the bible and the emergence of modern science peter harrison
TRANSCRIPT
The Bible
and the
Emergence of Modern
Science
Peter Harrison
The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science
Allegory and the ‘Two Books’
Allegory in Practice
Reforming the Reading of Scripture
Reinterpreting the Book of Nature
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.
Romans 1:20
I think that He who made all things in wisdom so created all the species of visible things upon the earth, that He placed in some of them some teaching and knowledge of things invisible and heavenly, whereby the human mind might mount to spiritual understanding and seek the grounds of things in heaven.
Commentary on the Song of Songs
Origen (c185-c254)
What man of intelligence will believe that the first and the second and third day and the evening and the morning existed without the sun and moon and stars….
One must therefore record the meaning of the sacred writings in a three-fold way….
De Principiis
Origen (c185-c254)
Augustine
(354-430)
Levels of Interpretation
Literal Allegorical
OBJECT
WORD OBJECT OBJECT
OBJECT
Levels of Interpretation
Literal Allegorical
OBJECT
WORD OBJECT OBJECT
OBJECT
‘Book of Scripture’ ‘Book of
Nature’
Literal Allegorical
OBJECT
WORD OBJECT OBJECT
OBJECT
‘The author of Holy Writ is God,
in whose power it is to signify His
meaning, not by words only …
but also by things themselves….
The multiplicity of these senses
does not produce equivocation or
any other kind of multiplicity,
seeing that these senses are not
multiplied because one word
signifies several things, but
because the things signified by
the words can be themselves
types of other things.’
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1a.
1, 10
For the whole sensible world is
like a kind of book written by the
finger of God—that is, created by
divine power—and each particular
creature is somewhat like a
figure, not invented by human
decision, but instituted by the
divine will to manifest the
invisible things of God’s wisdom.
Hugh of St Victor (d.1142)
De tribus diebus
‘The creature of the world
is like a book in which the
creative Trinity is
reflected, represented,
and written’.
Bonaventure,
Breviloquium II.12. Bonaventure
(1217-74)
The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science
Allegory and the ‘Two Books’
Allegory in Practice
Reforming the Reading of Scripture
Reinterpreting the Book of Nature
The Quadriga: Four-fold interpretation
Literal Sense - historical or grammatical meaning
Tropological Sense - the moral application of the narrative
Anagogical Sense - the spiritual or theological meaning
Allegorical Sense - the meaning of the objects referred to by the
literal words
The Quadriga: Four-fold interpretation
Literal Sense - historical or grammatical meaning
Tropological Sense - the moral application of the narrative
Anagogical Sense - the spiritual or theological meaning
Allegorical Sense - the meaning of the objects referred to by the
literal words
Medieval Bestiary
Adoro Te Devote
Pie Pellicane, Jesu Domine,
Me immundum munda Tuo sanguine
Loving Pelican, Oh Jesus Lord
Unclean am I but cleanse me in Thy blood.
Thomas Aquinas
Literal Allegorical
OBJECT
WORD OBJECT OBJECT
OBJECT
Literal Allegorical
OBJECTChrist
WORD OBJECT OBJECT‘Pelican’ Pelican Egypt
OBJECTThe World
The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science
Allegory and the ‘Two Books’
Allegory in Practice
Reforming the Reading of Scripture
Reinterpreting the Book of Nature
‘[The literal sense] is the highest, best, strongest, in short the whole substance, nature and foundation of the holy scripture.’
Luther, Answer to the Hyperchristian Book, Works 39, 177.
Scripture, they say, is fertile and thus bears multiple meanings…
But I deny that its fertility consists in the various meanings which anyone may fasten to it at his pleasure. Let us know, then, that the true meaning of Scripture is the natural and simple one….
John Calvin, Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles.
Book of Scripture Book of
Nature
Literal Allegorical
OBJECT
WORD OBJECT OBJECT
OBJECT
Book of Scripture Book of
Nature
Literal Allegorical
OBJECT
WORD OBJECT OBJECT
OBJECT
?
Glossa ordinaria (Venice, 1484)
‘Scripture without any glosses is the sun and the whole light from which all teachers receive their light, and not vice versa.’
Luther, Answer to a Hyperchristian Book.
The Bible and the Emergence of Modern Science
Allegory and the ‘Two Books’
Allegory in Practice
Reforming the Reading of Scripture
Reinterpreting the Book of Nature
‘[There are] two books 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; whereof the
latter is a key unto the
former.’
Advancement of Learning I.vi.16.
Francis Bacon
(1561-1626)
‘Philosophy is written in this
grand book, the universe,
which stands continually open
to our gaze. But the book
cannot be understood unless
one first learns to comprehend
the language and read the
letters in which it is composed.
It is written in the language of
mathematics, and its
characters are triangles,
circles, and other geometrical
figures without which it is
humanly impossible to
understand a single word of it.’
Galileo Galilei
The Assayer
‘… for as (such is God’s condescension to human weakness) most of the texts, to whose exposition physiology is necessary, may be explicated by the knowledge of the external, or at least more easily observed qualities of the creatures; so, there are divers not to be fully understood without the assistance of more penetrating indagations of the abstrusities of nature, and the more unobvious properties of things, an intelligent and philosophical peruser will readily discern.’
Robert Boyle (1627-1691)
Usefulness of Natural Philosophy
John Ray (1627-1705)
‘[We have] wholly omitted what we find in other authors concerning homonymous and synonymous words, or the divers names of birds, hieroglyphics, emblems, morals, fables, presages, or ought else pertaining to divinity, ethics, grammar, or any sort of humane learning.’
Ray and Willughby, Ornithology (1678)
‘Necessary for all divines and students because the story of every beast is amplified with narrations out of scriptures, fathers, phylosophers, physicians, and poets: wherein are declared divers hyeroglyphicks, emblems, epigrams, and other good histories.
Edward Topsell (1607, 1653).
Do not all charms fly At the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine - Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile madeThe tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.
John Keats (1795-1821)
‘Lamia’
Lamia
from Topsell, Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes (1607)