Tracing the evidence of design: Natural theology through an unpublished manuscript by William Stanley Jevons.

This paper takes its cue from an unpublished manuscript by the Victorian polymath William Stanley Jevons (1835-1882). I elucidate how he attempted to integrate science and religion through natural theology. I argue that Jevons's manuscript shows that he took the theory of probability to be the most appropriate tool for finding evidence of divine design in natural phenomena. Jevons thus took part in the nineteenth-century natural theology debate, specifically between William Whewell and Charles Babbage. This debate was about both how to interpret the analogy between natural and human contrivances, and about the tools which should be used in natural theology. After introducing the manuscript, I present Jevons's religious ideas about Unitarianism and the relationship between chance and design in his writings. I show Jevons's commitment to natural theology and his idea that humans, due to their finite intellect, should use the theory of probability to investigate divine providence. I then compare Jevons's position to Whewell's and Babbage's Bridgewater Treatises. I show how they had different conceptions of natural theology compared to Jevons, and different ideas about the tools that should be used to investigate natural laws.

The making of John Tyndall's Darwinian Revolution.

One of the most influential imagined histories of science of the nineteenth century was John Tyndall's Belfast Address of 1874. In that address, Tyndall presented a sweeping history of science that focused on the attempt to understand the material nature of life. While the address has garnered attention for its discussion of the conflict at the centre of this history, namely between science and theology, less has been said about how Tyndall's history culminated with a discussion of the evolutionary researches of Charles Darwin. Tyndall presented Darwin as a revolutionary scientific practitioner, whose virtues of patience, self-denial, and observation led him to his epochal theory of evolution and thus justified the extension of science into realms previously under the purview of theology. Tyndall was criticized at the time for his 'vulgar admiration' of a man of science who was still very much alive, and who could not possibly live up to such 'fulsome adulation'. What such critics failed to realize, however, is that Tyndall had historicized the living Darwin within the context of his own philosophy of history that he cultivated years before, a philosophy that integrated the moral lives of heroic individuals within a progressive history of science itself.

Cross and Crucible: Alchemy in the Theology of Paracelsus.

Paracelsus was not only a reformer of medicine with a preference for medical alchemy, but also emerged as a radical church reformer. However, he only rarely used the imagery of alchemy as a parable for theological salvation. Fire as the driving force for every alchemical process was also suitable as an image for the purification of souls. A central idea of alchemy, to transfer a substance from its still impure original state into the purified final state, was very much in line with Paracelsus's doctrine of the Last Supper, according to which the mortal human who had descended from Adam is to be brought to a new birth through baptism with the Holy Spirit. As an alchemist, Paracelsus was keenly interested in the transfiguration of Christ, which he first explained alchemically, but later magically, probably according to the model of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola.

[Was Gregor Mendel subjected to chores before becoming a monk in 1843?] / Gregor Mendel fut-il soumis à la corvée avant de devenir moine en 1843 ?

Our knowledge of the young Mendel's life prior to his admission to the monastery comes essentially from the curriculum vitae submitted in 1850. His first biographer Hugo Iltis used this document as a sort of autobiography, although the document contained various voluntary omissions and inaccuracies. We have sought the reasons for these and in so doing have discovered why Mendel's entry into religion had become ineluctable.

TITLE: Gregor Mendel fut-il soumis à la corvée avant de devenir moine en 1843 ? ABSTRACT: Après avoir suivi brillamment deux ans de cours préparatoires à la formation universitaire qui devait le mener au professorat, Gregor Mendel entre subitement dans un monastère augustin en 1843. A-t-il renoncé à son projet professoral pour devenir prêtre ou a-t-il seulement repoussé ce projet ? Afin de déterminer les raisons de son comportement, nous étudions dans cet article ses années de formation secondaire, en complétant et en corrigeant les données d'un curriculum vitae rédigé par lui-même en avril 1850, pour le joindre à une demande d'habilitation à l'enseignement secondaire.

You shall bury him: burial, suicide and the development of Catholic law and theology.

