Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T17:48:52.694Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Christian Theology and the Newtonian Science: The Rise of the Concept of the Laws of Nature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Francis Oakley
Francis Oakley
Affiliation:
Williams College
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

R. G. Collingwood has suggested that the basic contrast between the Greek view of nature and what he calls the Renaissance view, springs from the difference between their respective analogical approaches to nature. Whereas, he argues, the Greek view of nature as an intelligent organism was based on an analogy between the world of nature and the individual human being, the Renaissance view conceived the world analogically as a machine. Instead of being regarded as capable of ordering its own movements in a rational manner, and, it might be added, according to its immanent laws, the world, to such a view, is devoid both of intelligence and life, the movements which it exhibits are imposed from without, and “their regularity due to 'laws of nature' likewise imposed from without.” Coiling- wood concludes, therefore, that this view presupposed both the human experience of designing and constructing machines, and the Christian idea of a creative and omnipotent God.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 1961 , pp. 433 - 457
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Idea of Nature (Oxford, 1945), pp. 3–9.Google Scholar As Colllngwood himself admits (p. 4), “the name is not a good one, because the word ‘Renaissance’ is applied to an earlier phase in the history of thought… The cosmology I have now to describe… might, perhaps, be more accurately called post- Renaissance.”

2. Ibid., p. 5.

3. Scrutiny of the Oxford English Dietionary s.v. Law reveals two primary current meanings for the expression natural law. It is defined, on the one hand, as that law, prescribed by no enactment or formal compact, which is implanted by nature in the human mind, or is capable of being demonstrated by reason. On the other it is defined as referring, in “the sciences of observation,” to the theoretical principles deduced from particular facts, applicable to defined groups or classes of phenomena, and expressible by the statement that particular phenoniena always occur if certain conditions are present. For purposes of clarity I propose to use the term natural law to refer to the juristic concept, and the term laws of nature to indicate the scientific usage.

4. See Discours de La Méthode, Cinquième Partie.— Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. Jules Simon (Paris, 1841), pp. 26–27.Google Scholar

5. Westfall, Richard S., Science and Religion in Seventeenth Century England (New Haven, 1958), p. 73.Google Scholar

6. “The Genesis of the Concept of Physical Law” The Philosophical Review, LI (1942), pp. 245–79.Google Scholar

7. The L. T. Hobhouse Memorial Trust Lecture No. 20, delivered on 23 May, 1950 at Bedford College, London, and published under the title: Human Law and the Laws of Nature in China and the West (London, 1951)Google Scholar. An expanded version bearing the same title is to be found in the Journal of the History of Ideas, XII (1951), pp. 3 ff.Google Scholar, and 194 ff., and also as Section 18 of Needham, Joseph and Ling, Wang, Science and Civilization in China, II (Cambridge, 1956), pp. 518–583Google Scholar—to which book my references will be given.

8. “The Genesis of the Concept of Physical Law,” pp. 277–279.

9. Science and Civilization, II, p. 542.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., p. 543.

11. Adventures of Ideas (New York, 1937), pp. 142–147.Google Scholar

12. For an interesting attempt to apply the distinction to the juridical sphere see Ginsberg, M., “The Concept of Juridical and Scientific Law,” Palitica, IV, No. 15 (03, 1939), pp. 1 ff.Google Scholar

13. Adventures of Ideas, p. 142.

14. Ibid., p. 144.

15. This pantheistic Stoic view is fundamental to the statements about natural law which are to be found in the Corpus Jutis Civilis—see Inst., I, 2, 11; Dig., I, 1, §, 3; I, 1, 2.

16. Prov. viii, 19.

17. Adventures of Ideas, p. 133.

18. And in so far as it concerns man and is apprehended by his reason, the eternal law is called the natural law —Summa Theologia, Ia 2ae, qu. 94, art. 2 Resp.

