Mankind
Quarterly, Vol. 44, Nos. 3 & 4 (Spring-Summer 2004)
pp.
329-338
Wyrd, Causality, and
Providence. A Speculative Essay.
Ian McNish [Full
Text, pdf]
The arrival of Middle Eastern monotheism
in Europe replaced a prior proto-scientific belief
in causality with the teleological concept of Divine
Providence, or the Will of God. Ancient Greek philosophy
was supplanted by a demand that men should stop seeking
to understand the nature of the causal forces at work
around them, and accept these simply as the work of
an all-powerful monotheistic God. A new, organized
priestly class demanded that men must accept the "revealed"
word of their God without question. The academy founded
by Plato was ordered closed, and as Bertha Phillpotts
first showed us, even among the Germanic nations the
concept of Wyrd, which postulated an all-pervasive
causal force, was replaced by the concept of Divine
intervention or Providence. Europe entered the Dark
Ages, and remained there until the rediscovery of
the empirical character of the pagan classical scholarship
made possible the Renaissance and the rise of modern
science.
