From the Publisher

Many books have been written about the success of the West, analyzing why Europe was able to pull ahead of the rest of the world by the end of the Middle Ages. The most common explanations cite the West’s superior geography, commerce, and technology. Completely overlooked is the fact that faith in reason, rooted in Christianity’s commitment to rational theology, made all these developments possible. Simply put, the conventional wisdom that Western success depended upon overcoming religious barriers to progress is utter nonsense.

In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium.

In Stark’s view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and nonsecular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason: While the world’s other great belief systems emphasized mystery, obedience, or introspection, Christianity alone embraced logic and reason as the path toward enlightenment, freedom, and progress. That is what made all the difference.

In explaining the West’s dominance, Stark convincingly debunks long-accepted “truths.” For instance, by contending that capitalism thrived centuries before there was a Protestant work ethic–or even Protestants–he counters the notion that the Protestant work ethic was responsible for kicking capitalism intooverdrive. In the fifth century, Stark notes, Saint Augustine celebrated theological and material progress and the institution of “exuberant invention.” By contrast, long before Augustine, Aristotle had condemned commercial trade as “inconsistent with human virtue”–which helps further underscore that Augustine’s times were not the Dark Ages but the incubator for the West’s future glories.

This is a sweeping, multifaceted survey that takes readers from the Old World to the New, from the past to the present, overturning along the way not only centuries of prejudiced scholarship but the antireligious bias of our own time. The Victory of Reason proves that what we most admire about our world–scientific progress, democratic rule, free commerce–is largely due to Christianity, through which we are all inheritors of this grand tradition.


From the Hardcover edition.

The New York Times - William Grimes

Mr. Stark has a vigorous prose style and a gift for clear explanation. The pace is swift, and the narrative thrilling, as he describes the evolution of northern Italian city-states and the great Italian banks that helped accelerate capitalism's rise in Flanders and England. The banks not only lent money; they also engaged in trade and manufacturing, often reorganizing and managing entire industries, like wool-making. Their abacus schools, where students learned accounting, were the original M.B.A. programs.

Publishers Weekly

It is a commonplace to think of Christianity and rationalism as opposite historical and philosophical forces. In this stimulating and provocative study, Stark (The Rise of Christianity) demonstrates that elements within Christianity actually gave rise not only to visions of reason and progress but also to the evolution of capitalism. Stark contends that Christianity is a forward-looking religion, evincing faith in progress and in its followers' abilities to understand God over time. Such a future-based rational theology has encouraged the development of technical and organizational advances, such as the monastic estates and universities of the Middle Ages. Stark contends that these developments transformed medieval political philosophy so that democracy developed and thrived in those states, such as northern Italy, that lacked despots and encouraged moral equality. Stark concludes by maintaining that Christianity continues to spread in places like Africa, China and Latin America because of its faith in progress, its rational theology and its emphasis on moral equality. While some historians are likely to question Stark's conclusions, his deftly researched study will force them to imagine a new explanation for the rise of capitalism in Western society. (Dec.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Steve Forbes - Forbes Magazine

Christianity is at the root of the rise of capitalism and modern democracy, says this thoroughly engaging and stimulating book about why the West pulled so far ahead of the rest of the world, economically and politically. "While the other world religions emphasized mystery and intuition, Christianity alone embraced reason and logic as the primary guide to religious truth," writes Stark. "From early days, the church fathers taught that reason was the supreme gift from God and the means to progressively increase their understanding of scripture and revelation. Consequently, Christianity was oriented to the future, while the other major religions asserted the superiority of the past.… Faith in the power of reason infused Western culture, stimulating the pursuit of science and the evolution of democratic theory and practice.… Capitalism is in essence the systematic and sustained application of reason to commerce."(27 Nov 2006)

