A Universe of Law, or Chance?

[Cain]

This is taken from North's Unholy Spirits - Occultism and New Age Humanism, and I thought had some interesting implications, if taken from an unusual source.  I've cropped various passages for the tl;dr crowd, but it is still going to take a while to read.



The Reformation of the early sixteenth century and the Renaissance of the fifteenth century through the sixteenth century paralleled each other in certain areas, but diverged in two fundamental respects: the attitude toward the Christian religion, and the attitude toward time. This is not the place to go into great detail, but on the whole, we can accurately summarize the differences between the two rival civilizations as the difference between the idea of a world governed by God (a providential universe) and one governed by fate or chance or political power (an impersonal universe).

[Cain: Chance.  Another, nicer term for chaotic, or unpredictable systems]

...

Equally important for subsequent Western history was the fact that the Reformation was based on a linear view of history, while the Renaissance was based on a cyclical view of history. It was the linear view rather than the cyclical view which produced Western science and applied technology. 18 Modern science was the product originally
of a providential, orderly world view, one which affirmed man's place in the universe as a subordinate to God whose task is to subdue the earth by means of biblical law. The hermetic or Renaissance view of man was based on a fusion of magic and power, especially political power. Man would be saved by knowledge, including occult knowledge, and by the application of this knowledge to political affairs. Salvation by knowledge, especially secret or elitist knowledge, is
the ancient heresy of Gnosticism.

[Cain: would a paradigm shift a la Kuhn come more under the heading of a cyclical view of history?  Progress is not linear, it is held back by an old guard of scientists who have ossified their knowledge, and the process of how knowledge is formalized, then broken down by youngster scientists coming in while the old guard die off, could be seen as a cyclical process, despite its unpredictability and changes in advances of knowledge]

Blinded by the dazzling success of Newton in physics and astronomy, a success which was vastly greater than the crude measuring devices of his era could record, men hesitated to inquire into the apparent absurdity of Newtonian science. Why should mathematical reasoning, an abstract mental skill and even art, be found to correspond to the mechanical processes of the observed world? Why should such a mind-matter link exist? As the Nobel-prize winning physicist Eugene Wigner has put it, such a finding is utterly unreasonable.  But the correlation exists.

The Christian knows why the correlation exists. It exists because man is made in the image of God. Man has been assigned the task of exercising dominion over the earth as God's lawful subordinate (Genesis 1:27-28). Because God exhaustively and perfectly understands His creation, men are able analogously (though not perfectly and exhaustively) to understand the creation. The creation is not lawless, for it was created by an orderly Creator who sustains it by
His providential sovereignty. In short, ours is a personal universe. We are persons made in God's image, so we can understand our world. The world was not a product of random events, nor are our minds the product of random evolution. The world was created by God.

Mathematics, too, is God-given, and can be understood and defended only as a product of a Creator God.  Thus, there can be and is a correspondence between the logic of mathematics and the operations of the external world.

[Can: paging Triple Zero and LMNO, Triple Zero and LMNO, please come to the mathematics thread...]

The atheist rejects this explanation. Thus, the correlation between mathematics and the natural world is unexplainable and ultimately unreasonable for him. Nevertheless, without faith in this correlation, modern science becomes impossible.

[Cain: this becomes important later, as you will see]

The ancient Greek philosophers struggled with these dualisms — structure vs. change, law vs chaos, determinism vs. freedom — in terms of the so-called form/matter framework.  The world was understood as the product of eternal conflict: abstract (but real) metaphysical forms partially subduing raw, chaotic matter.  Another variation of this approach had matter imitating form. The ultimate form was understood as monistic in nature, the ultimate One. Out of one came many, that is, diversity. (This is a basic theme of the New Age movement today. It is also the basic theme of Eastern mysticism and ancient pagan occultism. )

As to which had priority, abstract fixed form or fluctuating matter, Greek philosophers differed. How the two were linked together, or how one or the other was not swallowed up by the other, or how it is possible to compare infinite quantities of raw matter or the necessarily infinite number of abstract forms, no one was sure. The inability of classical philosophers to reconcile this fundamental dualism led to the disintegration of classical culture. Eastern mystery
cults spread over the Hellenistic and Roman worlds.

