Mosaic Physics and the Search for a Pious Natural Philosophy in the Late Renaissance

In the tense religious climate of the late Renaissance (ca. 1550-1650), traditional charges of impiety directed against Aristotle carried new weight. Many turned to alternative philosophical authorities in the search for a truly pious philosophy. Another, "most pious" solution was to ground natural philosophy on a literal reading of the Bible, especially Genesis. I examine this kind of physics, often called Mosaic, or sacred, or Christian, through the example of Johann Amos Comenius and those whom he praises as predecessors in his attempt to reform physics according to the "divine light" of Scripture. In analyzing the works of these authors, I conclude that what they shared most effectively was an agenda rather than a practice. They defended the single, universal truth of a "Christian philosophy" grounded in biblical literalism against the impious excesses of philosophical naturalism, on the one hand, and against the antiphilosophical attacks of extreme theologians, on the other hand. This peculiar strand of natural philosophy, neither traditional nor "modem," needs to be included in attempts to map the complex dynamics of contemporary debates and self-presentations. THE IDEAL OF A PIOUS PHILOSOPHY The religious objections raised against Aristotelian philosophy at its first entry into the European universities are well known. The condemnations of 1277 were quite ineffective in their attempt to keep Aristotelianism out of university curricula, however. Less well known is the role that religious objections played once again, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in undermining Aristotelianism, this time with considerably more suc* Department of History, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. This research was partially funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. I am grateful to the participants at a conference at the Internationales Forschungszentrum in Vienna in 1996, where this work was first presented, and at the HSS session in San Diego; and to Mordechai Feingold, Anthony Grafton, James Hankins, Howard Louthan, and the anonymous referees for Isis for helpful comments on earlier written versions. Isis, 2000, 91:32-58 ? 2000 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved. 0021-1753/00/9101-0002$02.00