The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success Paperback – September 26, 2006

Every now and then a book can change you in a very fundamental way. This book has changed the way I look at Christianity.The Victory of Reason is a history book, not a book on religion. It posits that Christian theology has led to four big accomplishments of mankind: 1 - a belief that human progress was possible, 2 - that personal freedom was essential to happiness, 3 - technical and organizational innovation and 4 - the development of capitalism. Mr. Stark succeeds in showing how reason made all four possible - reason derived from Christian theology.As someone educated in science, I have for many years looked on Christianity as something that had to be overcome or ignored. The dogma could so easily be disproved by modern science. It stood in the way of accepting evolution and cosmology. The very idea that Christianity could be behind the victory of reason was counter intuitive. Since I was raised as a Methodist, my early education led me to believe that the Protestant Ethic was responsible for much of life's success and that Rome and the Pope were trying to block scientific progress.The success of Western Civilization was obvious, but what could that be attributed too? Surely not just the superiority of Europeans. This idea was falling out of favor as I was leaving high school and entering the university in 1954. No, it must be related to the scientific progress that came from overcoming religious dogma.Perhaps. But then why did this occur in Europe and North America and not in China, India or the Middle East? Couldn't they have overcome religious dogma too? It just couldn't be related to religion. After all, didn't Rome fall because of Christianity as Gibbon suggested? How can you run a civilization based on turning the other cheek and glorification of the meek, the poor and the humble? Not to mention the nonsense of virgin birth and a heaven in the clouds with a large white male in charge. So there was no good explanation of how success came to us and not to others.The idea that a religion can change in fundamental ways over time is not something that is obvious. Religions depend on faith and it is very dangerous to even allow questioning or debate. So it is a surprise for me to find out that Christianity has undergone such changes. This is unique among all religions, I guess. It alone allows reason and logic to be used whereas others embrace "mystery and intuition." In early Christianity revelation was in vogue, the past was emphasized and predestination embraced. Today reason, the future and free will are. Rodney Stark shows how Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and others transformed Christianity. How capitalism is good in spite of the "eye of the needle" quote. And how personal freedom and technical progress derived from or at least were allowed by Christianity.The book is not without flaws. When he denigrates the dark ages at the beginning of chapter two, he errs. If you read the small book "The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization" by Bryan Ward-Perkins you find out that archeology shows that not only government, but pottery, utensils, tools, clothing, houses and food also went into a 500 year dark age. Stark's examples of progress and reason are almost entirely from 1100 AD on. His claim that science and technology was enhanced by Christianity is also over the top. But his point is valid - only in Christian Europe did the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution and the Scientific Method occur.To me, any history book can be judged by what you learn that is new. This book is full of examples. Did you know that the Italian city-states brought banks and multi-national firms to northern Europe and England for the first time in the 13th century? Why did Spain fall from prominence so quickly? It too was very Christian. This answer and many more await the reader of "The Victory of Reason."

This is definitely one of the most refreshing and surprising books I have ever read. It makes me realize (among other things) how much anti-Christian, "Dark Ages" propaganda I have been indoctrinated with. This is a book which is badly needed, and needed NOW, with so many born-again anti-Christians running around. I suppose the finger of blame needs to be pointed at Gibbon's "Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire." Rodney Stark's first main argument is that Gibbon had hold of the wrong end of the stick: the Roman Empire was a slave-driving tyranny that badly deserved to crumble and fall. Crumble and fall it did, because of its own internal logic: tyrannies never produce good economies or good citizens.Well, the Western Empire did fall, so we were off into the Dark Ages, right? So we have been told, a thousand times. The facts are quite different, since what actually happened was an explosion of European creativity and progress, freed from the Roman tyranny and guided by the precepts of Christian theology. Christian theology expected progress, because it was future-oriented, and because it believed that the natural world followed natural laws. In quick order, the "ignorant peasants" of the "Dark Ages" discovered the metal plow, the three-field system of cultivation, the water wheel, the windmill, the stirrup, chain-mail armor, and other items too numerous to mention in a brief (!) review. Christianity and science were not opposed; they worked together, hand in hand, as is obvious from the history of the great monastic estates and the discoveries made there. Again, there are too many items to discuss, but one sticks in my memory: nobody had discovered how to transport heavy loads over long distances, before the "ignorant peasants" of the "Dark Ages" figured out the correct way to harness draft animals, and also began breeding much larger horses. (Oh, and they invented the horse-shoe as well). Eyeglasses and watches --- no one else had them! And nobody else had the system of private property, free trade, and capitalism which were developed during the "Dark Ages." In fact, the whole capitalist system originated in Christian monasteries.Higher culture was not in disarray: writers from Dante to Chaucer helped to create the vernacular languages of Europe. Universities were created by the Church. Polyphonic music was discovered (or invented), and so were the instruments to play it.I hope this gives you a taste of the book's contents. In case you are wondering about reviewer bias, I am not a Christian. But I am a member of (what used to be) Western Civilization, and I am convinced that we must understand where it came from if we want to prevent it perishing. It may be the case that "all of mankind's great religions are false," as Santayana claimed, but, strangely enough, it does not follow that they are all equally effective or equally good. After all, we lived with the Ptolemaic system for centuries, and made great progress in astronomy -- even though the Ptolemaic system was upside-down. If Christianity tells a culture that it can move towards the future --- that it can understand the natural world --- these may be critically important theological points.Highest possible recommendation!