Total impersonal Fate battled with total impersonal Chance for control of the universe. Astrology flourished, was banned, and still flourished; chaos cults were everywhere. Men could no longer make sense out of their world. Christianity replaced classicism's fragmented culture.

But the lure of Greek philosophical speculation – the logic of the hypothetically autonomous human mind — was nearly irresistible to Christian philosophical apologists. They incorporated aspects of Greek wisdom, and therefore Greek dualism, into their defenses of the orthodox faith. The result was intellectual schizophrenia — philosophical
syncretism. Christian philosophers attempted to combine irreconcilable systems: Greek philosophy and biblical revelation.

[Cain: A couple of interesting things here to note.  The Greek conception of the world as conflict, strife, chaos...very in line with our own thinking and very much the opposite of what the writer would like to believe.  The One and the Many = chaos and the multiplying possibilities created by the varying levels of order and disorder within?  I also noted and smiled at the reference to 'chaos cults', that amused me.  I also found the infection of Greek philosophy into Christian thought an interesting concept, if not necessarily related to the main body of this topic.  Like a virus, it infected Christianity and made it intellectually schizophrenic – that is to say, open to multiple interpretation.  How...Discordian o it]

Ockham's system led to this conclusion: the Bible, or theology based on the Bible, cannot challenge the "facts" and speculations of philosophy (and science). Bradwardine's response was that philosophy therefore cannot challenge the truths of theology. The problem for society is this: men appear to be able to live without theology, but they cannot live without logic, meaning an understanding of cause and effect in the world around them. So theology went from the
queen of the sciences to second best. This "treaty" between Ockham and Bradwardine spelled the doom of medieval philosophy. Unless it can be shown that theology does govern both the form (operating principles) of philosophy and the content (details and issues) of philosophy, theology becomes progressively irrelevant.

[Cain: a fine argument for the atheists in the crowd, that I wanted to point out.  You way want to consider using this against Christians on Facebook, for example]

The rationalist's hostility to supernaturalism led, understandably, to a reformulation of the old Greek formimatter dualism. Ockham and the nominalist denied any reality to overarching metaphysical forms. Such forms were understood as simply being linguistic conventions. Reality inheres in the particulars. But there were problems
with this perspective. What about nature itself? What binds nature's actions into a coherent unity? Is nature lawless? Is nature a capricious threat to man, a whirling mass of particulars that strikes out randomly to thwart the plans of men? How can men control nature if they have no access to hypothetical forms that themselves impose structure on matter? Man is a slave to nature unless he can find a means of binding down nature to serve his purposes. Nature stands
as a threat to man's power and therefore man's freedom and autonomy. How, then, can man take dominion over nature in order to regain his freedom and power?

[Cain: clearly someone has a little problem with games of chance, let alone a chaotic Universe.]

David Hume, in the middle of the eighteenth century, provided the classic answer of the skeptic: natural law really does not exist as a force independent of man's 'mind. Natural law is-nothing more than the agreement among men that certain actions follow necessarily from prior actions. Cause-and-effect relationships, in other words, are nothing but conventions. The sensation of pain when I thrust my finger into boiling water may have no relation to that water. I may
experience pain each time, but experience is not the same as rigorous mechanical law. We simply call certain events effects of prior events (the causes).

Nominalism, that is, the denial of the existence of metaphysical forms which order nature, had grown to maturity in
the philosophy of Hume. Whirl once again became king, despite the fact that men naively think that the laws or conventions of their minds relate in some way to a hypothetically lawful universe out there beyond our senses. Law becomes convention. As a result, confidence turns into skepticism.

Men do not norm-ally choose universal skepticism, but Hume's arguments seemed to make it impossible to avoid such a choice. Hume's arguments were useful in refuting dogmatic theology, so his skepticism could be used against eighteenth-century Christianity, but the price paid for this anti-Christian weapon soon proved to be too high.

[Cain: for those 18th century sissies, maybe.  I say its high time we brought Hume back into the spotlight, and worried some people who deserve to worry about things]

Van Til makes it clear that the epistemological dualism of modern philosophy — rationalism vs. irrationalism — is inherent in all forms of autonomous philosophical speculation. From the day that Adam tried to test the word of God concerning his destiny, man has attempted to find some voice of authority other than God. By locating their preferred voice of authority outside of God's revelation, both verbal and natural, men thereby create for themselves a series
of unsolvable intellectual dilemmas. The most important principle of apostate man is therefore the principle of his own -autonomy. Wherever his preferred voice of authority may be located, it is not supposed to violate the principle of human autonomy.