Whether physician-assisted dying should be legalised is a major debate in medical ethics and much has been written on it from both secular and religious perspectives. Less, however, has been written on one of the potential consequences of legalised physician-assisted death: whether those who undergo this procedure will be given funerals by religious groups who oppose the practice. This article investigates the Catholic Church's attitude to the burial of suicides, and how Catholic canon law has approached the question of ecclesiastic funerals for suicides throughout its history. From the sixth through the late 20th century, the Church technically did not bury anyone who willfully committed suicide. Broad shifts in the cultural attitude towards suicide, due in large part to new understandings of mental illness as disease, had a powerful effect on Catholic thought and practice in modernity, and the Church eventually dropped the ban on funerals for suicides from its law code altogether in the 1980s. The legalisation of physician-assisted death, however, raises again the possibility of a prohibition on funerals. The Church was able to drop its restrictions on funerals since suicide was seen as an act beyond the control of the deceased and thus worthy of mercy and compassion. In cases of physician-assisted dying, the patient must have consciously and willingly agreed to the procedure, undermining this understanding of suicide. The history of canon law on suicide funerals reveals the complexity of the Catholic attitude towards suicide and provides an important context to the current debate around physician-assisted death, and conflicts between medicine and religion more broadly.

Charles Bell (1774-1842) and Natural Theology.

Sir Charles Bell, a 19th century surgeon, anatomist and artist, was heavily influenced by the religious practice of Natural Theology, a belief which implied that the world is created by an Intelligent Designer. In the 18th century, William Paley, later Rector of Bishop Wearmouth, wrote the seminal book about Natural Theology. Charles Bell who practised in London and Edinburgh used his artistic skills to underline his teaching of anatomy and surgery. Later, Bell wrote one of the eight Bridgewater Treatises on the Hand. Bell went on to illustrate the final edition of Paley's Natural Theology in which he demonstrated that proof of Design were to be found in the animal frame, reflecting his earlier work on art and human structure. It is concluded that Charles Bell and William Paley's ideals were in harmony with each other, holding the same belief about Creation. This paper argues that Bell's understanding and devotion to Natural Theology allowed him to accurately explain function, realism and expression in the human body, all revealing the direct influence of the Divine Creator.

Aristotle vs Galen: Medieval Reception of Ancient Embryology - Medieval Medicine and the 13th Century Controversy over Plurality/Unicity of Substantial Form.

In their embryology, Aristotle and Galen greatly disagreed on the role of human derived materials like menstrual blood and vaginal secretion (called by them female sperm or semen). This gap made those two ancients also disagree on their understanding of mother's role in the generation of the human body in her womb. During the Middle Ages, especially during the thirteenth century, the scholastics drew on those two ancient thoughts for some rational underpinnings of their philosophical and theological doctrines. However, the manners of adoption and assimilation were varied. For example, Albert the Great strived to reconcile the two in the image of Avicenna, one of the main and the most important sources of Galenist medicine in the thirteenth Century. By contrast, those scholastics who played an important role in the controversy over plurality/unicity of the substantial form, drew on their disagreements. For example, pluralists like Bonaventure, William of la Mare, and Duns Scotus appealed to Galenist medical perspective to underpin their positions and paved ways to decorate Virgin Mary's motherhood and her active contribution to the Virgin birth and to the manhood of her Holy Son. in contrast a unicist like Thomas Aquinas advanced his theory in line with Aristotelian model that Mary's role in her Son's birth and manhood was passive and material. Giles, another unicist, while repudiating Galenist embryology with the support of Averroes's medical work called Colliget, alluded to some theologically crucial impieties with which might be associated some pluralists' Mariology based on the Roman physician's model. In this processus historiae, we can see not only the intertwining of medieval medicine, philosophy, and theology, but some critical moments where medicine provided, side by side with philosophy, natural settings and explanations for religious marvels or miracles such as the Virgin birth, the motherhood of Mary, the manhood of Christ, etc. Likewise, we can observe two medieval maxims coincide and resonate: "philosophia ancilla theologiae" and "philosophia et medicina duae sorores sunt."

An interdisciplinary study around the reliquary of the late cardinal Jacques de Vitry.

The reliquary of Jacques de Vitry, a prominent clergyman and theologian in the early 13th century, has experienced several transfers over the last centuries, which seriously question the attribution of the remains to the late Cardinal. Uncertainty about the year of his birth poses an additional question regarding his age at death in 1240. The reliquary, located in the Saint Marie d'Oigines church, Belgium, was reopened in 2015 for an interdisciplinary study around his relics as well as the Treasure of Oignies, a remarkable cultural heritage notably built from Jacques de Vitry's donation. Anthropological, isotopic and genetic analyses were performed independently on the remains found in the reliquary. Results of the analyses provided evidence that the likelihood that these remains are those of Jacques de Vitry is very high: the remains belong to the same human male individual and the historical tradition about his age is confirmed. In addition, a separate relic (left tibia) was analysed and found to match with the remains of the reliquary (right tibia). The unique Jacques de Vitry's mitre, made of parchment, was sampled non-destructively and the extracted parchment collagen was analysed by a proteomic method in order to determine the animal species. The results showed that, surprisingly, not all parts of the mitre were made from the same species. All together, these findings are expected to fertilize knowledge carried by historical tradition around the relics of Jacques de Vitry and his related cultural heritage.

