Natural Law And Divine Miracle

During the 19th century, much of the modern scientific enterprise took shape: scientific disciplines were formed, institutions and communities were founded and unprecedented applications to and interactions with other aspects of society and culture occurred. taught us about this exciting time and identify issues that remain unexamined or require reconsideration. They treat scientific disciplines - biology, physics, chemistry, the earth sciences, mathematics and the social sciences - in their specific intellectual and sociocultural contexts as well as the broader topics of science and medicine; science and religion; scientific institutions and communities; and science, technology and industry. From Natural Philosophy to the Sciences should be valuable for historians of science, but also of great interest to scholars of all aspects of 19th-century life and culture.

Preliminary Material /H. Van der loos -- I. A Miracles as religious phenomena /H. Van der loos -- II. Miracles and science /H. Van der loos -- III. Miracles and medicine /H. Van der loos -- I. Type and style of the miracle stories in the gospels /H. Van der loos -- II. Magical and miraculous practices of the jews in Jesus' day /H. Van der loos -- III. The miracles of Jesus in the oldest testimonies /H. Van der loos -- IV. Jewish opinions on Jesus' miracles /H. Van der loos -- I. Jesus' miraculous power /H. Van der loos -- II. Function and significance of miracles in Jesus' activities /H. Van der loos -- III. Relations involved in the miracles of Jesus /H. Van der loos -- IV. Jesus' activities as healer /H. Van der loos -- V. Jesus' methods of treatment /H. Van der loos -- I. The healing of the possessed /H. Van der loos -- II. The healing of the blind /H. Van der loos -- III. The healing of the paralytics /H. Van der loos -- IV. The healing of the lepers /H. Van der loos -- V. The healing of a man with dropsy /H. Van der loos -- VI. The healing of the woman with the issue of blood /H. Van der loos -- VII. The healing of the woman bowed together /H. Van der loos -- VIII. The healing of the deaf man with a speech defect /H. Van der loos -- IX. The healing of the centurion's servant at capernaum and of the Nobleman's son /H. Van der loos -- X. The healing of Peter's mother-in-law /H. Van der loos -- XI. The healing Of Malchus' ear /H. Van der loos -- XII. The resurrection of the dead /H. Van der loos -- XIII. The Miracle At the wedding at cana /H. Van der loos -- XIV. The miraculous feeding /H. Van der loos -- XV. The stilling of the storm /H. Van der loos -- XVI. Jesus' walking on the water /H. Van der loos -- XVII. The miraculous catches of fish /H. Van der loos -- XVIII. The account of the stater /H. Van der loos -- XIX. The cursing of the fig tree /H. Van der loos -- Bibliography /H. Van der loos -- Text index /H. Van der loos -- Index of authors' names /H. Van der loos.

STORIES FROM THE BIBLE

In this major re-evaluation of Isaac Newton's intellectual life, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs shows how his pioneering work in mathematics, physics, and cosmology was intertwined with his study of alchemy. Directing attention to the religious ambience of the alchemical enterprise of early modern Europe, Dobbs argues that Newton understood alchemy - and the divine activity in micromatter to which it spoke - to be a much needed corrective to the overly mechanized system of Descartes. The same religious basis underlay the rest of his work. To Newton it seemed possible to obtain partial truths from many different approaches to knowledge, be it textual work aimed at the interpretation of prophecy, the study of ancient theology and philosophy, creative mathematics, or experiments with prisms, pendulums, vegetating minerals, light, or electricity. Newton's work was a constant attempt to bring these partial truths together, with the larger goal of restoring true natural philosophy and true religion.

Philosophers who wish to argue for the rationality of belief in God frequently employ a 'god-of-the-gaps' strategy. This strategy consists in trying to find a phenomenon that cannot be explained by natural science, and insisting that it can be explained only by reference to the activity of God. Philosophical discussion of miracles usually revolves around the attempt to link a miracle to God in just this way. One of the problems with this approach is that it is very difficult to identify anything as being forever beyond the power of science to explain. Science continues to advance upon the territory occupied by the god of the gaps. Thus it is desirable to develop an account of divine agency that will not be subject to revision in the face of scientific progress. This book is just such an account. Drawing on recent work in the theory of action, it shows that we can attribute God's agency to an event in nature without eliminating the possibility that it might be explained scientifically. In bringing God's actions out of the gaps, we avoid the possibility that future discoveries in science will make our talk of divine agency obsolete.