Saturday, January 18, 2014

"A subjective conception of nature as 'objectively' devoid of God's presence would neatly serve a highly interested view of nature as 'disinterested'".

"the conception of nature that from the seventeenth century increasingly sought to replace the traditional conception of nature as created by a transcendent, loving God" was not "in fact objective, detached, or disinterested. . . ."  Traditional theological "claims impinged on any number of potential human plans about the use of natural things, including one's own body as expressed in one's behavior."  But "The intellectual impasse created by theological controversy provided an opening for ideas about nature based on novel beliefs.  A subjective conception of nature as 'objectively' devoid of God's presence would neatly serve a highly interested view of nature as 'disinterested'even for thinkers who were Christians."

     Brad S. Gregory, The unintended Reformation:  how a religious revolution secularized society (Cambridge and London:  The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012), 56-57.  Gregory fleshes this out historically in the pages that follow.

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