Melchior Inchofer, Giordano Bruno, and the soul of the world.

Following Galileo's trial of 1633, the Jesuit theologian Melchior Inchofer, author of the most negative reports used by the Roman Inquisition against Galileo, repudiated the Copernicans for the 'heresy' of the soul of the world (anima mundi), in an unpublished manuscript. I show that Inchofer's arguments applied far more to the beliefs of Giordano Bruno than to those of Galileo. Since antiquity, various Christian authorities had repudiated several beliefs about the anima mundi as 'heretical', hence I review their critiques against Pythagoras, Origen, and Peter Abelard, for allegedly asserting animistic beliefs about the Earth, or a universal spirit, or that souls move the heavenly bodies. Still, in the Renaissance such beliefs were defended by several advocates of Copernicus, including Bruno, William Gilbert, Johannes Kepler, and Philips Lansbergen, who all claimed that Earth moves because it has a soul. By comparing Inchofer's works and some of the Roman Inquisition's earlier censures against Bruno, I argue that the repudiation by many prominent Catholic theologians of pagan notions of the anima mundi as heretical contributed partly to the later theological opposition to the Copernicans.

Ventricular localization in late antiquity: The philosophical and theological roots of an enduring model of brain function.

Ventricular localization, or cell theory, is first attested in Christian texts of the fourth and fifth centuries CE. It remained dominant in learned medicine until the seventeenth century. Contrary to common representation, the earliest theorists of ventricular localization were not trying to displace the faculties of the rational soul from the substance of the brain to the empty spaces and spirit within. Rather, they considered the substance and structure of the brain vital to the operations of the soul. Late antique accounts of ventricular localization envision the ventricles as "instruments" of the soul. These instruments are best imagined through the ancient figure of the lyre, as hollow structures that resonate with the passage of air and the movement of strings, or nerves.

Mental disorders in commentaries by the late medieval theologians Richard of Middleton, John Duns Scotus, William Ockham and Gabriel Biel on Peter Lombard's Sentences.

In their commentaries on the Sentences, Richard of Middleton, John Duns Scotus, William Ockham and Gabriel Biel reflect whether mentally-disturbed people can receive the sacraments (Baptism, Eucharist, confession, marriage) and fulfil juridical actions (make a will or take an oath). They consider that the main problem in 'madmen' in relation to the sacraments and legal actions is their lack of the use of reason. Scotus and Ockham especially are interested in the causes of mental disorders and the phenomena which happen in madmen's minds and bodies. In considering mental disorders mostly as naturally caused psycho-physical phenomena, Scotus and Ockham join the rationalistic mental disorder tradition, which was to become dominant in the early modern era and later.

Late medieval philosophical and theological discussions of mental disorders: Witelo, Oresme, Gerson.

No matter from which perspective Witelo, Oresme and Gerson approach mental disorders, they think that madness usually has a bodily, such as a humoral or organic, origin. They do, however, consider divine or demonic causes as possibly being behind immediate causes. According to Witelo and the Parisians, because of a change in the body, madmen's sensory fantasy is disturbed and in this situation their intellect does not act normally, and their will lacks freedom. It is important to realize that, according to the medieval writers, mentally-disordered people have not lost any parts of their soul or their basic potencies. If this were the case, they would not be human beings by definition.

Taha Jabir Al-'Alwani: A Study of His Views on Ethics of Disagreement in Islam.

This paper is an attempt to provide its readers/listeners the views of Taha Jabir Al-'Alwani on Ethics of Disagreement in Islam. Taha Jabir Al-'Alwani is one of the renowned scholars and reformists of the contemporary Muslim world. He presented in terms of views on the ethics of disagreement in Islam, an explanation of the etiquette envisioned by Islam for all those engaged in discourse and intellectual dialogue, and he also exposes a higher number of principles and purposes of the Shariah which provide Muslims with perspectives far vaster than those afforded by pedantic debate over points of law and procedure or fine distinctions between conflicting theological arguments. Above all, he analyzes that what today is going in the world is totally a contrast trend to the teachings of Qur'an and Sunnah. After stressing the paramount duty of affirming the oneness of Allah (Tawhid), both the Qur'an and the Sunnah stress on one thing above all: the unity of Muslim Ummah.

