Science -- the Natural Outgrowth of Christian Doctrine
Thus begins An old theology for modern times: A review of Rodney Stark's Victory of Reason:

Contrary to the usual teaching of the Middle Ages as a Dark Age, cut off from the wonders of Roman architecture and technology, Dr. Stark shows that medieval Europeans were healthier, freer, and more prosperous than the average Roman. Freed from Roman imperial despotism, medieval Europeans developed and expanded technologies that the Romans never did, because Romans were content to use slave labor. Christian Europe eliminated slavery on the principle of the equality of man before God, developed local systems of mutual obligation and quickly made widespread application of new technologies.

Victory of Reason brings a new and much needed perspective on the history of Western civilization. While the Greeks talked about reason, their religious beliefs kept them from applying it and achieving what Christian Europeans did. The universe, in the Greek view—like that of modern secularists—was eternal and uncreated, locked into an endless cycle of progress and decay. This idea promotes endless speculation but prevents the development of and search for immutable physical principles. Man was essentially a victim of the arbitrary and capricious gods he had made in his own image, yet could never understand. But the Christian God was a God of order and rationality, revealed in a written standard and immutable principles that man, by study and reason, could not only understand but applied to all aspects of life. The Christian view of reason made the so-called Dark Ages a period of profound enlightenment in both the material and intellectual spheres, which, when combined with Christian doctrines of moral equality, created a whole new world based on political, economic, and personal freedom.

Countering contemporary secularists’ claim that Christianity inhibits science and progress, Dr. Stark says that Greek learning was a barrier to science, because it was based on fundamental assumptions that were antithetical to science, viewing the world as a huge, conscious, living organism having both intellect and soul. Science is the natural outgrowth of Christian doctrine, which held the unique conviction that progress was a God-given obligation, entailed in the gift of reason (One might also compare the fruit of Jimmy Carter’s inaugural vision that the American people can no longer expect progress as their birthright with the grand visions of Presidents Reagan and Bush).

I have to dispute that last bit of parenthetical silliness on the part of the reviewer Judith Niewiadomski, but the rest is spot-on. I remember as an elementary student reading the Black Legend about the Middle Ages and on the same page seeing the pictures of the Gothic Cathedrals, which surpassed in both technique and beauty anything antiquity, or our own age, could produce, and suspected something was amiss. I am now trying to dismiseducate myself: The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries.

Victory of Reason also delves into economics:

Capitalism (the investment of wealth to increase productivity and wealth, rather than merely consuming it) requires free markets, unforced labor and secure property rights. Dr. Stark traces its development from self-sufficient medieval monastic estates to their expansion and specialization into centers of economic growth as they added schools, offices, workshops, and storehouses and reinvested their income in better technology and buying more land to farm.

A wealthy Roman family required huge estates (worked by slaves) to live in style. In the Middle Ages, thanks to the monastic principles of simple living, hard work, and good management, capitalism brought immense wealth to orders having only modest flocks and fields. In non-Christian societies, the wealthy looked down upon work and commerce. Even Eastern holy men meditated and lived by charity, while Christian monks lived by their own labor, sustaining highly productive estates. Italian city-states were another example of medieval capitalism, the first instance of communities that lived entirely by trade.

The review goes on to show how the book explains the difference in wealth between the former British colonies in North America and those of Spain in Latin America, something that always troubled me as a Catholic:

Of particular interest in these days of eminent domain debate are Dr. Stark’s insights on command economies and property rights. Despotic states produce universal avarice. When wealth is subject to devastating taxes and the constant threat of usurpation, the challenge is to keep one’s wealth, not to make it productive. But a capitalist economy maximizes productivity, since private property is secure and work is not coerced. Thus, people benefit directly from their productive efforts, which motivate them to produce more. Contrasting British colonies in North America with Spain’s in Latin America demonstrates the difference.

The British colonies were founded on production, the Spanish colonies on extraction. England was a land of shopkeepers, i.e., small businessmen; Spain was a land of huge (feudal) estates and agricultural laborers only slightly above serfdom. Spanish colonies were settled by those who did not plan to stay but merely to sojourn in pursuit of sudden wealth, whereas British colonies were founded by those seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity, men and women alike, who committed themselves to a new life. British colonies enjoyed a high level of local political autonomy based on relatively democratic institutions. The Spanish colonies were ruled by oligarchies.

This gives evidence to somethng that an Anglospherist from Albion's Seedlings once pointed out in the comments to this blog, something that gave me much pause to think. The secret to the Anglosphere's success is not a Protestant work ethic but its preservation of "medieval constitutionalism." [See these posts: Danish "Democracy" and Anglosphere Liberty, Medieval Constitutionalism, Part Two, and Is the Anglosphere "Really" About Protestantism?]

This next bit suggests that Spain's economy, at least in its imperial holdings, was less Medieval than it was Roman:

Spain’s economy, like Rome’s, was based not on what individuals produced but upon what it took from others, enriching a few while impoverishing others. Government’s limitations on business and production and high taxes suppressed production and investment. Not only did the immense wealth brought back to Spain bring no significant development to Spain, which remained an undeveloped, feudal nation, Spanish imperialism also destroyed capitalism in Italy and the Netherlands.

The idea is continued in the next sentence. I'm not sure if the author was aware of the pregnant warning it contains for both neoconservative empire-builders and free-traders who think that a country can survive as a "service economy" without producing anything:

The costs of empire bled immense wealth from Spain, helping to preserve it as a nation of impoverished peasants dependent on imports not only for manufactured products, but even for sufficient food.

Judith Niewiadomski's review has a few modernistic faults, but the book itself looks well worth a read.