Stages of Thought: The Co-Evolution of Religious Thought and Science by Michael Horace Barnes

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Synopsis

In Stages of Thought, Michael Barnes examines a pattern of cognitive development that has evolved over thousands of years--a pattern manifest in both science and religion. He describes how the major world cultures built upon our natural human language skills to add literacy, logic, and, now, a highly critical self-awareness. In tracing the histories of both scientific and religious thought, Barnes shows why we think the way that we do today.
Although religious and scientific modes of thought are often portrayed as contradictory-one is highly rational while the other appeals to tradition and faith-Barnes argues that they evolved together and are actually complementary. Using the developmental thought of Piaget, he argues that cultures develop like individuals in that both learn easier cognitive skills first and master the harder ones later. This is especially true, says Barnes, because the harder ones often require first the creation of cognitive technology like writing or formal logic as well as the creation of social institutions that teach and sustain those skills. Barnes goes on to delineate the successive stages of the co-evolution of religious and scientific thought in the West, from the preliterate cultures of antiquity up to the present time. Along the way, he covers topics such as the impact of literacy on human modes of thought; the development of formalized logic and philosophical reflections; the emergence of an explicitly rational science; the birth of formal theologies; and, more recently, the growth of modern empirical science.
This groundbreaking book offers a thorough and persuasive argument in favor of the development of modes of thought across cultures. It willserve as an invaluable resource for historians of religion, philosophers and historians of science, and anyone interested in the relationship between religion and science.


"Well documented and broadly convincing.... [Barnes] has an admirable habit of taking his critics seriously, itself an inducement to take his carefully measured answers equally seriously."--Times Literary Supplement

"I doubt that I will be able to get the book out of my mind, because its implications for the science-religion interface where I work are so profound and pervasive. Whether I am thinking about the nature of myth, the concept of God, or the differences between religion and theology, the argument presented here will be impossible to dismiss." --The Journal of Religion

Biography

Michael H. Barnes is Professor of Religious Studies and Alumni Chair in Humanities, The University of Dayton.