Biologist Edwin Grant Conklin and the idea of the religious direction of human evolution in the early 1920s.

Edwin Grant Conklin, renowned US embryologist and evolutionary popularizer, publicly advocated a social vision of evolution that intertwined science and modernist Protestant theology in the early 1920s. The moral prestige of professional science in American culture - along with Conklin's own elite scientific status - diverted attention from the frequency with which his work crossed boundaries between natural science, religion and philosophy. Writing for broad audiences, Conklin was one of the most significant of the religious and modernist biological scientists whose rhetoric went well beyond simply claiming that certain kinds of religion were amenable to evolutionary science; he instead incorporated religion itself into evolution's broadest workings. A sampling of Conklin's widely-resonant discourse suggests that there was substantially more to the religion-evolution story in the 1920s US than many creationist-centred narratives of the era imply.

Petrus van Musschenbroek (1692-1761) on the scope of physica ad its place within philosophia / Petrus van Musschenbroek (1692-1761) en el ámbito de la physica y su lugar en la filosofía

As a supplement to John L. Heilbron’s account, I will argue that, although the label ‘experimental physics’ can be rightfully used to describe aspects of Petrus van Musschenbroek’s (1692-1761) work, the latter’s understanding of ‘physica’ is to be situated within a broader framework in which theological, philosophical and teleological considerations continued to play an important role. First, I will draw attention to Musschenbroek’s views on the scope of physica and especially to his conception of a law of nature. It will be shown that by radicalizing certain aspects of Isaac Newton’s methodological ideas van Musschenbroek no longer considered physics as the discipline that uncovered causes from effects, as Newton did, but as the discipline that studies the effects of unknown causes. In addition, I will show that van Musschenbroek endorsed the view that the laws of nature are contingent on God’s free will and that they are knowable due to his goodness. Second, it will be argued that for van Musschenbroek physics, alongside with teleology, had clear physico-theological repercussions. Along the way, van Musschenbroek’s views on the principle of sufficient reason will be discussed for the first time (AU)

Como complemento al relato de John L. Heilbron, argumentaré que aunque la etiqueta ‘física experimental’ se puede usar legítimamente para describir algunos aspectos de la obra de Petrus van Musschenbroek (1692-1761), la comprensión de la ‘physica’ de este último se ha de entender dentro de un marco más amplio en el que las consideraciones teológicas, filosóficas, y teleológicas continuaron desempeñando una función importante. En primer lugar, me centraré en la concepción de van Musschenbroek en el ámbito de la ‘physica’ y en especial en su concepto de una ley de la naturaleza. Se verá que, al radicalizar algunos aspectos de las ideas metodológicas de Isaac Newton, van Musschenbroek ya no se considera la física como la disciplina que descubre las causas de efectos, como hizo Newton, sino como la disciplina que estudia los efectos de causas desconocidas. Además, se verá que van Musschenbroek pensaba que las leyes de la naturaleza están supeditadas a la libre voluntad de Dios y que son cognoscibles debido a la bondad de Dios. En segundo lugar, argumentaré que para van Musschenbroek la física, junto con la teleología, tenía claras repercusiones físico-teológicas. En el camino, por primera vez discutirá su posición en relación con el principio de razón suficiente (AU)

Radical Reformation and Medicine in the Late Renaissance: The Case of the University of Padua.

This paper, which presents first results of a wider book project, will reconstruct the influence of the so-called 'radical wing' of the Reformation, above all Anabaptism, Socinianism, and Antitrinitarism, on the tradition of natural philosophy that had established itself in particular in Veneto through the works of Pietro Pomponazzi, Agostino Nifo, and Giacomo Zabarella. Italian physicians and foreign students at the University of Padua developed theories that anticipated many scientific innovations of the 17th century (especially with regard to blood circulation). Often they were forced into exile, persecuted by the Inquisition and by political authorities of Protestant territories. In my article, I would like to give an overview of the education and European peregrinations of some of these heterodox physicians, in whose work medical, theological, and philosophical theory, religious dissent, conversion, and exile were remarkably entangled. I will focus on their international correspondence networks and on their relationship with political and religious authorities, with diplomats and with physicians from other confessions.

