The concept of "two books" in Christian tradition

1. Entity type Lemma
2. Original titleКонцепция «двух книг» в христианской традиции
3. Language term Russian
4. lemma author Saprykin, Dmitry
5. lemma category Modes of interaction > Orthodox critique of science
6. Publication date 07-08-2017
7. lemma work Серебряков Николай Станиславович [Author]. The concept of "two books" in Christian tradition
8. lemma manifestations Богослов.ру
9. Keywords Holy Scripture - Galilei, Galileo (1564-1642) - Bacon Francis
10. Citations
    1. http://www.bogoslov.ru/text/5505535.html
11. Lemma body

    1. In this very article, several variants of the concept of "two books" are discussed, along with the reasons of their origin in the history of Christian thought.

       Christianity, according to the author, formed two versions of the concept of "two books":

       1) The ancient-most and traditional ecclesiastical version of the concept, establishes the unconditional priority of the Holy Scripture over the "nature book", while the condition of reading both books indicates the moral perfection of the man under the influence of God's grace. In this version, the spheres of theology and science responsible for reading the "two books" are not severely divided, but complement each other in the knowledge of God;

       2) A variant of the New Age, connected with the birth of modern science and with the protection of its activity from the influence of the Church, applies the image of "two books" for the rigid division of the spheres of theology and science. Simultaneously, the authority of the "nature book" is placed higher than the authority of the Bible and no moral perfection of the reader is required during its contemplation but the knowledge of mathematics, physics, astronomy, etc.

       Thus, the variant of the concept of the "two books" that arose in the Modern Times and was associated with the names of Galileo, Bacon and Lomonosov, as seems to the author, carries the danger of taking people away from God and further secularizing science. In this regard, the author argues, it is necessary to return to the traditional ecclesiastical version of this concept.