The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success

The first paragraph alone is worth the price of this book. The paragraph clearly states the question that every educated person must frequently ask himself, but avoids discussing in public, i.e., why did other societies not advance as did the West? I have never seen an adequate treatment of this question. Recently "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond claimed that geographic determinism is the dominant factor controlling cultural development. While one of the most interesting and entertaining books I have read in years, GG & S fails to convince, most notably in the case of China, the progress of which Diamond says was severly attenuated due to "Beaureaucratic" reasons. This is an insuffiecient answer. As Stark would say, the question needs to be asked, why did the beaureaucracy do this? (As I have always wondered, why did the Chinese invent gunpowder, but not develop guns or cannon?, paper but not the printing press, books and a system of libraries?) If readers can set aside our culturally sanctioned prejudices against Christianity and especially Catholicism, and approach the book with an open mind, they will be immediately captivated as I was from the first few sentences. Truly one of the most illuminating and rewarding books I have ever read.

I had a tremendous time reading this book. The historical information is well written and documented, and a thrill to read. The thesis of the book is radical--in terms of what is acceptable in most circles--and compelling. The notion that Christian theology, when allowed to have its way, lifts the human condition through deep-rooted beliefs in reason and human dignity will not surprise Christian theologians, but it clearly surprises plenty of others. I had not noticed how colored my own view of Western history was until this book. Stark convincingly challenges the standard view that religion, specifically Christianity, was the great progress-inhibitor of an enlightened ethic. Because of its view that reason is a gift given by God to be used by humans to investigate the world and free humans to be who they were created to be, Western society flourished wherever a Christian worldview thrived. Stark goes to great pains to show that the moments of regress in Europe and the New World were not primarily a result of church oppression, but of despotism, command economies overthrowing capitalistic societies, and the suppression of church influence. Many of the negative reviews of this book take shot at a straw man. Stark does not argue that every contribution the Christian church made to Western society was good--as if every Bishop or Pope was wholly good. In fact, he notes a few of the problems along the way. A second error some of the negative reviews make is mistaking Stark's basic argument. Stark argues that Christian theology is uniquely suited for a belief in reason and progress, and that that is what lead to the basic components necessary for the development of Western society. To argue, in light of Stark's thesis, that Europe advanced like it did because of the printing press, religious freedom, or any other traditional theory, is like saying that we have automobiles because there are automobile plants. Using this analogy, Stark's argument addresses why Western society built automobile plants and nobody else did. His answer is that Christian theology laid groundwork that no other religion or society had the resources to lay. This is a wonderful book that has the capacity to enthrall the reader with what feels like new discovery.

Rodney Stark's "The Victory of Reason" is a startling, original, and masterful refutation of the arrogance and disinformation that masquerades as progressive thinking within the academy, especially that which concerns the rise of civilization in the West. As the author illustrates with many well documented examples and case histories, the so-called Dark Ages were anything but dark, and the high culture that arose in Europe during the Middle Ages was unique, unprecedented, and never duplicated in any other culture, East or West. All civilizations rise from religion, and the Christianity which emerged from the ashes of the Roman empire fostered independent thinking, respect for the worth of the individual, a commitment to liberty and autonomy, the ideas of progress and exploration, as well as the foundations of modern commerce from which capitalism would naturally evolve. The author provides a capsule of the thinking of Augustine, Aquinas, and the Church Fathers that informed the age, demonstrating how faith in a living God who rewards virtue and punishes sin helped to mold the character of Europeans during a most remarkable millennium. While Stark concedes there were missteps at various times and places, when prelates overstepped their roles and authority, Christianity reflexively opposed slavery and oppression and championed free will, accountability, and compassion. Stark writes that "Christianity was founded on the doctrine that humans have been given the capacity and, hence, the responsibility to determine their own actions." In such a world, fatalism was impossible and reason was essential. Comparisons presented in the text with the reasoning of other faiths - pre-Christian paganism, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism, Communism, and secular humanism - provide an eye-opening contrast. The lengthy middle section of the book presents a chronicle of the birth of commerce and self-governance in Italy and central Europe, revealing the degree to which reason combined with trial and error led to the formation of the modern world. Eighteenth-century intellectuals - Voltaire, Rousseau, and the like - advanced the canard that all the world was immersed in ignorance, superstition, and darkness before their time. They claimed responsibility for awakening the human mind from the Dark Ages: in truth, the anti-authoritarian, anti-clerical, anti-rational world they created turned out to be a somber and blood-stained affair - leaving behind a tragic view of life that sadly haunts the academy to this day. In this work, Rodney Stark demonstrates persuasively how "Christianity created Western Civilization," and he describes with compelling insight the process by which the engines of reason and progress were combined to transform our world. His review in the concluding chapters of the explosive growth of Christianity around the world is captivating, even as it raises many troubling questions about the intellectual and moral decadence