Theological presuppositions of the evolutionary epic: From Robert Chambers to E. O. Wilson.

We can trace the "evolutionary epic" (named by E. O. Wilson, 1978) back to earlier writers, beginning with Robert Chambers (1844). Its basic elements are: fixation on seeing human history as rooted in biology; an aspiration toward telling the whole history of humankind (in its essential features); and insistence on the overall coherence of the projected narrative. The claim to coherence depends on assuming either that the universe possesses an "embedded rationality," or that it is guided by divine purpose. This article proposes the term "idealism" to refer to these two assumptions taken together, for in practice they were closely linked. Nietzsche (1881) was perhaps the first thinker to point out the evolutionary epic's dependence on such an idealism, and he also pointed out that the assumptions of embedded rationality and of divine purpose are closely connected. Darwin's theory of descent with modification (1859) was sharply inconsistent with these assumptions: he was not an "idealist" in the sense indicated here, and not a proponent of the evolutionary epic. Proclaiming his "materialism," Wilson (1978) failed to acknowledge that the epic depends on idealist assumptions; other adherents of the genre (M. Dowd, L. Rue) resurrect (knowingly or not) its theological roots.

Contingency and the order of nature.

Many profess faith in the universal rule of deterministic law. I urge remaining agnostic, putting into nature only what we need to account for what we know to be the case: order where, and to the extent that, we see it. Powers and mechanisms can do that job. Embracing contingency and deriving order from powers and mechanisms reduces three kinds of problems: ontological, theological, and epistemological. Ontologically, there is no puzzle about why models from various branches of natural and social science, daily life, and engineering serve us in good stead if all that's happening is physics laws playing themselves out. Also, when universal laws are replaced with a power/mechanism ontology, nothing is set irredeemably by the Big Bang or at some hyper-surface in space-time. What happens can depend on how we arrange things to exploit the powers of their parts. That may be put to significant theological advantage. The epistemological problem comes from philosopher of physics, Erhard Scheibe. Given what we take physics to teach about the universality of interaction, there is just one very large object - the entire universe - to be governed by laws of nature. How then do we ever learn those laws?

Escepticismo, teología y ciencia: el caso del movimiento terrestre / Skepticism, theology and science: the case of earth's motion

La tesis de la omnipotencia divina, según la cual Dios puede hacer cualquier cosa que no entrañe contradicción, fue usada por los teólogos bajomedievales como argumento escéptico contra las pretensiones de conocimiento de los físicos. La astronomía, una ciencia matemática, se limitaba a construir modelos de datos respetando los supuestos aceptables por la física que a su vez se debían subordinar a la teología. En el siglo XIV, el teólogo Nicolás de Oresme comparó los argumentos a favor de la rotación terrestre y a favor del giro de los cielos. Siendo un experto matemático y filósofo natural, concluyó la mayor plausibilidad de la primera hipótesis, aunque el escepticismo teológico lo llevó a considerar esas razones insuficientes y a declarar su falsedad por motivos bíblicos. La situación cambió en el siglo XVII. En primer lugar, la Reforma indujo entre los católicos un mayor fundamentalismo; en segundo lugar, los argumentos físicos de Galileo a favor del movimiento terrestre y su refutación del esquema ptolemaico por las fases de Venus hacían insostenible la equidistancia escéptica respecto a ambas posiciones; en tercer lugar, la falta de competencia científica de los actores eclesiásticos llevó a condenar a Galileo y declarar el heliocentrismo falso y formalmente herético (AU)

The Omnipotentia Dei absoluta thesis (any non-contradictory state of fact is possible) was used by theologians as a skeptical argument against any scientific claim unwarranted by biblical exegesis. Mathematical astronomy was bound to build models of data based on physically sound hypothesis acceptable to theology. Fourteenth century theologian Nicolas Oresme weighted the arguments pro Earth and Heavens rotation. Being an expert in mathematics and natural philosophy, concluded the higher plausibility of Earth’s rotation, but skeptical considerations declared those arguments insufficient and the opinion false for scriptural reasons. Seventeenth century setting was much different: Reform induced an increase of catholic fundamentalism, while Galileo’s physical arguments in support of Copernicanism, together with his refutation of Ptolemaic cosmology due to Venus phases, turned the skeptical balance between both systems untenable. Roman theologians being this time ignoramuses in mathematics and physics, condemned Galileo and declared heliocentrism false, physically absurd, and formally heretic (AU)