Inescapably, man must have some principle of authority. Van Til's arguments in this regard are vitally important for any consideration of the rules of scientific evidence. We come now to the longest quotation in this book, and by far the most important one. It boils down to this: we need a sovereign authority independent of ourselves in order to know anything truly, since we can never know everything exhaustively. In short, we need the God of the Bible. If we reject
Him, we shall drown in an ocean of "chance" facts. Chance and endless~ moving time will swallow up meaning and law. Eternal randomness will become king of the universe. The Christian asserts, "Better God's eternal plan and ultimate sovereignty than chance ," while the humanist asserts, "Better ultimate randomness and meaninglessness
than the God of the Bible ."

This has been humanism's answer to the God of the Bible since Adam and Eve, and surely since the Greek
philosophers. But as Van Til points out, an acceleration of irrationalism has taken place in Western philosophy, especially since Kant. As "autonomous" man has become more consistent with his own presuppositions, he has become more irrational.

[Cain: oh teh noes!] 

First there is the need for authority that grows out of the existence of the endless multiplicity of factual material. Time rolls its ceaseless course. It pours out upon us an endless stream of facts. And the stream is really endless on the non-Christian basis.

For those who do not believe that all that happens in time happens because of the plan of God, the activity of time is like to that, or rather is identical with that, of Chance. Thus the ocean of facts has no bottom and no shore.

It is this conception of the ultimacy of time and of pure factuality on which modern philosophy, particularly since the days of Kant, has laid such great stress. And it is because of the general recognition of the ultimacy of chance that the rationalism of the sort that Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz represented, is out of date. It has become customary to speak of post- Kantian philosophy as irrationalistic.

It has been said that Kant limited reason so as to make room for faith.  Hence there are those who are willing to grant that man's emotions or his will can get in touch with such aspects of reality as are not accessible to the intellect. The intellect, it is said, is not the only, and in religious matters not even the primary, instrument with which men come into contact with what is ultimate in human experience. There is the world of the moral imperative, of aesthetic appreciation, of the religious a priori as well as the world of science. There is in short the world of 'mystery" into which the prophet
or genius of feeling or of will may lead us.

It is of the greatest import to note that the natural man need not in the least object to the kind of authority that is involved in the idea of irrationalism.  And that chiefly for two reasons. In the first place, the irrationalism of our day is the direct lineal descendant of the rationalism of previous days.

The idea of pure chance has been inherent in every form of non-Christian thought in the past. It is the only logical alternative to the position of C'wistianity, according to which the plan of God is back of all. Both Plato and Aristotle were compelled to make room for it in their maturest thought.  The pure "non-being" of the earliest rationalism of Greece was but the suppressed "otherness" of the final philosophy of Plato, So too the idea of pure factuality or pure chance as ultimate is but the idea of "otherness" made explicit.

Given the non-Christian assumption with respect to man's autonomy, the idea of chance has equal rights with the idea of logic. In the second place, modern irrationalism has not in the least encroached upon the domain of the intellect as the natural man thinks of it. Irrationalism has merely taken possession of that which the intellect, by its own admission,
cannot in any case control. Irrationalism has a secret treaty with rationalism by which the former cedes to the latter so much of its territory as the latter can at any given time find the forces to control. Kant?s realm of the noumenal has, as it were, agreed to yield so much of its area to the phenomenal, as the intellect by its newest weapons can manage to keep in control.

Moreover, by the same treaty irrationalism has promised to keep out of its own territory any form of authority that might be objectionable to the autonomous intellect.

The very idea of pure factuality or chance is the best guarantee that no true authority, such as that of God as the Creator and .Judge of men, will ever confront man. If we compare the realm of the phenomenal as it has been ordered by the autonomous intellect to a clearing in a large forest, we may compare the realm of the noumenal to that part of the same forest which has not yet been laid under cultivation by the intellect. The realm of mystery is on this basis simply the realm of that which is not yet known.

[Cain: did you just see that?  A Christian philosopher basically just said that Chaos "is the only logical alternative" to a Christian worldview.  Fuck yeah!  Mad props for us!]