Kirkus Reviews

A panoramic study of Western history, designed to draw a connection between Christianity and the rise of democracy and capitalism. Stark (Social Sciences/Baylor Univ.) takes the reader on a selective tour of Western history. The title concept of reason is certainly brought up throughout, but it is overshadowed by the roles of Christianity and personal freedom. Stark begins with a question: What caused the West to take such a dominant role in world history? His answer is complex, and he opens by examining the role of Christianity, which facilitated a particularly forward-thinking and progressive worldview. It encouraged adherents to utilize reason in examining scripture and matters of theology. The Church's positive view of human progress, coupled with reason, led to unparalleled advances in technology and science. Stark then moves on to the rise of capitalism, which he contends began within early monastic communities and came to fruition in Northern Italian city-states by about the 12th century. From Italy, capitalism spread to Northern Europe. Echoing modern libertarian authors, Stark points out that economic success was consistently born out of freer societies; command economies over the past two millennia may have often wielded power, but they did so at the expense of their people's well-being and of technological progress. These trends then spilled over into the New World. In making his arguments, Stark utilizes plenty of solid research. However, he also expands great effort on matters that get in the way of his point, such as devoting an entire chapter to convincing the reader that the "Dark Ages" were anything but dark. An intriguing, if at times over-reaching work.

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Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt

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The Victory of Reason

Random House

Chapter One

chapter one

Blessings of Rational Theology

christian faith in progress

theology and science

China Greece Islam

moral innovations

the rise of individualism

the abolition of medieval slavery



Theology is in disrepute among most Western intellectuals. The word is taken to mean a passe form of religious thinking that embraces irrationality and dogmatism. So too, Scholasticism. According to any edition of Webster's, "scholastic" means "pedantic and dogmatic," denoting the sterility of medieval church scholarship. John Locke, the eighteenth-century British philosopher, dismissed the Scholastics as "the great mintmasters" of useless terms meant "to cover their ignorance."1 Not so! The Scholastics were fine scholars who founded Europe's great universities and launched the rise of Western science. As for theology, it has little in common with most religious thinking, being a sophisticated, highly rational discipline that is fully developed only in Christianity.

Sometimes described as "the science of faith,"2 theology consists of formal reasoning about God. The emphasis is on discovering God's nature, intentions, and demands, and on understanding how these define the relationship between human beings and God. The gods of polytheism cannot sustain theology because they are far too inconsequential. Theology necessitates an image of God as a conscious, rational, supernatural being of unlimited power and scope who cares about humans and imposes moral codes and responsibilities upon them, thereby generating serious intellectual questions such as: Why does God allow us to sin? Does the Sixth Commandment prohibit war? When does an infant acquire a soul?

To fully appreciate the nature of theology, it is useful to explore why there are no theologians in the East. Consider Taoism. The Tao is conceived of as a supernatural essence, an underlying mystical force or principle governing life, but one that is impersonal, remote, lacking consciousness, and definitely not a being. It is the "eternal way," the cosmic force that produces harmony and balance. According to Lao-tzu, the Tao is "always nonexistent" yet "always existent," "unnamable" and the "name that can be named." Both "soundless and formless," it is "always without desires." One might meditate forever on such an essence, but it offers little to reason about. The same applies to Buddhism and Confucianism. Although it is true that the popular versions of these faiths are polytheistic and involve an immense array of small gods (as is true of popular Taoism as well), the "pure" forms of these faiths, as pursued by the intellectual elite, are godless and postulate only a vague divine essence--Buddha specifically denied the existence of a conscious God.3 The East lacks theologians because those who might otherwise take up such an intellectual pursuit reject its first premise: the existence of a conscious, all-powerful God.

In contrast, Christian theologians have devoted centuries to reasoning about what God may have really meant by various passages in scripture, and over time the interpretations often have evolved in quite dramatic and extensive ways. For example, not only does the Bible not condemn astrology but the story of the Wise Men following the star might seem to suggest that it is valid. However, in the fifth century Saint Augustine reasoned that astrology is false because to believe that one's fate is predestined in the stars stands in opposition to God's gift of free will.4 In similar fashion, although many early Christians, including the apostle Paul, accepted that Jesus had brothers,5 born of Mary and fathered by Joseph, this view came increasingly into conflict with developing theological views about Mary. The matter was finally resolved in the thirteenth century, when Saint Thomas Aquinas analyzed the doctrine of Christ's virgin birth to deduce that Mary did not bear other children: "So we assert without qualification that the mother of God conceived as a virgin, gave birth as a virgin and remained a virgin after the birth. The brothers of the Lord were not natural brothers, born of the same mother, but blood-relations."6

