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{"id":16698,"date":"2014-10-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1548"},"modified":"2014-10-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-14T00:00:00","slug":"revolutionary-curiosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2014\/10\/revolutionary-curiosity\/","title":{"rendered":"Revolutionary Curiosity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

The scientific revolution is often characterized as a revolution in method. In place of speculative, deductive metaphysical science came experimental, empirical science.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Philip Ball (Curiosity<\/a>) argues that behind this was a revolution in mentality, in the questions that could be asked and investigated: \u201cTo the new philosophers, the national world was replete with secrets that they must hunt down diligently with an experimental approach that was closely allied to the tradition of natural magic. This \u2018hunt\u2019 was to be engaged by international, sometimes occult fraternities of virtuoso-scientists, themselves a construct of utopian visions. . . . Underpinning all this was a profound change in the nature of the questions one might ask. Nothing was too mean or trivial to be neglected, for as Boyle said, it was all God\u2019s work and therefore worthy of attention\u201d (4).<\/p>\n

The difference between Tertullian and Hobbes illustrates. Tertullian represented the Christian suspicion of curiosity: \u201cWe want no curious disputation after possessing Jesus Christ\u201d (quoted 11). For Hobbes, curiosity \u201cmotivates \u2018the continuall and indefatigable generation of knowledge.\u2019 It was \u2018a more than ordinary curiosity\u2019 about a particular optical phenomenon that made Isaac Newton determined to discover \u2018from whence it might proceed\u2019 \u2013 to search for the principles behind it. Unlike carnal passion, said Hobbes, curiosity was not expended with \u2018short vehemence\u2019 but was inexhaustible \u2013 as his one-time mentor Francis Bacon said, \u2018of knowledge there is no satiety\u201d (6-7).<\/p>\n

As the Boyle quotation indicates, it wasn\u2019t just skeptics like Hobbes who became defenders of curiosity. From this angle, the scientific revolution is not a combat of religion and science, but a conflict between different \u00a0understandings of the implications of Christian faith for our relation to the natural world: Does faith prohibit us from probing the things God has hidden, or should believers attempt, Solomonlike, to unravel creation\u2019s secrets?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"