This "secret treaty" between the scientific phenomenal realm and the personalistic noumenal realm has one major purpose: to shove God out of the universe.

[Cain: yeah God, fuck off!]

This treaty is breaking down in our era. The "not yet known" – pure randomness – has today reasserted itself with a vengeance in modern science and philosophy. Heisenberg's scientific principle of indeterminacy in physics is first cousin to psychological and philosophical existentialism. German physicist Werner Heisenberg in 1927 announced an important finding of modern physics, the Uncertainty Principle. 'This principle, which is derivable from wave mechanics, says that, irrespective of technical errors of measurement, it is fundamentally impossible to describe the motion of a particle with unlimited precision. We may specify the position of a particle with increasing precision, but in so doing we introduce uncertainty into its motion, in particular into its momentum. Conversely, we may observe the momentum with increasing precision, but then we introduce uncertainties into its position.  This observation about the
limits of observation in the world of subatomic physics led to another disconcerting discovery: the light wave which enables the scientist to observe phenomena itself upsets the observation (or makes observation impossible) at the level of subatomic physics. The positions between electrons are far smaller than the smallest light wave, so the light serves as a kind of blanket which covers up what is going on. If smaller gamma rays could ever be employed in a "microscope ," these would strike the electrons and "kick" them, thereby changing their momentum. In short, the observer interferes with the observed. "A quantitative analysis of this argument shows that beyond any instrumental errors there is, as stated by the uncertainty principle, a residual uncertainty in these observations."

....

The random event in nature, by way of quantum mechanics, is presently intruding into every nook and cranny of man's formerly trustworthy Newtonian universe. The physicists have begun to teach their fellow physical scientists of the wonders of the irrational.  And with indeterminacy has come relativism and the loss of faith in wholly objective, totally neutral scientific observation.  The rational clearing in the irrational forest, once thought to be almost entirely devoid of trees —just a few unexplained (but unquestionably somehow explainable in principle) chance facts — has been found to be covered with a thick underbrush of the scientifically unexplained and the innately unexplainable. The underbrush of the unexplained is now so tall in places that it threatens to cover up rationalism's clearing. Worse: this underbrush, unlike the more conventional trees, keeps breaking rationalism's sharpest tools. Nothing can cut this underbrush away. It has gotten completely out of hand.

[LMNO]

Gimme some time, this is gonna take a while.

[Cain]

No worries, I know the feeling.

[e]

Some interesting stuff in here, and like you said in the other forum, while he makes no secret of his affiliations, he seems to (at least most of the time) be pretty "logical" and "reasonable".

Couple things that get my goat, so to speak:

The atheist rejects this explanation. Thus, the correlation between mathematics and the natural world is unexplainable and ultimately unreasonable for him. Nevertheless, without faith in this correlation, modern science becomes impossible.

This, particularly, is gibberish.  What North means here is "The correlation between mathematics and the natural world is unexplainable and ultimately unreasonable FOR ME, thus it is also that way for anybody else who has an opposite view on religion because my view on religion says it is true anyway!"  Gibber Gibber Gibber.

I'm willing to bet that many prominent mathematicians would also take issue with this, and say "But of course it's related!  The only reason anything works is because of mathematics!"

I also must take issue with his main premise, which is that it has to be one or the other.  I think my favourite take on the "predetermination or free will" debate is the idea that everyone has 100% total free will, but that whatever choice they make is already predetermined.  I think this may be Liebniz, but I'm unfortunately fairly certain I got it out of one of the books in Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle.  Big important scholar, me!

Loaded terminology is also fairly prevalent in the spiel, as expected.  Still, at least it doesn't quote the Bible as a source of "Real Science" and "What God Really Did Say That One Time Honest" too much.

In terms of Greek philosophy, I'd say this guy hasn't read very much Plato.  "Ideal Forms" anybody?  And Thomas Aquinas seemed to be able to reconcile the systems pretty well, from what I've been lead to understand.

"Only Logical Alternative to God" statements are also whack.  For a great example, look at Pascal's Wager.  It totally falls apart unless you accept that Christianity is the only "valid" religion. 

