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Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of Nature: The Re-Enchantment of the World in the Age of Scientific Reasoning analyses the works of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) on natural philosophy in a series of contexts within which they may best be explored and understood. Its aim is to place Edwards's writings on natural philosophy in the broad historical, theological and scientific context of a wide variety of religious responses to the rise of modern science in the early modern period - John Donne's reaction to the new astronomical philosophy of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, as well as to Francis Bacon's new natural philosophy; Blaise Pascal's response to Descartes' mechanical philosophy; the reactions to Newtonian science and finally Jonathan Edwards's response to the scientific culture and imagination of his time.
List of contents
I. Philosophia ancilla theologiae: Science and Religion in Jonathan Edwards's Thought 1. philosophia ancilla theologiae 2. Edwards's Typological and Emblematic View of the World of Nature 3. The Great Chain of Being 4. The God of Mechanical Philosophers 5. The School of 'Physico-Theology' 6. Edwards and the School of Physico-Theology II. The Rise of Modern Science and the Decline of Theology as the 'Queen of Sciences' 1. Regina Scientiarum - theology as the 'Queen of Sciences' 2. Copernicus - 'Astronomy is written for astronomers' 3. Kepler - The new Physica Coelestis (Celestial Physics) 4. Galileo - The Book of Nature 'is written in the language of mathematics' III. 'All Coherence Gone' - Donne and the 'New Philosophy' of Nature 1. The New scientia naturalis 2. Science, Fears, Doubts and Anxieties 3. John Donne and the 'new Philosophy' a) 'Doubts and Anxieties': Ignatius His Conclave: b) 'All Coherence Gone': The First Anniversarie IV. 'God of Abraham' and 'not of philosophers': Pascal against the Philosophers' Disenchantment of the World 1. 'The Eternal Silence of These Infinite Spaces Frightens Me' 2. Pascal against the 'Philosophers' 3. 'The God of Abraham' and the 'God of Philosophers' 4. The Theatre of Nature: Natura naturata and natura naturans V. Religion and the Newtonian Universe Reactions to Newtonian science by Jonathan Swift, John Edwards, George Berkeley, William Blake, and others VI. Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of Nature: The Re-Enchantment of the World in the Age of Scientific Reasoning 1. The scientific Revolution's Disenchantment of the World 2. Atomic Doctrine 3. The Mechanization of the World of Nature 4. The Laws of Nature 5. God and the World 6. The Nature of the Created Order
About the author
Avihu Zakai is Professor of early modern history and early American history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His fields of interest are Protestant religious history in both Europe and America in the early modern period, from the Protestant Reformation to the Great Awakening in America. In the past he published several books with, among others, Cambridge University Press and Princeton University Press.