19. S.T., Ia 2ae, qu. 91, art. 1 ad tertium.

20. Thus he can argue that God himself “cannot make that which is Instrinsically bad, not be bad.” For “as the essence of things… by which they exist, does not depend on anything else, so also it is with the properties which necessarily follow that essence; and such a property is the evil of certain acts, when compared with the nature of a reasonable being. And therefore God himself allows himself to be judged according to this norm.”—De Jure Bell et Pacis, Bk. I, ch. 1, §X, 5; ed. William Whewell (Cambridge, 1853), p. 12Google Scholar. It should be noted, however, that in his earlier De Jure Praedae, Commentarius— ed. H. G. Hamaker (The Hague, 1868)Google Scholar—he had taken as his point of departure the principle that the divine will is the basis of natural law (see ch. 2, pp. 7–9). This work was written in the winter of 1604–5 but rediscovered only in 1864 and first published in 1868.

21. Idea of Nature, p. 5.

22. Cf. supra, n. 4.

23. He definitely believed, as Whitehead puts it, “that the correlated modes of behaviour of the bodies forming the solar system required God for the imposition of the principles upon which all depended.”—Adventures of Ideas, p. 144. And thus, in his first letter to Bentley, Newton could write that “the motions which the planets now have, could not spring from any nalural cause alone, but were impressed by an intelligent agent.”—Opera quae exstant omnia, ed. Samuel Horsley, IV (London, 1782), p. 431.Google Scholar

24. Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Praefatio; Opera Omnia, II, p. ix.

25. See Principia, Axiomata, Lex I; Opera Omnia, II, p. 13Google Scholar; Principia, Bk. 3, Schol. Gen.; Opera Omnia, III, p. 174.

26. Opera Omnia, IV, p. 263.

27. Opera Omnia, II, pp. xx and xxiii; the translation cited is that of Andrew Motte, revised by Florian Cajori (Berkeley, 1946), pp. xxvii and xxxii.

28. As the Stoics conceived of natural law as immanent in the universe the idea of command could play no part in such a conception.

29. Science and Civilization in China, II, p. 542.

30. ‘Semitic’ rather than ‘Judaic” because as Needham points out (p. 533) the idea was probably of Babylonian origin.

31. A Disquisition about the Final Causes of N˛tural Things. The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. Thomas Birch, V (London, 1772), p. 401.Google Scholar

32. For an example see Mason, S. F., “Science and Religion in 17th Century England,” Past and Present, No. 3 (1953), esp. pp. 28–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33. For a comparison between the views of Aquinas and those of the followers of the voluntarist tradition, and for a discussion of the importance of this tradition in the juridical sphere, see Oakley, Francis, “Medieval Theories of Natural Law: William of Ockham and the Significance of the Voluntarist Tradition,” Natural Law Forum, VI (1961), pp. 65–83.Google Scholar

34. See Gilson, Etienne, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955), pp. 405 ff.Google Scholar

35. This amounted to an abandonment of any attempt to reconcile the Greek conception of a necessarily existing universe, ruled by strict necessity, with the Biblical notion of a freely created world ruled by a free and omnipotent divine will. Arab thinkers had already faced the same problem and had adopted a comparable solution. Al Ash'ari (d. 936) and his followers vindicated the Semitic notion of God by adopting an atomistie view of the world as constituted of disjointed moments of time and points of space, connected together only by the will of God and possessing, therefore, no natural necessity. They held to this position so strictly that they were driven into a thorough-going occasionalism—see Gardet, L. and Anawati, M-M., Introduction à la théoiogie musilmane, Etudes de phil. méd., XXXVII (Paris, 1948), pp. 52–66Google Scholar. This viewpoint was also adopted by early Jewish thinkers—see Renan, Ernest, Averroës et l'averroisme (Paris, 1861), p. 106Google Scholar, and Husik, Isaac, A History of Medieval Jewish Philosophy (New York, 1958), p. xli.Google Scholar

36. S.T., Ia 2ae, qu. 93, art. 1 Resp.

37. See Harris, C. R. S., Duns Scotus, II (Oxford, 1927), pp. 214–217.Google Scholar

38. von Gierke, Otto, Political Theories of the Middle Ages, trans. Maitland, (Cambridge, 1927), p. 173, n. 256.Google Scholar

