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Originally posted by prisonchaplain+Dec 23 2005, 02:27 AM-->
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@Dec 22 2005, 09:53 PM
I just finished How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods Jr. PhD.*
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The premise of the book is that the what we learned in schools - that the middle ages were the dark ages, full of ignorance and suppression, not in the least part maintained by the Catholic Church - is false, and not just false but wholly and completely false. The author tells us that contrary to what we think, in fact it is the Catholic Church that is responsible for all that is good and right in the modern world. He writes that the Church formed or originated:* ... Fourth, there is no balance to the book or discussion how things might have progressed had they not been fostered or, as we have been taught, held back by the Church.
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While I have not plowed through these pages yet, a quick perusal of Amazon.com's reviews, as well as a look at Woods' previous works, gave me enough of a picture to comment on Snow's painfully objective review.
1. Woods is not trying to be balanced himself. He is providing a balance to generally anti-religious, certainly anti-Catholic historical myth that the Church was all about ignorance, and oppression of intellectuals, Jews, Muslims, and Bible translators. The author did not need to rehash the negative history. His goal was to correct the skewed picture that most previous histories of this era have offered.
2. A discussion about how things might have gone had the Catholic church not been there would have resulted in something we call historic fiction. Woods is a historian. He's writing about what happened, and should not be expected to engage is speculation, for the sake of appearing objective or balanced.
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You can't have it both ways. True that historians don't/speculate on things that cannot be reasonably surmized and often present the facts and allow the reader to draw his/her own conclusions so your 2nd point is vailid and I will rephrase my criticism in just a moment. But also, a historian's job is to present an accurate or as unbiased portrait of the past as is possible. They have an obligation to include the right things and possibly exclude the wrong things so as to present as true a version as can be. You argue that Wood's role of as a historian precludes him from speculating but despite arguing that he is a historian, you attribute to him no responsibility to present a full or complete or accurate or balanced account of the past.
He may be a historian by training but this is not the best kind of history. This is pure apologetics.
Let me rephase my criticism: Woods covers all the best that he can attribute to the Catholic Church but completely ignores the ways in which the Church repressed or hindered progress that might otherwise have been made if not for the Church's ubiquitous influence.
It seems natural that so much that flowed out of the middle ages would be stamped with the Church's influence since there is little that the Church did not control or sway or influence. And, some of the best and brightest were absorded into the clergy and monastic life. In a way that might have been helpful because where else could they get a paid gig studing the stars but on the other hand, it was quite a drain on the gene pool.
Still - none of my criticism is to down play the contributions I have now learned about.