These were not mere amplifications of scripture; each was an example of careful deductive reasoning leading to new doctrines: the church did prohibit astrology; the perpetual virginity of Mary remains the official Catholic teaching. As these examples demonstrate, great minds could, and often did, greatly alter or even reverse church doctrines on the basis of nothing more than persuasive reasoning. And no one did this better or with greater influence than Augustine and Aquinas. Of course, thousands of other theologians also tried to make their mark on doctrines. Some succeeded, most were ignored, and some of them were rejected as heretics: the point being that an accurate account of any aspect of Christian theology must be based on major, authoritative figures. It would be easy to assemble a set of quotations to demonstrate all manner of strange positions, if one selectively culled through the work of the thousands of minor Christian theologians who have written during the past two millennia. That approach has been all too common; but it is not mine. I will quote minor figures only when they expressed views ratified by the major theologians, keeping in mind that the authoritative church position on many matters often evolved, sometimes to the extent of reversing earlier teachings.

Leading Christian theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas were not what today might be called strict constructionists. Rather, they celebrated reason as the means to gain greater insight into divine intentions. As Quintus Tertullian instructed in the second century: "Reason is a thing of God, inasmuch as there is nothing which God the Maker of all has not provided, disposed, ordained by reason--nothing which He has not willed should be handled and understood by reason."7 In the same spirit, Clement of Alexandria warned in the third century: "Do not think that we say that these things are only to be received by faith, but also that they are to be asserted by reason. For indeed it is not safe to commit these things to bare faith without reason, since assuredly truth cannot be without reason."8

Hence, Augustine merely expressed the prevailing wisdom when he held that reason was indispensable to faith: "Heaven forbid that God should hate in us that by which he made us superior to the animals! Heaven forbid that we should believe in such a way as not to accept or seek reasons, since we could not even believe if we did not possess rational souls." Augustine acknowledged that "faith must precede reason and purify the heart and make it fit to receive and endure the great light of reason." Then he added that although it is necessary "for faith to precede reason in certain matters of great moment that cannot yet be grasped, surely the very small portion of reason that persuades us of this must precede faith."9 Scholastic theologians placed far greater faith in reason than most philosophers are willing to do today.10

Of course, some influential churchmen opposed the primacy given to reason and argued that faith was best served by mysticism and spiritual experiences.11 Ironically, the most inspiring advocate of this position expressed his views in elegantly reasoned theology.12 Dissent from the priority of reason was, of course, very popular in some of the religious orders, especially the Franciscans and the Cistercians. But these views did not prevail--if for no other reason than because official church theology enjoyed a secure base in the many and growing universities, where reason ruled.13

christian faith in progress

Judaism and Islam also embrace an image of God sufficient to sustain theology, but their scholars have tended not to pursue such matters. Rather, traditional Jews14 and Muslims incline toward strict constructionism and approach scripture as law to be understood and applied, not as the basis for inquiry about questions of ultimate meaning. For this reason scholars often refer to Judaism and Islam as "orthoprax" religions, concerned with correct (ortho) practice (praxis) and therefore placing their "fundamental emphasis on law and regulation of community life." In contrast, scholars describe Christianity as an "orthodox" religion because it stresses correct (ortho) opinion (doxa), placing "greater emphasis on belief and its intellectual structuring of creeds, catechisms, and theologies."15 Typical intellectual controversies among Jewish and Muslim religious thinkers involve whether some activity or innovation (such as reproducing holy scripture on a printing press) is consistent with established law. Christian controversies typically are doctrinal, over matters such as the Holy Trinity or the perpetual virginity of Mary.