39. Super Quatuor Libros Sententiarum (Lyons: Jean Trechsel, 1495), II, 5 H.Google Scholar

40. Sent. II, 190.

41. Sent. II, 19 P.

42. Sent. I, dist. xli, qu. 1 K.

43. Opus Nonaginta Dierum (Lyons: Jean Trechsel, 1495)Google Scholar, ch. 95 (no foliation); see esp. § Nota de duplici potentia dei. Cf. Quodlibeta Septem una cum tractatu de sacramento altaris (Strasbourg, 1491)Google Scholar, Quodl. VI, qu. 6; English translation of this question in McKeon, Richard, Selections from Medieval Philosophers, II (New York, 1930), pp. 372–375.Google Scholar

44. Sent. I, that. xli, qu. I K. For a more complete analysis of Ockham's position see Oakley, , “Medieval Theories of Natural Law,“ pp. 68–72.Google Scholar

45. For d'ailly's views see, e.g., Quaestiones super libros Sententiarum (Lyons, 1500), I, qu. 9Google Scholar, art. 2 5, fol. 122 r; and for Gerson, Vereeke, L., “Droit et morale chez Jean Gerson,” Revue historique de droit françois et étranger, XXXII (1954), pp. 413–427.Google Scholar

46. See Kölmel, W., “Von Ockham zu Gabriel Biel: Zur Naturrechtslehre des 14 und 15 Jahrhunderts,” Franziskanische Studien, 37 (1955), pp. 218–259.Google Scholar

47. De Legibus ac Deo Legislatore, Bk.I, ch. 5, 8–9; Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suaree S. J., I (Oxford, 1944), p. 26.Google Scholar

48. D. Martin Luthers Werke, 43 (Weimar, 1912), p. 71Google Scholar—“Vorlesungen über 1 Mose,” ch. 19, 14; cf. also ch. 19, 17 20 and ch. 20, 2.

49. de Lagarde, Georges, Recherches sur l'esprit politique de la Reforme (Douai, 1926), pp. 147–187.Google Scholar

50. McNeil, John T., “Natural Law in the Teaching of the Reformers,” The Journal of Religion, XXVI (1946), pp. 177–178.Google Scholar

51. Institutio Christianae Religionis. Bk. IV, ch. 20, § 16; (Berlin, 1846), p. 486Google Scholar. Cf. the voluaitarism of the Protestant scholastic Zacharius Ursinus (1534–84), Opera Theologia, I (Heidelberg, 1612), p. 483.Google Scholar

52. Bk. II, ch. 6, 20–23; pp. 126–128.

53. Apologia pro Joanne Gersonio (Lyons, 1676), pp. 4–7.Google Scholar

54. De Jure Naturae et Gentium (London, 1672), Bk. II, ch.3§, XX.Google Scholar

55. Leviathan, Part II, chs. 30–31; ed. Michael Oakeshott (Oxford, 1946), pp. 219–235.Google Scholar

56. A Compleat Body of Divinity (Boston, 1726), Qu. XIV, Sermon LIV, p. 188Google Scholar. It should be noted that Willard was less extreme on this matter than were many of his predecessors among the New England divines—cf. Qu. IV, Sermon XXIV, p. 76.

57. Commentaries on the Law of England, Sect. II, 40; (New York, 1830), p. 26.Google Scholar

58. Preston, , Life Eternall or A Treatise of the Knowledge of the Divine Essence and Attributes, 2nd ed. (London, 1631), Part I, p. 143Google Scholar; Ames, , The Marrow of Sacred Divinity (London, 1642), Bk. 2, ch. 3, §14, p. 210Google Scholar; Bk. 1, eh. 5, pp. 44–45; Norton, , The Orthodox Evangelist (London, 1654), ch. 4, pp. 91–95.Google Scholar

59. Sanderson, , De obligatione conscientiae Praelationes Decem (London, 1710), Praelectio Quarta, pp. 97–101Google Scholar. This work was first published in 1660 at the request of Robert Boyle, to whom it is dedicated. Culverwell—An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature (London, 1652), chs. VI and IX, pp. 78, 98–99Google Scholar—professes a modified form of voluntarism.

