Natural Theology in the Scientific Revolution: God's Scientists PDF
Preview Natural Theology in the Scientific Revolution: God's Scientists
Pickering Studies in Philosophy of Religion Natural Theology in the Scientific Revolution Katherine Calloway NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION: GOD’S SCIENTISTS Pickering Studies in Philosophy of Religion Series Editor: Russell Re Manning Titles in this Series Ineff ability and Religious Experience Guy Bennett-Hunter Forthcoming Titles Hegel, Love and Forgiveness: Positive Recognition in German Idealism Liz Disley Eighteenth-Century Dissent and Cambridge Platonism Louise Hickman www.pickeringchatto.com/por NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION: GOD’S SCIENTISTS by Katherine Calloway PICKERING & CHATTO 2014 Published by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited 21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH 2252 Ridge Road, Brookfi eld, Vermont 05036-9704, USA www.pickeringchatto.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior permission of the publisher. © Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Ltd 2014 © Katherine Calloway 2014 To the best of the Publisher’s knowledge every eff ort has been made to contact relevant copyright holders and to clear any relevant copyright issues. Any omissions that come to their attention will be remedied in future editions. british library cataloguing in publication data Calloway, Katherine, author. Natural theology in the scientifi c revolution: God’s scientists. – (Pickering stud- ies in philosophy of religion) 1. Natural theology – History of doctrines – 17th century. 2. Th eology, Doctri- nal – History – 17th century. 3. Natural theology – Early works to 1800. I. Title II. Series 210.9’032-dc23 ISBN-13: 9781848934641 e: 9781781440865 ∞ Th is publication is printed on acid-free paper that conforms to the American National Standard for the Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Typeset by Pickering & Chatto (Publishers) Limited Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by CPI Books CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii List of Figures and Tables ix Introduction 1 1 Rational Th eology: Henry More’s An Antidote against Atheism (1653) 29 2 ‘Prudent Charity’: Richard Baxter’s Th e Reasons of the Christian Religion (1667) 49 3 A Settled Mind? John Wilkins’s Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion (1675) 71 4 God’s Naturalist: John Ray’s Th e Wisdom of God (1691) 95 5 God’s Philologist: Richard Bentley’s Th e Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism (1692) 117 Conclusion 139 Notes 151 Works Cited 189 Index 199 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Th is book began as a PhD thesis written at the University of British Columbia, and I remain grateful to my supervisory committee there, without whom it could never have taken its present form. Nicholas Hudson and Mark Vessey made avail- able their impressive store of knowledge of the history of science and theology and read the manuscript with great care, smoothing out rough places and off ering constructive criticism where necessary. And my supervisor, Dennis Danielson, has been a steady guide from fi rst to last, initially pointing me towards the most helpful resources and lines of inquiry and remaining present to off er guidance long aft er his offi cial responsibilities ceased. Th is project is greatly indebted to him, both directly and indirectly as I have looked to his example of rigorous, faithful historical scholarship. I owe many other people thanks for Natural Th eology’s progress from thesis to book. I am grateful, fi rst, for the vision of the editors at Pickering & Chatto, who have recognized with this series the importance of an understanding of history to discussions of philosophy of religion. Philip Good in particular fi rst contacted me and worked to bring the book in line with the series’ aims, and Russell Re Manning and Sophie Rudland have seen that process through, and the book is much better for the focus and clarity they have brought to it. During these revisions, a number of learned people read and commented on the manu- script, in whole or in part, and I am tremendously grateful to them: John Hedley Brooke, Steven Fallon, Leni Robinson (who fi rst suggested the topic) and David Parry. Moreover, when the project required a breadth of philosophical and theo- logical knowledge that reached beyond my disciplinary training, several readers off ered vital insights from those disciplines, including J. I. Packer, Elmer H. Duncan, Todd Buras, Sandra Visser, Lesley-Anne Dyer and Simon Burton. I am grateful to all of them for their responses and suggestions as the book took shape. Finally, in both conceiving and writing Natural Th eology, I profi ted from years of lively conversation with two practitioners of scientia in particular: my father, Terry Calloway, and my husband, Shinjiro Sueda, both of whom have always had eyes and ears for my humanistic preoccupations. Remembering those conversations, I dedica te this book to my parents, and to Shin. – vii – LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Figure 3.1: From Wilkins’s Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion 82 Table I.1: Natural Th eologies of the Scientifi c Revolution 21 – ix –
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