THE “SCIENTIFIC

REVOLUTION”

Kepler to Newton

Johannes Kepler (student of

Tycho Brahe & contemporary of

Galileo) promotes a Platonic-

inspired Heliocentric Cosmology.

His laws of planetary motion

form the foundation of Newton’s

science.

Rene Descartes describes

a mechanistic paradigm of

nature very different from

the teleological views of

Aristotle.

Mechanistic science:

• passive, inert matter;

• atoms with only mass,

shape, velocity

• Bodies in space move

through vortexes…

Francis Bacon outlines an

empiricist vision of science

and its benefits to society.

Natural theology as a

unifying force in Protestant

Christianity

Scientific societies established that begin to take leadership

of science from universities. Below: French Royal Academy

of Science established 1666.

The center of scientific

advance shifts from

universities to scientific

academies (e.g. left: Louis

XIV in the Academy of

Science. In England, the

Royal Society of London)

Isaac Newton: Optics & mathematics;

weds observation, experimentation,

mathematics, empirical laws, and

theoretical insights

Principia Mathematica 1687 combines laws of motion, law of

gravity and the calculus to give a unified explanation of

terrestrial and celestial movement.

This becomes the paradigm example of modern science.

The view of nature appears more deistic, though Newton

suggested a need for divine intervention to maintain stability in

the solar system

Newton’s tomb in Westminster

Abbey

• Why should Newton be

enshrined in the Anglican

cathedral?

• Newton refused Anglican

ordination expected of a chair

at Cambridge.

• Secretly not trinitarian; Arian

views; sought hidden

mathematical meanings in

biblical texts

• Preoccupied with alchemy

• Adherent of natural theology

• Anglican church seeking to

show unity of faith and reason

• While Newton is ardently

theistic (though not orthodox),

his view of nature leads some

to 18th century deism,

agnosticism and atheism

Did religion help or hinder the

development of modern science?