60. Essays on the Law of Nature, ed. W. van Leyden (Oxford, 1954)Google Scholar, Essays I and VI, pp. 110–113, 187–189; cf. the editor's introduction (pp. 37–43) where he points out the extent to which Locke was influenced by Culverwell and Sanderson. Grew, , Cosmologia Sacra (London, 1701), Bk. 3, ch. 5, § 4, p. 121Google Scholar. Cf. also John Wilkins (1614–1672), also a Fellow of the Royal Society, who is, however, more ambiguous on this point—Of the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion (London, (1675), Bk. II, ch. 9, pp. 395–396.Google Scholar

61. Treatise concerning immutable morality, Bk. I, ch. 3, 1; New York, 1838), p. 18Google Scholar. It is worth noting that Cudworth, along with other Cambridge Platonists who attacked ethical voluntarism, did so in terms of a theory of immanent or quasi-immanent natural law—see Cudworth, , Treatise, Bk. I, ch. 2,§ 2, p. 14Google Scholar; Bk. IV, ch. 6,§ 3, p. 130. Cf. Fowler, Edward (1632-1714), The Principles and Practices of Certain Moderate Divines of the Church of England abusively called Latitudinarians (London, 1671), pp. 12–13Google Scholar, and Tulloch, J., Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century, II (London, 1872), pp 172–173, 435–436Google Scholar, where he discusses the views of George Rust (d. 1670) and John Smith (1618- 1652).

62. Treatise, Bk. I, ch. 1,§ 4, p. 9.

63. Cf. d'entrèves, A. P., Natural Law; An Introduction to Legal Philosophy (London, 1951), p. 11.Google Scholar

64. S.T., Ta 2ae, qu. 91, art. 2 Resp.

65. History of Christian Philosophy, pp. 410, 498. Cf. Quodl. VI, qu. 6; McKeon, II, p. 373; Baudry, L. (ed.), Le Tractatus de Principiis Theologiae attribué à G. d'occam (Paris, 1936), p. 45 and n. 1.Google Scholar

66. Thus God can produce in us intuitions of non-existent objects—Quodl. VI, qu. 6; McKeon, II, pp. 372–380.

67. Baudry, p. 23.

68. See e.g. Miller, Perry, The New England Mind (New York, 1939), pp. 157–158Google Scholar, and Rommen, H. A., “The Natural Law of the Renaissance Period,” University of Notre Dame Natural Law Proceedings (Notre Dame, 1949), pp. 94–95.Google Scholar

69. Sent. III, 12 CCC.

70. Opus Nonaginta Dierum, eh. 95, § Hereticum est dicere omnia de necessitate evenire.

71. See Crombie, A. C., Medieval and Early Modern Science, II (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

72. Ibid., p. 313.

73. Sent. Prol., qu. VII; Sent. II, qu.19 0. Again, discussing the distinction between the absolute and ordained powers of God, Ockam can say: “… est sic intelligenda quod posse aliquid aliquando accipitur secundum leges ordinatas et institutas a Deo, et illa Deus dicitur posse facere do potentia ordinata; aliter…” etc. (Italics mine).—Quodl. VI, qu. 1.

74. De libertate creaturae rationalis, in J. Gerson, Opera Omnia, ed. Ellies du Pin, I (Antwerp, 1706), col. 632Google Scholar; De Trinitate, in Gers., I, col. 619; Quaestiones super I, III et IV Sententiarum (Lyons, 1500)Google Scholar, I, art. 2 JJ, fol. 96r. He also uses the expression by the natural or naturally ordained power in contrast with supernaturally …or by the absolute power—Sent. IV, qu. 1, art. 2 J, fol. 188r.

75. Sent. IV, qu. 1, art. 2 N, foL 188r; Tractatus de Legibus et Sectis, in Gers., I, col. 793.

76. The General Scholium which Newton appended to the second edition of the Principles contains the clearest statement of his physico-theological principles. In it he was careful to affirm, not only that “this most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being,” but also that this Being is to be considered as an omnipotent cosmic sovereign who “governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all”—Opera Orania, III, pp. 171–173.

