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Chapter 6 - Theories of the Earth

from Part III - Curtailing the Explanatory Ambitions of Naturalistic Philosophies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 June 2022

Peter N. Jordan
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

This chapter delves into early modern theories about a key scriptural story, that of Noah’s flood, and the theological implications of explaining the flood in a largely naturalistic manner through appeal to laws of nature. Seventeenth-century French philosopher René Descartes used laws of nature as the basis for a naturalistic account of the creation of the world, and others followed suit. This chapter analyses two accounts of the world’s creation and subsequent dissolution in the flood written in England in the closing decades of the seventeenth century that drew on laws of nature: Thomas Burnet’s Sacred Theory of the Earth, and William Whiston’s New Theory of the Earth. Burnet and Whiston each explore how those early events in the earth’s history might be accounted for through natural processes, making their treatises among the earliest explicit attempts in England to explain key scriptural events chiefly in terms of natural causality.

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Chapter
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Naturalism in the Christian Imagination
Providence and Causality in Early Modern England
, pp. 146 - 178
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Theories of the Earth
  • Peter N. Jordan, University of Oxford
  • Book: Naturalism in the Christian Imagination
  • Online publication: 30 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009211970.008
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  • Theories of the Earth
  • Peter N. Jordan, University of Oxford
  • Book: Naturalism in the Christian Imagination
  • Online publication: 30 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009211970.008
Available formats
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Theories of the Earth
  • Peter N. Jordan, University of Oxford
  • Book: Naturalism in the Christian Imagination
  • Online publication: 30 June 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009211970.008
Available formats
×