modern (just) state
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Date
2004
Authors
Strauss, D. F. M.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Faculty of Theology, University of the Free State
Abstract
English: This article focuses on the formal similarities between Christianity and the Islam
present during the later middle ages — a period in which both legacies subscribed
to a relatively totalitarian societal condition manifested in the existence of their respective
empires. The ideal of the Corpus Christi as the societas perfecta of medieval
Christianity is explained in the light of the contest between church and state during
the later middle ages. This legacy was eventually challenged by an intellectual
movement initiated by John the Scott and William of Ockham that caused the
breaking apart of the former ecclesiastically unified culture. The alternative development
within the Islam world is sketched before the spirit of modernity is explained
as a secularization of biblical Christianity. Humanism initially inspired explicitly
totalitarian theories of the state. It was only within the Protestant countries of
Europe that the modern constitutional state under the rule of law emerged, accompanied
by a process of societal differentiation unparalleled in world history. Although
the more recent attempts of Islamic countries to benefit from the fruits of the modern
natural sciences inspired them to introduce the teaching of the natural sciences
within the Muslim world, these countries did not succeed in benefiting from the
significant transformation of the medieval empires into modern democratic states.
Since the Muslim world is still embedded in the relatively undifferentiated embrace
of a societal setting guided and integrated by the Muslim faith it did not succeed
as yet to transcend the inherent limitations entailed in a typical empire in the classical
sense of the word.
Description
Keywords
Cheristianity, Islam, Differentiation, The Modern State, Synthesis, Nominalism
Citation
Strauss, D. F. M. (2004). Christianity and Islam — the development of modern science and the genesis of the modern (just) state. Acta Theologica, 24(1), 168-185.