Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
two states, one scientific and one religious. It did differentiate these realms,
but the price that Bacon paid to purchase this separation of powers was a
closer identification of the empiricist ideal of
sola natura
with the Protestant
ideal of
sola scriptura.
In a cultural milieu in which exacting scrutiny of the
Bible was regarded as a life and death matter, to assert that science was a
humble recipient of God's revelation was to draw it into an intimate bond
with this religious worldview. Science recognizably gave expression to the
same principle that had brought about this new birth of the faith, and thus
it was not merely made compatible with faith: it was being made an actor
in the Christian drama. Bacon solidifies this idea in his
Val er iu s Ter minu s
by representing Christ himself as a proponent of the second topic. Science
is valued, says Bacon, for two reasons. The first is the traditional medieval
notion that it “leadeth to the greater exaltation of the glory of God,” but
the second is more distinctly Protestant. Reading the topic of God's works
is also “a singular help and preservative against unbelief and error, for saith
our Saviour,”
You err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God
; laying before us
two topics or volumes to study if we will be secured from error; first the
Scriptures revealing the will of God, and then the creatures expressing
his power; for that latter topic will certify us that nothing which the first
teacheth shall be thought impossible.
18
In quoting Christ's reprimand to the Sadducees who doubted those biblical
prophesies relating to the resurrection of the body, Bacon was undoubt-
edly aligning the errors of these Jewish teachers with Catholic corruptions
thought to arise from disregarding Scripture. But by identifying the text of
nature with the
power of God
in this retort, Bacon also had made scientific
knowledge an indispensable actor within the larger narrative of the Bible.
Christ's rebuke implies that knowledge of Scripture was incomplete unless
God's revelations were also made known within nature, and so science was
not a mere additive to the Bible but its necessary fulfillment. The reformed
natural philosopher was a religious actor singularly devoted to God's revela-
tion and thus also to the new epoch of Christian history that Protestants
were ushering in.
To conceptualize the relationship between natural and theological
inquiry in this way was to insinuate that science was entitled to the same
privileges of authority customarily assigned to the clergy. But with all the
prudence one would expect from a career politician who had once served
as Counsel, Extraordinary to Elizabeth I, Bacon is careful to recognize the
