Abstract
His Anglican theology shaped Francis Bacon’s new plan for science. Thrown out of Eden, he believed, Adam had lost all knowledge, even of morals and nature. Out of divine mercy, Adam’s progeny were offered biblical knowledge on conducting and saving ourselves (the Pentateuch), with universal love as our guide (the Gospel.) God did not instruct us how to acquire natural knowledge to regain our lost dominion over things but generously gave us the means to know it. We must find out for ourselves. Francis Bacon thought that the gift of many kinds of errors (Idols or Eidola) allows us to break through appearances to access hidden realities through a new elenchus. His elenchus was the cross-examination of nature. Moreover, Anglicanism allowed for this kind of free thought about nature, unlike the other orthodoxies. Though nominally Protestant, it restricted its teaching to the goal of salvation, laying no claim beyond it to discoveries of nature. Francis Bacon suggested that we pursue knowledge not for itself (which was Adam’s sin) but for the sake of Christian charity, to acquire new powers over nature and harness them to relieve human distress. But we could study nature skeptically only if prudently we kept our method away from faith, which was held safe by its confinement within the Church. Religion was confined to salvation, and skepticism was free to roam in all matters that were not divine.
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Notes
- 1.
Peter Harrison has made excellent arguments from time to time about the theological background of modern science. For instance, his (2023) is a general summary of his opinions on this subject. While there may be differences in matters of detail in this chapter, particularly concerning the interpretation of Anglican thought in Francis Bacon’s time, there remains a major difference of reading of modern science. In this chapter, modern science is interpreted as fully secular, and as pagan as Plato’s philosophy. Theology is no doubt still important to study to understand the emancipation of modern science. We need to study the theological background of modern science to discern how it escaped being submissive to theological orthodoxy, as it has.
- 2.
When or Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1818) calls Francis Bacon “the British Plato” or Harvey Wheeler (2001) notes Plalto’s influence, they are right to see the connection. But it is also important to note that while Plato’s skepticism is adopted fully, his doctrines are accepted only in a very modified form.
- 3.
Dana Jalobeanu (2019) has put together many of Francis Bacon’s scattered remarks on the ancient skeptics and shows that his comments reflect the influence of Michel de Montaigne.
- 4.
Francis Bacon has been assigned by historians to a mysterious and well-hidden “maker’s knowledge tradition” (Pérez-Ramos 1988; Henry 2002), in which a maker is thought to have complete knowledge of the nature of the product made. If there is such a tradition, it would seem that he did not belong to it. Fructiferous experiments, which craftspeople can use make things, are not described as enlightening enough to substitute for the luciferous experiments needed in science.
- 5.
Brian Baigrie asked in 1998 why boxes and bins of manuscripts in late seventeenth century science were marked “Observations and Experiments” and never just one or the other. It is in Francis Bacon’s method that the answer is to be found. His new method is a skeptical combination of the two methods of ancient origin.
References
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Hattiangadi, J. (2024). Freedom by Confinement. In: Francis Bacon’s Skeptical Recipes for New Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52585-8_5
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