Of course, some leading Christian thinkers have concentrated on law and some Jewish and Muslim scholars have devoted themselves to theological issues. But the primary thrust of the three faiths has differed in this respect and with very significant consequences. Legal interpretation rests on precedent and therefore is anchored in the past, while efforts to better understand the nature of God assume the possibility of progress. And it is the assumption of progress that may be the most critical difference between Christianity and all other religions. With the exception of Judaism, the other great faiths have conceived of history as either an endlessly repeated cycle or inevitable decline--Muhammad is reported to have said, "The best generation is my generation, then the one that follows it, and then the ones that follow that."16 In contrast, Judaism and Christianity have sustained a directional conception of history, culminating in the Millennium. However, the Jewish idea of history stresses not progress but only procession, while the idea of progress is profoundly manifest in Christianity. As John Macmurray put it, "That we think of progress at all shows the extent of the influence of Christianity upon us."17

Things might have been different had Jesus left a written scripture. But unlike Muhammad or Moses, whose texts were accepted as divine transmissions and therefore have encouraged literalism, Jesus wrote nothing, and from the very start the church fathers were forced to reason as to the implications of a collection of his remembered sayings--the New Testament is not a unified scripture but an anthology.18 Consequently, the precedent for a theology of deduction and inference and for the idea of theological progress began with Paul: "For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophesy is imperfect."19 Contrast this with the second verse of the Qur'an, which proclaims itself to be "the Scripture whereof there is no doubt."20

From very early days, Christian theologians have assumed that the application of reason can yield an increasingly accurate understanding of God's will. Augustine noted that although there were "certain matters pertaining to the doctrine of salvation that we cannot yet grasp . . . one day we shall be able to do so."21 Augustine celebrated not only theological progress, but earthly, material progress as well. Writing early in the fifth century, he exclaimed: "Has not the genius of man invented and applied countless astonishing arts, partly the result of necessity, partly the result of exuberant invention, so that this vigour of mind . . . betokens an inexhaustible wealth in the nature which can invent, learn, or employ such arts. What wonderful--one might say stupefying--advances has human industry made in the arts of weaving and building, of agriculture and navigation!" He went on to admire the "skill [that] has been attained in measures and numbers! With what sagacity have the movements and connections of the stars been discovered!" And all of this was due to the "unspeakable boon" that God conferred upon his creation, a "rational nature."22

Augustine's optimism was typical; progress beckoned. As Gilbert de Tournai wrote in the thirteenth century, "Never will we find truth if we content ourselves with what is already known. . . . Those things that have been written before us are not laws but guides. The truth is open to all, for it is not yet totally possessed."23 Especially typical were the words preached by Fra Giordano in Florence in 1306: "Not all the arts have been found; we shall never see an end to finding them. Every day one could discover a new art."24 Compare this with the prevailing view in China at this same time, well expressed by Li Yen-chang: "If scholars are made to concentrate their attention solely on the classics and are prevented from slipping into study of the vulgar practices of later generations, then the empire will be fortunate indeed!"25

The Christian commitment to progress through rationality reached its heights in the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas Aquinas, published in Paris late in the thirteenth century. This monument to the theology of reason consists of logical "proofs" of Christian doctrine and set the standard for all subsequent Christian theologians. Aquinas argued that because humans lack suf- ficient intellect to see directly into the essence of things, it is necessary for them to reason their way to knowledge, step by step. Thus, although Aquinas regarded theology as the highest of the sciences, since it deals directly with divine revelations, he advocated the use of the tools of philosophy, especially the principles of logic, in seeking to construct theology.26 Consequently, Aquinas was able to use his powers of reason to find the most profound humanism in God's creation.27

Aquinas and his many gifted peers could not have excelled at rational theology had they conceived of Jehovah as an inexplicable essence. They could justify their efforts only because they assumed that God was the absolute epitome of reason.28 Moreover, their commitment to the progressive reasoning out of God's will required them to accept that the Bible is not only or always to be understood literally. This too was the conventional Christian view, since, as Augustine noted, "divers things may be understood under these words which yet are all true.&

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