English Puritanism and the Transformation of Philosophy, c. 1640–1690
This thesis explores how English puritan theologians received, challenged, and shaped the great philosophical transformation of their day: the decline of scholastic Aristotelianism and its eclipse by mechanical natural philosophy. It begins with two scene-setting chapters, assessing the state of philosophy vis-à-vis English Reformed theology in c. 1640, before pursuing detailed studies of the puritan reception of the new philosophy in the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Since many of the figures treated in these chapters—theologian and scientist alike—transplanted to London after the Restoration, the final chapter then considers the second round of the debate in the capital, as (newly) nonconformist Reformed theologians explored with renewed vigour the claims and implications of the mechanical philosophy. Pace many historical theologians, the thesis argues that seventeenth-century Reformed theology—which defined puritan thought and practice—was inextricably indebted to an Aristotelian-scholastic framework, thus predisposing puritan divines towards rejecting the new philosophy. But, paradoxically, this helps us reclaim the role puritan theologians played in popularising the new philosophy: for it was precisely because of this marriage between Aristotelianism and Calvinist dogmatics that the many puritan divines who looked upon the new philosophy favourably—usually, though not exclusively, due to a sense of eschatological optimism—ended up rejecting the tenets of strict Reformed doctrine in the 1650s. This contribution of puritanism to early science has been neglected by intellectual historians, whose taxonomical assumptions rest on the ecclesial landscape of the 1660s. By challenging this, the thesis contributes to the older debate about the relationship between puritanism and early science. Those who remained within the puritan fold faced a choice. If they adopted a ‘harmonist’ approach to the use of philosophy in theology, they had to continue to defend Aristotelian tenets, even while attempting to combine these with elements of the new learning. The alternative was to advocate a ‘separationist’ stance, divorcing philosophy from theology: but, given the importance of Aristotelian ideas to Reformed confessional theology, that led to the ‘positivisation’ of the philosophical elements of Reformed dogma. Two further elements of the argument arise here. Firstly, the importance of a priori stances towards the question of philosophy’s relationship to theology is emphasised, and the power of the new philosophy to shape them. Secondly, the thesis connects these stances with ecclesiological positions: presbyterians almost ubiquitously advocated a harmonist approach, while congregationalists championed separationism. The reception of the new philosophy is thus linked to the defining question in seventeenth-century political thought: what the Church is, and how it ought to relate to the state.
Puritanism, New Philosophy, Natural Philosophy, Reformed Theology
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