For instance, this part of wiki (a finely reputable source I know )

Assumes that the correct god is worshipped

Since there are many religions, especially throughout history, and therefore many alleged gods, it is impossible to determine which to believe in based on the wager. Hence there is a high probability of believing in the wrong god, which could lead to severe punishment if a different god exists and is jealous and vengeful. The philosopher Denis Diderot expressed this opinion when asked about the validity of Pascal's wager, saying "an Imam could reason the same way".[7]

Indeed, if we created a matrix with all the possible gods, we would see that it is pointless to believe in any god that tolerated non-believers, and instead, to maximize ones expected return, one should believe in the most vengeful, jealous god. Failing to believe in a benign god that doesn't punish non-believers carries no penalty, but failing to believe in a jealous god could cause an eternity of hell fire and damnation.

Indeed, for Pascal's Wager to hold any intellectual sway, it logically requires that the majority of people who have ever lived are now in hell.

[Reginald Ret]

I'm willing to bet that many prominent mathematicians would also take issue with this, and say "But of course it's related!  The only reason anything works is because of mathematics!"

And biologists would say "But of course Mankind's theoretical models are related to reality! The only reason we have the ability to create these models is because our brains evolved to be able to create workable models of reality!"


These are the kinds of christians i prefer by the way, they at least will compliment you on a good argument instead of screaming 'grab yer torches and pitchforks!'

[Cain]

Very true.  I like Christian philosophers, generally.  I often disagree, but at least they know something about formal argumentation, mathematics, logic, physics and Greek philosophy.  Jesuits, for example, are often excellent sparring opponents when it comes to such things.

But a question (excuse me if this is stupid, I am not a mathematician), wouldn't Gödel's incompleteness theorems shed doubt on some aspects of mathematics and the natural world claims made by the author?  Because if "any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete", that would kind of fuck things up pretty badly for for the "maths is the language of GOD!" crowd.

Yes?  Or have I misunderstood something?  That's why I was paging LMNO and 000 for that section...

[Triple Zero]

bingo. that's pretty much the reason why i partly abandoned rationality and reductionism/determinism about 7 or 8 years ago.
partly in favour of emotions and social structures (which do not need to be consistent or complete), but also the pseudoscientific (tarot, morphogenetic fields, etc) because the scientific method would be inconsistent or incomplete as well. a sort of temporary suspension of disbelief thing, to admit that "i dont know, and i provably cannot even know". it was quite the mindfuck, as i've said before.

i just read your article up to the bit where it talks about mathematics, i will read the rest another time, but that is quite a compelling argument, actually at least, given that there is a god, it doesn't seem like a very unreasonable explanation.

this, combined with Regret's remark about biology reminds me of something i read in Fooled by Randomness: "our minds are not evolved for truth--they are evolved for fitness", which is a very scary idea if you really think about it.

[LMNO]

Yeah, as far as I can see it, the closest we can get is, "This is our best current model, which is incomplete".

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I would argue that we can't even say "This is the best model" since we could only know if it were "the best" by comparing it to the thing being modeled. It seems to me that, at best, we can say "This model appears useful to me, therefore I will use it"... or perhaps we can even say "These models all appear useful to me, sometimes, therefore I will use them."

Here I find, in my opinion, a fatal flaw in worldviews that eschew all but one model, Christianity, Islam, Atheism... each make the argument "My Model is SO TRUE, that I can make broad statements about the Universe".

Here we sit, slightly advanced monkeys, with brains, neurological systems and sensors evolved (we suppose) for survival on a rather small, unimpressive rock orbiting a small star in a small chunk of a galaxy, and we think that either A) The one guy that created this giant massive expanse, has a particular fondness for these bits of flotsam on this tiny planet (though he hasn't bothered to stop by in 2000 years), or B) that we have experienced enough of the Universe and had enough deep thoughts that we KNOW there is no guy that created all of this.

Both positions seem utterly ludicrous. The former is based on ancient writings that we probably misunderstand (since communication isn't exactly the forte' of our species), the latter is based on hubris (which appears to be one of our species specialties).

[Cain]

Well that's why Hume and Nietzsche (and Godel, presumably) kick ass.  They took skepticism so far, they went and broke the whole damn Universe.

But srsly, reverse-engineering this guy's arguments is going to give us a wealth of philosophical material to work with.

[LMNO]

I would argue that we can't even say "This is the best model" since we could only know if it were "the best" by comparing it to the thing being modeled. It seems to me that, at best, we can say "This model appears useful to me, therefore I will use it"... or perhaps we can even say "These models all appear useful to me, sometimes, therefore I will use them."

