Special providence and sixteenth-century astronomical observation: Some preliminary reflections

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 4, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 99-113

  Methuen, Charlotte ^a  

^a RUHR UNIVERSITY BOCHUM   (Germany)

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EID: 84856349555     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157338299X00247     Document Type: Review

References (47)

1. For a brief but differentiated discussion of this theme, see J. H. Brooke, "Science and Theology in the Enlightenment," in ed. W. M. Richardson and W. J. Wildman, Religion and Science: History, Method, Dialogue (New York/London, 1996), 7-27.
2. As discussed in Ch. Methuen, Kepler' Tübingen: Stimulus to a Theological Mathematics (Aldershot, 1998), 107-58.
3. These questions were raised obliquely in my doctoral thesis (Edinburgh, 1995), now published as Methuen, Kepler's Tübingen. However, further thought and discussion, together with access to new sources has led me to refine some of the assumptions and arguments which are presented there.
4. A.N. Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (New York, 1925), 19
5. cited by Th. Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution. Planetary Astronomy in the Development of Modern Thought (Cambridge MA, 1957), 122
6. and compare also R. Wallace, "Translator's Preface," in H. Blumenberg, The Genesis of the Copernican World (Cambridge MA, 1987), xi.
7. J.H. Brooke, Science and Religion. Some Historical Perspecttves (Cambridge 1991), 4.
8. For a discussion of this distinction and its implications in the work of seventeenth-century scientists, see Brooke, Science and Religion, 117-51.
9. R. Bernhardt, "Evangellum der Schöpfung." Eine Rekonstruktion der Lehre von der Vorsehung Gottes (Gütersloh, 1999)
10. and compare also R. French and A. Cunningham, Before Sciencee The Invention of the Friars Natural Philosophy (Aldershot, 1996). especially 185-97.
11. Indeed, God gives things "natures and powers with which to act" Th. Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiless lib. III, cap. 71;
12. see also French and Cunningham, Before Sciencee 191-2.
13. Th. Aquinas, Summa Theologica, lib. I, quaest. 103, and lib. I quaest 105, art. 6.
14. I have not found the terms used earlier. Later, in seventeenth-century Lutheran orthodoxy, the distinction comes to be that between providentia ordinata and providentia specialis. See Bernhardt, "Evangellum der Schöpfung". The distinction between general providence and special providence is different from that between the potentia Dei absoluta and the potentia Dei ordinata, although Aquinas relates the two. The latter distinction is concerned with the arbitrary nature of the order of this universe, with the sort of order God might have chosen to created, had he created not this world with its order but some other in its stead, and with the status of the order in such potential universes. However, Funkenstein has demonstrated that the terms potentia Dei absoluta and potentia Dei ordinata do not describe anything so simple as the world which God chose to create as opposed to that which God might have chosen to create, and although later medieval thinkers laid more emphasis on order of the world as it was created, "even those thinkers who stressed the perfection and order of our world believed that the choice of God to actualize this order was unaccountable and arbitrary" (See Amos Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventtenth Century (Princeton 1986), 124-52, quote on p. 151). Discussions of the relationship between the potentia Dei absoluta and potentia Dei ordinata were popular in scholastic theology but were regarded as specious by most Protestant theologians, who preferred to restrict their discussion to the world as they encountered it.
15. J. Andreae, Christliche/notwendige vnd ernstliche Erinnerung/Nach dem Lauff der irdischen Planeten gestell/Darauβ ein jeder einfeltiger Christ zusehen/was für glück oder unglüch/Teutschland diser zeit zugewarten. Auβ der vermanung Christi Luc 21 in fünff Predigen verfasset (Tübingen, 1567), Preface, Aa2r-Eeiir.
16. A more detailed consideration of these aspects of Andreae's theology is offered in Methuen, Kepler's Tübingen, 125-128.
