Jonathan Edwards’s Philosophy of Nature : The Re-enchantment of the World in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

An analysis of the works of Jonathan Edwards (1703–58) on natural philosophy, this article aims to show the affinities between the content and form of his philosophy of nature and some main features of medieval, scholastic and Renaissance thought: theology as the ‘queen of sciences’ (‘regina scientiarum’), science as ‘handmaiden to theology’ (‘philosophia ancilla theologiae’), the emblematic or typological understanding of world phenomena, and belief in the ‘great chain of being’ (‘scala naturae’). It argues that Edwards's works are inseparable from the school of ‘physico-theology’, the English followers of which set out to prove the being and attributes of God by the order and harmony of nature, and through their worship of the God of nature to show ‘the wisdom of God in creation’ in face of the threats which new modes of scientific thought and reasoning were posing to traditional Christian thought and belief in the early modern period. Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of Nature: The Re-Enchantment of the World in the Age of Scientific Reasoning analyses the works of Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) on natural philosophy in a series of contexts within which they may best be explored and understood. Its aim is to place Edwards's writings on natural philosophy in the broad historical, theological and scientific context of a wide variety of religious responses to the rise of modern science in the early modern period - John Donne's reaction to the new astronomical philosophy of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo, as well as to Francis Bacon's new natural philosophy; Blaise Pascal's response to Descartes'mechanical philosophy; the reactions to Newtonian science and finally Jonathan Edwards's response to the scientific culture and imagination of his time.