Physico-theology

This first book-length study of physico-theology questions the widespread notion of a steadily advancing early modern separation of religion and science.

Beginning around 1650, the emergence of a number of new scientific concepts, methods, and instruments challenged existing syntheses of science and religion. Physico-theology, which embraced the values of personal, empirical observation, was an international movement of the early Enlightenment that focused on the new science to make arguments about divine creation and providence. By reconciling the new science with Christianity across many denominations, physico-theology played a crucial role in diffusing new scientific ideas, assumptions, and interest in the study of nature to a broad public. In this book, sixteen leading scholars contribute a rich array of essays on the terms and scope of the movement, its scientific and religious arguments, and its aesthetic sensibilities.

Contributors: Ann Blair, Simona Boscani Leoni, John Hedley Brooke, Nicolas Brucker, Katherine Calloway, Kathleen Crowther, Brendan Dooley, Peter Harrison, Barbara Hunfeld, Eric Jorink, Scott Mandelbrote, Brian W. Ogilvie, Martine Pécharman, Jonathan Sheehan, Anne-Charlott Trepp, Rienk Vermij, Kaspar von Greyerz

“The essays provide good examples of the role that physico-theology played in the development of the sciences with which it was in conversation.”

—Thokozani Kamwendo, University of Durham, H-Net Reviews
This volume presents the subject with excellent variety, yet editorially holds together well, serving as an introduction to the intellectual phenomenon of physico-theology.
—Jason M. Rampelt, University of Cambridge, Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith
Physico-theology: Religion and Science in Europe, 1650-1750 , therefore, is a helpful and horizon-widening collection, which successfully adds something to an already rich, abundant, well-studied period in the history of science and religion.
—Nick Spencer, Science and Christian Belief

Ann Blair is the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at Harvard University. She is the author of Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. Kaspar von Greyerz is professor emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Basel. He is the author of Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800.

Beginning around 1650, the emergence of a number of new scientific concepts, methods, and instruments'including Copernicanism, the mechanical philosophy, and the microscope'challenged existing syntheses of science and religion. Physico-theology, which embraced the values of personal, empirical observation, was an international movement of the early Enlightenment that focused on the new science to make arguments about divine creation and providence. By reconciling the new science with Christianity across many denominations, physico-theology played a crucial role in diffusing new scientific ideas, assumptions, and interest in the study of nature to a broad public. This book examines physico-theology as a distinctive strand within the long and versatile tradition of natural theology. Sixteen leading scholars in the field of science and religion contribute a rich array of analyses of the terms and scope of the movement, its scientific and religious arguments, and its aesthetic sensibilities. Surveying multiple national and linguistic contexts of early modern Europe, the book examines how the movement grew out of decisive works by British authors, including Walter Charleton, Robert Boyle, John Ray, William Derham, and William Whiston. It traces physico-theology to the Netherlands, Germanic lands, France, and Italy by considering the works of Bernard Nieuwentijt, Willem Goeree, J. A. Fabricius, J. J. Scheuchzer, No

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