77. The Darkness of Atheism dispelled by the Light of Nature: a physicotheological Treatise (London, 1652), ch. 4; Sect. 5, pp. 125, 136Google Scholar; cf, Grew, Nehemiah, Cosmologia Sacra, Bk. 4, ch. 5, pp. 194–195.Google Scholar

78. Darkness of Atheism, ch. 10, Sect. 1, p. 329.

79. A Free Inquiry into the Vulgarly received notion of Nature, Works, V, p. 197; On the Excellency and Grounds of the corpuscular or mechanical philosophy, Works, IV, p. 68.

80. The Christian Virtuoso, Works, V, p. 521.

81. A Free Inquiry, Works, V, p. 216.

82. Some considerations about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion, Works, IV, p. 159.

83. Of the High Veneration Man's Intellect owes to God, Works, V, p. 149.

84. Zwingli, Ulrich, Ad iilustrissimum Cattorem Principem Philippum sermonis de providentia dei anamnema (Zurich, 1530), fols. 20r, 63rGoogle Scholar; Melanchthou, Philip, Initia doctrinae physieae, Opera Omnia, ed. Bretsehneider, C. G., XIII (Halls Saxonum, 1846), pp. 206–207Google Scholar. Cf. Ursinus, , Opera Theologiea, I, col. 573.Google Scholar

85. Sacra Theologia (Geneva, 1589), Bk.2, ch. 10, fol. 18r;Google Scholar cf. Perkins, William (1558–1602), An Exposition of the Symbole of the Creed of the Apostles, Workes, I (Cambridge, 1612), p. 160.Google Scholar

86. Ames, Marrow, Bk. 1, ch. 9, p. 40; cf. Mather, Increase, The Doctrine of Divine Providence Opened and Applyed (Boston, 1684), Sermon 2, p. 45Google Scholar; Willard, Samuel, Compleat Body, Qu. XI, Sermon XLVII, p. 146.Google Scholar

87. Willard, , Compleat Body, Qu. IV, Sermon XII, p. 38Google Scholar, Qu. XI, Sermon XLVII, p. 146; Mather, Increase, Doctrine of Divine Providence, Sermon 2, p. 47Google Scholar; cf. Norton, , Orthodox Evangelist, ch. 5, pp. 103–104.Google Scholar

88. Metaphysicarum Disputationum, I (Moguntiae, 1600), Disp. XXII, § 4, pp. 568, 569Google Scholar; II, Disp. XXX, § 17, p. 150; De Legibus, Bk. 2, ch. 2; Selections, I, p. 104.

89. De Legibus, Bk. 1, ch. 1, Bk. 2, ch. 2; Selections, I, pp. 8 and 104; Met. Disp., II, Disp. XXX, § 17, p. 150. Robert Boyle himself came very close to the same position—see The Christian Virtuoso, Works, V, p. 521.

90. Essays on the Law of Nature, Essay I, pp. 108–110; Sanderson, De oblig. consc., Prael. Quarta, p. 101. Locke's editor suggests that the position of Locke as well as that of Culverwell was influenced by that of Suarez (pp. 36–37).

91. “The significance of Medieval Discussionis of Scientific Method for the Scientific Revolution,” in Critical Problems in the History of Science, ed. Marshall Clagett (Madison, 1959), p. 80.Google Scholar

92. Charleton, Darkness of Atheism, fols. a2v, b4v. Scrutiny of the catalogue of Ames's library reveals that he possessed a rich collection of scholastic material ranging from Aquinas to the Spanish scholastics of the sixteenth century, and including among others works of Scotus, Buridan and Gabriel Biel—see Catalogus variorum et insignium librorum clariss. et celeberimi viri D. Guilielmi Amesii (Amsterdam, 1634).Google Scholar

93. Orthodox Evangelist, fols. lv-2r.

94. Immutable Morality, Bk. 1, ch. 1, § 5, p. 11.

95. Although it is unimportant in the present context, it should perhaps be noted that this distinction underwent slight fluctuations in meaning in the course of the three centuries during which it was current.

