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How do we resolve conflicts when fundamental sources of knowledge
and belief-such as science and theology-are involved? In God's Two
Books, Kenneth Howell offers a historical analysis of how
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century astronomers and theologians in
Northern Protestant Europe used science and religion to challenge
and support one another. Howell reveals that the cosmological
schemes developed during this era remain monumental solutions to
the enduring problem of how theological interpretation and
empirical investigation interact with one another. "Writing history
requires a constant shedding of our misconceptions about the past,"
says Howell. God's Two Books reshapes our understanding of the
interaction of cosmological thought and biblical interpretation in
the emerging astronomy of the Scientific Revolution by analyzing
new texts and offering interpretations that cast old materials in a
new light. The central argument of this compelling book is that the
use of the Bible in early modern cosmology is considerably more
complex and subtle than has previously been recognized. Drawing on
the writings of Lutheran and Calvinist astronomers, natural
philosophers, and theologians, Howell analyzes several underlying
patterns of interpretation which affected how these historical
figures viewed the mutual interaction of the books of nature and
Scripture. He argues that while they differed on how the
disciplines of astronomy, physics, and theology should relate to
one another, most thinkers shared the common goal of finding and
explaining the true system of the universe. Howell introduces the
notion of a convergent realism to describe Protestant
intellectuals' approach to incorporating empirical and theological
perspectives into a holistic version of the universe. They believed
the sacred page was relevant to cosmology but denied that the Bible
had scientific content. At the same time, these thinkers argued
that the theological truths expressed in the Bible were interwoven
into nature in subtle, yet revealing, ways. Their resulting
interpretations show continuity with Catholic thinkers and discard
oversimplifications such as literal versus figurative hermeneutics
or Copernican versus anti-Copernican cosmologies. Among Howell's
many original contributions in this cogent study is a distinctive
approach to Kepler's exegesis of nature and an introduction to the
debate of many Calvinist thinkers who have previously received
little attention.
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