SCIENCE AND THE FORTUNES OF NATURAL THEOLOGY: SOME HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

URL:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com.proxy.library.cornell.edu:2048/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9744.1989.tb00973.x

Keywords:

Saced; Secular; Nature; Providence

Abstract:

The object is to examine strategies commonly used to heighten a sense of the sacred in nature. It is argued that moves designed to reinforce a concept of Providence have been the very ones to release new opportunities for secular readings. Several case studies reveal this fluidity across a sacred-secular divide. The irony whereby sacred readings of nature would graduate into the secular is also shown to operate in reverse as anti-providentialist strategies invited their own refutation. The analysis is used to support the claim that the sciences have put fewer constraints on religious belief than is generally assumed.

Notes:

M3: doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1989.tb00973.x