96. D'ailly, Sent. I, qu. 13, art. 1 D, fol. 159r; Major, In primum Sent., dist. 44, qu. 3.

97. See Leff, Gordon, Bradwardine and the Pelagiang (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 165–254.Google Scholar

98. It is cited explicitly, to my knowledge, by Luther, , Vorlesungen über I Mose, ch. 19, 14–20, ch. 20, 2Google Scholar; Werke, 43, pp. 71–72, 82; the Hubmaier, Anabaptist Balthasar, Das ander Biechlen von der Freywilligkait den menschens (Nicolsburg, 1527)Google Scholar—English translation in Williams, G. H. (ed.), Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers (Philadelphia, 1957), pp. 132–133Google Scholar; Perkins, William, A Godly and learned Exposition, Works, III, pp. 233–234Google Scholar; Suarez, , Met. Disp., II, Disp. XXX, Sectio 17, p. 150Google Scholar; Ames, , Marrow, Bk. 1, ch. 6,§§ 16–20, p. 21Google Scholar; Norton, , Orthodox Evangelist, ch. 1, p. 19Google Scholar, and Willard, , Compleat Body, Q. 4, Sermon 22, p. 70Google Scholar. and it is at least implied in some of the arguments of Melanchthon, , Initia Doctrinae Physicae, Opera Omnia, XIII, p. 207Google Scholar, and Boyle, Robert himself—Some Considerations about the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion, Works, IV, pp. 161–163Google Scholar. Cf. Malebranche's distinction between the ‘general’ and ‘particular’ will of God which is very similar in its import—see Dreyfus, Ginette, La Volonté selon Malebranche (Paris, 1958), pp. 101–109.Google Scholar

99. The New England Mind, pp. 33–34.

100. Ames, , Marrow, Bk. 1, ch. 9, p. 41Google Scholar; Shepard, , The First Principle of the Oracles of God, in Three Valuable Pieces (Boston, 1747), pp. 9–10Google Scholar; Norton, , Orthodox Evangelist, ch. 5, pp. 103–104Google Scholar; Mather, , Doctrine of Divine Providence, Serm. 2, qu. 2, pp. 45–47.Google Scholar

101. Wilkins, , Principles and Duties of Natural Religion, Bk. 1, ch. 7, pp. 85–87Google Scholar; Charleton, , Darkness of Atheism, ch. 4, Sect. 5, pp. 136–137Google Scholar; Boyle, , A Free Inquiry into the Vulgarly received notion of Nature, Works, V, pp. 197–198, 211, 216.Google Scholar

102. A Free Inquiry, Works, V, pp. 163–164.

103. Some Considerations, Works, IV, pp. 161–162 (italics mine).

104. Boyle, , Some physieo-theological considerations about the possibility of the Resurrection, Works, IV, pp. 201–202Google Scholar; A Disquisition about Final Causes, Works, V, pp. 412–414Google Scholar; Luther, , Werke, 43, p. 71Google Scholar; Melanchthon, , Opera Omnia, XIII, p. 207Google Scholar; Suarez, , Met. Disp., I, Disp. XXII, p. 552Google Scholar; Perkins, , An exposition of the Symbole, Works, I, p. 159Google Scholar, A Resolution to the Countreyman, Workes, III, p. 657Google Scholar, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, Workes, III, p. 609Google Scholar; Preston, , Life Eternall, Part I, p. 32, Part II, p. 200Google Scholar; Ames, , Marrow, Bk. 1, ch. 9, p. 40Google Scholar; Shepard, , Three Valuable Pieces, pp. 9–10Google Scholar; Norton, , Orthodox Evangelist, ch. 5, p. 124Google Scholar; Increase Mather, , Doctrine of Divine Providence, Serm. I, pp. 23–24, Serm. II, pp. 53–54Google Scholar; Willard, , Compleat Body, Qu. XI, Serm. XLVI, p. 144.Google Scholar

