When Science And Christianity Meet


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W S  C M   &                Edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2003 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2003 Paperback edition 2008 Printed in the United States of America 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 isbn-13: isbn-13: isbn-10: isbn-10: 2 3 4 5 6 978-0-226-48214-9 (cloth) 978-0-226-48216-3 (paper) 0-226-48214-6 (cloth) 0-226-48216-2 (paper) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data When science and Christianity meet / edited by David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-226-48214-6 (alk. paper) 1. Religion and science—History. I. Lindberg, David C. II. Numbers, Ronald L. bl245 .b35 2003 261.5'5—dc21 2002155569 o The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, asni z39.48-1992. To Susan E. Abrams, loyal friend, editor par excellence, and indefatigable supporter of scholarship on the history of science.  List of Illustrations  Acknowledgments  Introduction  . The Medieval Church Encounters the Classical Tradition: Saint Augustine, Roger Bacon, and the Handmaiden Metaphor  . Galileo, the Church, and the Cosmos  David C. Lindberg David C. Lindberg . Christianity and the Mechanistic Universe  . Matter, Force, and the Christian Worldview in the Enlightenment  William B. Ashworth Jr. Thomas H. Broman . Noah’s Flood, the Ark, and the Shaping of Early Modern Natural History  . Genesis and Geology Revisited: The Order of Nature and the Nature of Order in Nineteenth-Century Britain  Janet Browne Mott T. Greene . “Men before Adam!”: American Debates over the Unity and Antiquity of Humanity  . Re-placing Darwinism and Christianity  G. Blair Nelson David N. Livingstone . Science, Miracles, and the Prayer-Gauge Debate  . Psychoanalysis and American Christianity, –  Robert Bruce Mullin Jon H. Roberts . The Scopes Trial in History and Legend  . Science without God: Natural Laws and Christian Beliefs  Edward J. Larson Ronald L. Numbers Notes  A Guide to Further Reading  Contributors  Index   .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..  Saint Augustine  The four elements  A medieval scribe  Roger Bacon  A medieval astronomer  Galileo Galilei  Ptolemaic geocentric model  Copernican heliocentric model  Order of the planets (heliocentric system)  Retrograde motion of Mars (heliocentric model)  Stellar parallax (heliocentric model)  Galileo’s sketch of the Moon  Ptolemy’s model for Venus  The geo-heliocentric cosmology of Tycho Brahe  René Descartes  Descartes’s three kinds of matter  Cartesian diagram of the solar system  Pierre Gassendi  Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe  Robert Boyle  Isaac Newton  Hydra  An electrical demonstration  Noah’s Ark  European impression of American opossum  The diluvial waters  The organic origin of fossils  Thomas Burnet’s Sacred Theory of the Earth  Left behind by the Ark  William Buckland  The cav