Science and the fortunes of natural theology: Some historical perspectives

Zygon 24 (1):3-22 (1989)
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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

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References found in this work

The Great Chain of Being.Arthur O. Lovejoy - 1936 - Science and Society 1 (2):252-256.
The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence.H. G. Alexander - 1956 - Philosophy 32 (123):365-366.
The analogy of religion.Joseph Butler - 1736 - Wentworth Press.
Selected Philosophical Papers of Robert Boyle.Robert Boyle (ed.) - 1979 - Manchester University Press.

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