In an essay that recently appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education, author Rodney Stark explained the thesis of his book "The Victory of Reason" this way: "A series of developments, in which reason won the day, gave unique shape to Western culture and institutions. And the most important of those victories occurred within Christianity. While the other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone embraced reason and logic as the primary guides to religious truth. Christian faith in reason was influenced by Greek philosophy. But the more important fact is that Greek philosophy had little impact on Greek religions. Those remained typical mystery cults, in which ambiguity and logical contradictions were taken as hallmarks of sacred origins. Similar assumptions concerning the fundamental inexplicability of the gods and the intellectual superiority of introspection dominated all of the other major world religions." Other reviewers, seemingly bogged down in the particulars of precisely when a "reason-friendly" breakthrough occurred, are missing the point; Christianity, specifically the Christianity long-protected by the Catholic Church, built the arena in which "the victory of reason" could take place. It *always* did. Like all things Catholic, this victory or development flowered over centuries, with collections of blooms gathering here and there to prove the point, e.g., the capitalistic and Catholic cities of twelfth and thirteenth century Northern Italy. Stark's book continues a growing line of historical correction whose pace has accelerated in recent years. Michael Novak debunked Max Weber's unsupported "Protestant ethic" almost twenty years ago, while authors Thomas Woods ("How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization") and, just recently, Michael Foley ("Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?") have offered worthwhile contributions in recent months. May the trend continue. Readers seeking a copy of Stark's Chronicles essay should perform a Google search of the words "How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and the Success of the West".

An acquaintance who just took a medieval history course at a local junior college was quoted to me as saying something to the effect that "Anyone who knows anything about medieval history could never be a Christian." At least since Edward Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", it has been fashionable to trash Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, blaming Christianity for every imaginable evil in the modern world. While Christians have done their share of evil during history, Christianity (and Catholicism in particular) has done more than its share of good. In high school and college I learned that Greco-Roman Culture served as the cornerstone of Western Civilization, with the Jewish cult of Christianity serving as a religious veneer. Rodney Stark, in a trilogy of well researched, well reasoned books, turns that idea on its head. Christianity is the cornerstone of Western Civilization and Greco-Roman Culture is the veneer. "The Victory of Reason" is the third in a series of books studying the influence of Christianity on Western Civilization, the first two being "For the Glory of God" and "One True God." Each of these books looks at different aspects of Western Civilization to determine how they were influenced by Christian theology. How were they influenced? Profoundly! "The Victory of Reason" looks at the concepts of freedom and capitalism, and how they were natural outgrowths of both Christian theology and favorable economic conditions. Along they way, Stark makes some iconoclastic statements and backs them up with sound argument. e.g. The fall of the Roman Empire was a good thing. The Dark Ages were more progressive and enlightened than the Classical World. Taken together, "The Victory of Reason," "For the Glory of God," and "One True God" make a very strong case for the proposition that were it not for Christianity (particularly the Catholic Church), we'd probably still be living in a pre-industrial, pre-scientific world dependent in large measure on slave labor. Stark acknowledges the evil done in the name of religion, but unlike some of his fellow academics, he does not ignore the good. For a similar treatment of the influence of Christianity on Western Civilization, read Thomas Woods' "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization."