IN SEARCH OF TRUE KNOWLEDGE: “DISCUSSIONS ON MIRACLES” IN THE INTELLECTUAL DISCOURSE OF BRITAIN AT THE TURN OF THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
Keywords:
Robert Boyle, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Edward Stillingfleet, soul, reason, natural philosophy, Scientific Revolution of the 17th century, sense, miraclesAbstract
The article focuses on the analysis of the growing dramatic gap between the spiritual and the material in the consciousness of a man in Early Modern Europe, using the example of the practices and mechanisms that led to the formation of rationalistic knowledge in the English intellectual discourse during the Scientific Revolution in the 17th century. The focus is on the discussion between natural philosophers and theologians regarding the Reasonableness of Christianity in the search for true knowledge. The discourse on miracles in this intellectual field became a kind of “litmus test” for checking the truth of the Holy Scripture. The author states that Hobbes, following Descartes and Spinoza, was the first to raise this topic in English intellectual discourse, and Locke provided a detailed argumentation about the “Reasonableness of Christianity”. The author finds that the peak of the discussion on miracles occurred in the second half of the 1690s, and was associated with the response of Anglican theologians such as Edwards and Stillingfleet to natural philosophers. The main argument of the anti-Locke position was based on the idea of miracles as a form of divine revelation. Scientific discoveries were seen in this light as an act of divine providence. The main miscalculation of the new natural philosophy, according to Anglican theologians, was the ignoring of a substance such as the soul, which they placed above reason. As a third and balanced point of view, the article cites the position of the natural philosopher Boyle, based on his work “The Excellence of Theology, compared with Natural Philosophy”. Despite the fact that Locke felt defeated in this intellectual struggle, Hume ensured the victory of the rationalistic point of view on miracles in the 18th century, by completely dismissing them as “fables” and “tales” of ignorant people.References
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