St. Luke was a doctor. I'm not sure if that would work for what you need, but it's a start. Maybe you could check into any orders named for him and see if they've got collective terms for their adherents?
Term for the idea of science and religion coexisting
- Thread starter Mark Moore
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St. Luke was a doctor. I'm not sure if that would work for what you need, but it's a start. Maybe you could check into any orders named for him and see if they've got collective terms for their adherents?
Many of the leading scientists of medieval & early modern Europe were men of the Church. See this very long list with links on Wikipedia. Some of them became saints. Some of the best known include:
- Albertus Magnus (patron saint of scientists)
- Roger Bacon
- Benedetto Castelli
- Nicholas Copernicus
- Robert Grosseteste
- Nicolas of Cusa
- William of Ockham
- Pope Sylvester II (Gerbert d'Aurillac)
St. Dominic is the patron saint of astronomers, but he was not one himself.
The Jesuit order, founded in the 16c, placed a particularly high value on education and science, and produced many important scientists over the centuries.
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Don't know if you still need some help with this, but here goes.
It's interesting how much our ideas about the relationship between God and science have changed over the centuries. The Greek word "philosophy" once meant "love of wisdom," and the concept of wisdom in the ancient world almost always included both God and science (with the exception of a few early atheists, who were definitely not the norm!). So "philosophy" in its original sense is a term you could use. Aristotle was a philosopher in this sense -- a man who was trying to unify religious and scientific thought as "wisdom" (or "metaphysics," a term coined by later writers in reference to some of Aristotle's writings.) Aristotle heavily influenced Thomas of Aquinas and the Scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages.
Another good example of such a philosopher is Philo, who is less well known today than Aristotle, but who wrote scads of material in the 1st century CE.
Another term you could look at is "natural theology," which has also come and gone more than once over the centuries. Natural theology tries to give preeminence to reason and science in contrast to pure revelation. There have been a number of offshoots from this line of thinking (eg. Deism).
The term "Gnosticism" was mentioned above, but actually this term would be a very poor choice for the idea of "God and science" blending together, since Gnosticism is a line of speculative thought based solely on "revelation," not science. (Gnosticism does believe in evil entities, however, so from that point of view it could be useful for your story.)
Finally, just to keep all the terms clear . . . the scenario you're describing here (with a secret society devoted to finding ways to kill demons) would most properly fall under the category of apocalypticism, which has a long and ancient pedigree. (The book called Revelation in the New Testament is a famous example of ancient apocalyptic literature.)
People these days tend to think of apocalyptic literature as being a form of pure, imaginative, apologetic "revelation," but when you look at the material closely, it's an expression of an underlying faith in the laws that govern the universe. Although many of us no longer agree with this good-versus-evil paradigm to explain the laws of cause and effect in the universe, nonetheless, to the apocalyptic visionary's eyes, it's all about the relationship of God to natural science -- and getting ready for "the big day" when God finally invokes all those nifty "final effect" clauses.
Hope this helps. P.S. In case you couldn't tell, I do academic research in this area and have a degree in theological studies.
Jen
Thanks, benbenberi and Jen! I'm going to have to look into all of that. I don't have to name the society yet in the first story, although I'd like to hint at it.
I'm a tiny bit familiar with Gnosticism (my friend once gave me a copy of "The Nag Hammadi Library").
I should clarify that my deities are not purely evil. They are opposed to three other deities and simply have no regard for humans. It's closer to cosmic indifferentism.
I'm a tiny bit familiar with Gnosticism (my friend once gave me a copy of "The Nag Hammadi Library").
I should clarify that my deities are not purely evil. They are opposed to three other deities and simply have no regard for humans. It's closer to cosmic indifferentism.
OK, having only skimmed the preceding posts, I risk coming out of left field, but .... it seems that science (which is a hell of a broad term encompassing the study of both the natural and physical world), would have only recently come into a fundamental conflict with god/theism. That happened with the introduction of our modern theory of evolution. Up until natural selection theory (first postulated by Darwin and Alfred Wallace in 1858), it had been widely accepted that God not only created the world, but all the known species on the planet. Natural selection inherently contradicted that. Yet even that didn't create a huge fuss in the Church of England at the time. It became an incendiary theory upon publication of Darwin's book on the Descent of Man (1870?), which argued that natural selection applied to humans (a fact he'd deliberately omitted in The Origin of Species).
So I believe this is truly only a recent conflict. The cute part, however, is that the co-discoverer of natural selection theory, Wallace, later became an adherent of spiritualism. As such, he reconciled evolutionary theory with the existence of an afterlife by embracing the concept of "intelligent design."
Intelligent design may or may not be what you're after -- some see it as the balance or co-existence of science (i.e., evolution) and theology. However, to me, it's more of a half-way house between the two.
So I believe this is truly only a recent conflict. The cute part, however, is that the co-discoverer of natural selection theory, Wallace, later became an adherent of spiritualism. As such, he reconciled evolutionary theory with the existence of an afterlife by embracing the concept of "intelligent design."
Intelligent design may or may not be what you're after -- some see it as the balance or co-existence of science (i.e., evolution) and theology. However, to me, it's more of a half-way house between the two.
Why does there need to be a specific religion on this? I'm Christain and I believe that God is the ultimate scientist. He's a law-giver and a law-abider. The laws of the universe--down to the quantum level--have to be abided by but--like a magician--he can set the stage, adjust the lighting, and perform the miracle he wishes to perform without ignoring the laws of psychics and other such things. He controls the universe, but that doesn't mean he breaks laws.
I don't think you need a specific religion that teaches this. As the author you can have your characters thinks this or a minister teach it in his church.
As far as defeating demons, I always thought black-holes would be interesting prison cells for demons. Sorry to burst any bubbles, but a religious group can't defeat demons. Demons are spirit beings; they can't be harmed by humans. You would have to fight the demons with another spirit entity--or--in Christianity, the purpose of the Great Tribulation is for evil to destroy evil. So you could have two demon factions fighting each other, but as far as humans are concerned--even with science--I don't know how you could destroy a spirit. the Spirit is given to individuals by God; to try and take someone's eternal spirit away would still be murder methinks.
I don't know; your idea doesn't sound very plausible. You said it was in a modern-day setting, right? In a fictionalized setting, perhaps you could get away with more and then create your own 'religion' for the story.
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I'm not using a religion. I'm using a secular secret society that has access to rare texts that give a much different history of the universe and the deities within it.
But I do want to choose a historical figure - whether Christian or otherwise - to name the society after.
They can if they're attacking in a physical form.
The society will have three young women in their employ that are granted powers from three (relatively) benevolent deities to combat the rest. They're the main defense/offense. It's just that the society also wants to use its other members to combat some of the "small fry" with some kind of weaponry.
They're not seeking to destroy the spirits, simply disembody them and prevent them from possessing any living creatures, so the three "good" deities can imprison them properly.