Theology and the scientific imagination is a pioneering work of intellectual history that transformed our understanding of the relationship between Christian theology and the development of science. Distinguished scholar Amos Funkenstein explores the metaphysical foundations of modern science and shows how, by the 1600s, theological and scientific thinking had become almost one. Major figures like Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, and others developed an unprecedented secular theology whose debt to medieval and scholastic though shaped the trajectory of the scientific revolution. The book ends with Funkstein's influential analysis of the seventeenth century's "unprecedented fusion" of scientific and religious language. Featuring a new foreword, Theology and the Scientific imagination is a path breaking and classic work that remains a fundamental resource for historians and philosophers of science.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• FOREWORD
• I. INTRODUCTION
  • A. A Secular Theology
  • B. The Themes
  • C. A Differential History
  • D. Ideas and Ideals of Science
• II. GOD'S OMNIPRESENCE, GOD'S BODY, AND FOUR IDEALS OF SCIENCE
  • A. The Body of God
  • B. The Original Setting of the Ideals
  • C. A Short History of God's Corporeality and Presence
  • D. Late Medieval Nominalism and Renaissance Philosophy
  • E. Descartes and More
  • F. Hobbes, Spinoza, and Malebranche
  • G. Newton
  • H. Leibniz
• III. DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE AND LAWS OF NATURE
  • A. Omnipotence and Nature
  • B. Potentia Dei Absoluta et Ordinata
  • C. Ideal Experiments and the Laws of Motion
  • D. Descartes, Eternal Truths, and Divine Omnipotence
  • E. Newton and Leibniz
• IV. DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND THE COURSE OF HISTORY
  • A. The Invisible Hand and the Concept of History
  • B. "Scripture Speaks the Language of Man": The Exegetical Principle of Accommodation
  • C. Accommodation and the Divine Law
  • D. Accommodation and the Course of Universal History
  • E. History, Counter-History, and Secularization
  • F. Vico's Secularized Providence and His "New Science"
• V. DIVINE AND HUMAN KNOWLEDGE: KNOWING BY DOING
  • A. A New Ideal of Knowing
  • B. Construction and Metabasis, Mathematization and Mechanization
  • C. The Construction of Nature and the Construction of Society
• VI. CONCLUSION: FROM SECULAR THEOLOGY TO THE ENLIGHTENMENT
  • A. Kant and the De-Theologization of Science
  • B. Enlightenment and Education
  • C. Theology and Science
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX