Christianity the Religion of Science. Western Christianity the Scientific Religion

As Gospel has primarily advanced westward from its early days in Jerusalem and the Ancient Near East, it has wrought many other advances in history - primarily western history. The philosophical development of the individual person which leads to property rights and eventually capitalism; a work ethic that teaches us value is found in working not in escaping; and the belief that the world was meant to be understood and explored which leads to science.

The overtly Christian West, historically attributed with the development of Science, perplexes modern minds at how its origins could be at such odds with its results. How is it that Christianity and Science are supposedly so staunchly opposed so that neither side has any business discussing the other. My only point here is that it is Christianity (born from Judaism) that gave rise to the wonderful world of Science and continues to provide necessarily motivating axioms on which Science will forever reside.

But Christianity in the West has not be left unchanged by its effects. The ripples its splash onto the caused have come back to affect the stone. The great tension between traditional Roman Catholic and Protestant views reside on the amount of difference they see between Justification and Sanctification. The Catholic sees them almost as the same and will define it as such. Therefore when they talk about who is responsible for what in the act of justi-sanctification, both God and man is the correct answer. The Protestant, on the other hand, balks at this at declares that only God justifies a man. Nevertheless, this Lutheran will protect the need for a man to fight for his own sanctification through the power of God provided by the Holy Spirit.

This issue is much less likely to surface in the East where definitions are less important and much more flexibility is allowed. Why? Why do Chinese consider themselves Communist and Capitalist? Because they are not bound to the strict scientific precision of Western definitions, but feel the freedom to leave things imprecisely defined as fuzzy logic would have things. Something can be 50 degrees Farenheit. And depending on what that item is it can be hot, cold, or room temperature. That can be a good, bad, or terrible thing. Human language is so often imprecise and so to impose strict definitions on words (a very scientific thing to do, and something hermeneutic students would readily claim) is a very Western ideal, that may not prove useful to a text written in an Eastern context.