17. M. Hafenreffer, Loci theologici (Tübingen, 1600), especially 2-3.
18. This aspect of Hafenreffer's theology is considered in Methuen, Kepler's Tübingen, 116-17 and 151-2.
19. M. Hafenreffer, Disputatio de providentia Dei (Tübingen, 1602).
20. Hafenreffer, Loci theologicic 17;
21. cf. Hafenreffer, De providentiel Dei, 5r.
22. J. Heerbrand, Compendium theologiae (Leipzig, 1594)
23. but cf. also his sermon on the comet of 1577-8, Ein Predig von dem erschrockenlichen Wunderzeichen am Himel/dem newen Cometen/oder Pfawenschwantz (Tübingen, 1577)
24. and his Disputatio de Magia ex cap. 7. Exo. (Tübingen, 1570).
25. Heerbrandss theology is discussed in J. Hübner, Die Theologie Johannes Keplers zwischen Orthodoxie und Naturwissenschaft (Tübingen, 1975).
26. Cf. also Methuen, Kepler's Tübingen, 110-13, 137-52.
27. Heerbrand, Compendium theologiae, 176-8.
28. Heerbrand, Ein Predig von dem erschrockenlichen Wunderzeichen am Himel, 1-8.
29. Ph. Melanchthon, Initia doctrinae physicae, in Corpus Reformatorum (hereafter CR), ed. C. G. Bretschneider (Halle, 1834-1860), 13: 203.
30. Ph. Melanchthon, "In arithmeticen praefatio," CR 11:288.
31. Melanchthonss use of astronomy and of anatomy has be discussed in detail by S. Kusukawa, The Transformation of Natural Philosophy: The Case of Philip Melanchthon (Cambridge, 1995);
32. for his astronomy, cf. also Methuen, Kepler's Tübingen, 61-106.
33. For God as mens, see D. Belluci, "Gott als mens. Die 'physica aliqua definitio' Gottes bei Philipp Melanchthon," in Melanchthon und die Naturwissenschaften seiner Zeit, eds. G. Frank and S. Rhein (Sigmaringen, 1998), 59-71.
34. For the human ability to recognise the divine mind, see D. Belluci, Science de la Nature et Réformation. La physique au service de la Réforme dans l'enseignement de Philippe Mélanchthon (Rome, 1998), especially 321-480.
35. Cf. also G. Frank, Die theologische Philosophie Philipp Melanchthons (1497-1560) (Leipzig, 1995), 102-11.
36. Frank, Theologische Philosophie, 286.
37. Methuen, Kepler's Tübingen, 85-88.
38. For these aspects of the role of sixteenth-century astronomers, see Chr. Schöner, Mathematik und Astronomie an der Universiläl Ingolstadt im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert (Ludovico Maximilianea. Universität Ingolstadt-Landshu-München Forschungen und Quellen 13; Berlin, 1994), especially 96-103
39. and R.S. Westman, "The Astronomer's Role in the sixteenth century: a preliminary study, History of Science 18 (1980), 105-147.
40. These astronomess conducted a correspondenee with Ulrich, Duke of Württemberg, which I have discussed in greater detail in "'This comet or new star': theology and the interpretation of the nova of 1572," Perspectives on Science 5 (1997), 499-515. The correspondence can be found in the Hauptstaatsarchiv, Stuttgart [HStAS], A 274 Bü 21.
41. Apian and Maestlin put the phenomenon in the sphere of the fixed stars, although Apian inclines to the view that it is a comett secunda. Peucer and Wilhelm, who refer to the phenomenon as a stella nova, in fact place it in the sphere of Venus. For a discussion of their terminology, see Methuen, "'This comet or new star'."
42. M. Maestlin, "Demonstratio astronomica loci stellae novae," in Consideratio nouae stellae, quae mense Nouembri, anno salutis MDLXXII⋯ apparuit, ed. N. Frischlin (Tübingen, 1573), 27-32, here 28-29.
43. Apian to Ludwig, December 26, 1572, fol. 2v-3r; and compare the version published by Tycho Brahe, in Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmaaum, reprinted in Tychonis Brahe Danis Opera Omnia, 3 vols. ed. J. L. E. Dreyer (Copenhagen 1913-16), 3: 159-60.
44. Apian to Ludwig, December 26, 1572, fol. 1v-2v; cf. Brahe, Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmatum, 3: 158-9.
45. M. Maestlin, Observatio et demonstratio cometae aetherae qui anno 1577 et 1578 constitutus in sphaera Veneris apparuit (Tubingen, 1578).
46. This endeavour is described in some detail by R. S. Westman, "Johannes Kepler's Adoption of the Copernican Hypothesis (PhD, University of Michigan, 1971), 39-66.
47. This range of reactions is typical for the observers of phenomena which are problematic within an accepted scientific system. See, for instance Th. Kuhn, Structures of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, 1970), 52-91.