Hence the word "current"; that is, the model i'm using right now, for the reasons I'm using it, subject to change pending new information/reasons.

[BootyBay]

But a question (excuse me if this is stupid, I am not a mathematician), wouldn't Gödel's incompleteness theorems shed doubt on some aspects of mathematics and the natural world claims made by the author?  Because if "any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete"

Damn you!  I wanted smart points for saying that.

bingo. that's pretty much the reason why i partly abandoned rationality and reductionism/determinism about 7 or 8 years ago.

I just recently did the same thing about a year ago.  It's much more satisfying.  (Although, I haven't completely abandoned rationality)

[Golden Applesauce]

Very true.  I like Christian philosophers, generally.  I often disagree, but at least they know something about formal argumentation, mathematics, logic, physics and Greek philosophy.  Jesuits, for example, are often excellent sparring opponents when it comes to such things.

I went to a Jesuit high school, and I can testify to this.  (I'm at a Marianist college now, and the campus ministry people here just aren't up to par.)  There's a wealth of good thought under the umbrella of Christianity, which isn't surprising since just about all European philosophers in the last 1700 years have been some form of Christian, or at least heavily influenced by it.

But a question (excuse me if this is stupid, I am not a mathematician), wouldn't Gödel's incompleteness theorems shed doubt on some aspects of mathematics and the natural world claims made by the author?  Because if "any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete", that would kind of fuck things up pretty badly for for the "maths is the language of GOD!" crowd.

Not really.  Godel just says that a mathematical system can't be consistent (which in math means, "Contains no statements that contradict each other") and complete (which in math means "Contains all true statements") if you also want to be able to prove all the statements involved.

So you can have a system where you can prove all true statements if you don't mind being able to prove statements that are total bullshit OR one which contains only provable statements, none of which are false (and omits some true statements) OR one which contains no false statements and all true statements, but some of which cannot be proven to be true (or some which cannot be proven to be false.)

Outside of mathematics, people are pretty happy with the third option.  It shouldn't bother you that you believe the sun will come up tomorrow but can't prove it.

Also, Godel only proved his theorem for mathematical systems.  Bringing it up in something else. like physics, is like bringing up 'quantum' in myahdeji(pickle)kce.

[Golden Applesauce]

Blinded by the dazzling success of Newton in physics and astronomy, a success which was vastly greater than the crude measuring devices of his era could record, men hesitated to inquire into the apparent absurdity of Newtonian science. Why should mathematical reasoning, an abstract mental skill and even art, be found to correspond to the mechanical processes of the observed world? Why should such a mind-matter link exist? As the Nobel-prize winning physicist Eugene Wigner has put it, such a finding is utterly unreasonable.  But the correlation exists.

....

Mathematics, too, is God-given, and can be understood and defended only as a product of a Creator God.  Thus, there can be and is a correspondence between the logic of mathematics and the operations of the external world.

Or, alternatively, humans came up with systems of reasoning that were useful in explaining and predicting the natural world.  We call them Math and Science.

[Golden Applesauce]

[Cain: A couple of interesting things here to note.  The Greek conception of the world as conflict, strife, chaos...very in line with our own thinking and very much the opposite of what the writer would like to believe.  The One and the Many = chaos and the multiplying possibilities created by the varying levels of order and disorder within?  I also noted and smiled at the reference to 'chaos cults', that amused me.  I also found the infection of Greek philosophy into Christian thought an interesting concept, if not necessarily related to the main body of this topic.  Like a virus, it infected Christianity and made it intellectually schizophrenic – that is to say, open to multiple interpretation.  How...Discordian of it]

IMO this is one of the big problems with Christianity.  Because it was the dominant (and eventually only permissible) school of thought in Europe, nearly every other school of thought that arose justified its existence on the basis that it was Christian too.  Case in point: the early Christians weren't advocates of violence, which is very understandable ... it's easy to be anti-war when the Roman army is kicking you around.  Then they converted the Roman empire, and found themselves in possession of a standing army.  So armies and warfare became a part of Christianity too, along with reverence of the state and patriarchy and stuff.  You also see this in areas like South America and Africa, where Christianity was spread primarily to practitioners of indigenous religions.  They didn't throw out all of their rituals and spirits, just added them to Christianity.