Chapter 6 - The Misunderstood Spider

Summary

This one will explore how natural theology infused the imagination of John Bunyan. Among his imaginative works, Bunyan’s engagement with the book of nature grew between publication of the first part of Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) and the second part (1684) and his Book for Boys and Girls (1686). But Bunyan differed from the physico-theologians in his understanding of nature’s ideal audience and how far nature could bring people toward salvation. Unlike contemporary scientists, Bunyan held that no special training was required to read theological messages in nature; in fact, the book of nature was especially suitable for women and children. To derive any benefit from nature, however, a person needed a conscience already awakened to faith. Bunyan’s treatment of nature differs, on the one hand, from earlier emblem texts in which images were printed in the book—requiring no direct experience of the natural world—and, on the other, from physico-theology, which increasingly required an expert’s understanding of that world.