105. It is perhaps worthy of note that many of these authors also make use of another distinction related to that which they drew between the absolute and ordained powers of God. This distinction concerned the order of salvation and was drawn between what Calvinist theologians usually referred to as the secret will and the revealed will of God, but which the Scholastics called voluntas beneplaciti and voluntas signi. Its history can be traced back as far as the De Sacramentis Christianae Fidei of Hugh of St. Victor (1096–1141)— Bk. I, Part 4, ch. 8 (Patroiogialatina, ed. J-P. Migne, 176 [Paris, 1854], col. 237)Google Scholar, but it consorted very profoundly with the voluntarism of the Ockhamists and became a commonplace of Protestant thought. It was cited, for example, by Hubmaier, — Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, pp. 132–133Google Scholar; Perkins, William, A Treatise of God's free grace, Workes, I, pp. 704–705Google Scholar; Ames, , Marrow, Bk. I, ch. 7. §§ 52–54, pp. 30–31Google Scholar; Norton, John, Orthodox Evangelist, ch. 4, p. 92;Google ScholarHobbes, , The Questions concerning liberty, necessity and chance clearly stated and debated between Dr. Bramhall Bishop of Derry, and Thomas Hobbes of Maimesbury (London, 1656), pp. 10 and 78Google Scholar. It was used, among the members of the Royal Society, not only by the staunchly Calvinist John Wallis—A brief and easie explanation of the Shorter Catechism (London, 1662)Google Scholar, E 4 — but also by Charleton, , Darkness of Atheism, ch. 10, 4, p. 354Google Scholar. Cf. also Sanderson, , De oblig. consc., Prael. quarta, p. 97.Google Scholar

106. Hardly surprising for, according to d'ailly, “just as the divine will is the first efficient cause in the genus of efficient causality, so also is it the first obligating rule or law in the genus of obligating law”—Sent. I, qu. 14, art. 3 Q, fol. 173r.

107. Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science, p. 294.

108. Needham, , Science and Civilization, II, p. 582.Google Scholar

109. Science of Mechanics, trans. T. J. McCormack (London, 1942), pp. 542, 551–552Google Scholar; cf. Taube, Mortimer, Causation, Freedom and Determinism (London, 1936), pp. 108–109.Google Scholar

110. Whitehead, A. N., Science and the Modern World (New York, 1958), p. 14Google Scholar; Collingwood, R. G., Idea of Nature, pp. 3–9Google Scholar; Foster, , “The Christian doctrine of Creation and the rise of Modern Natural Science,” Mind, XLIII (1934), pp. 446–468CrossRefGoogle Scholar, “Christian Theology and Modem Science of Nature,” Mind, XLV (1936), pp. 1–28Google Scholar. Cf. e.g. Mascall, E. L., Christian Theology and Natural Science (London, 1956), pp. 93–100.Google Scholar

111. Mind, XLIII (1934), p. 465.Google Scholar

112. Science and Civilization, II, pp. 578–583.Google Scholar

113. Ibid., p. 543.

114. Ibid., p. 582—Needham adds that “Modern Science and the philosophy of organism, with its integrative levels, have come back to his wisdom, fortified by a new understanding of cosmic, biological and social evolution. Yet who shall say that the Newtonian phase was not an essential one.”

115. As long ago as 1909 Pierre Duhem drew attention to the importance of those condemnations for the history of science —Etudes sur Lénard de Vinci, II (Paris, 1909), pp. 411 ffGoogle Scholar. He did so, however, because he believed that the utterances of the Bishop of Paris on specific points such as the possibility of the existence of a plurality of worlds marked the starting point of the development of modern science, and Alexandre Koyré has convincingly exposed the lack of evidence to support such a belief—“Le vide et l'espace infini au XIVe siècle,” Archives d'hist. doct. et litt. du Moyen Age, 24 (1949), pp. 45–91Google Scholar. But if the condemnations and the theological reaction to which they witnessed were unimportant in the realm of specific scientific discoveries, this was far from being the case in the realm of philosophical assumptions about nature— a point which Koyré apparently failed to perceive.