Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science

Mathieson, Stuart

doi:10.4324/9781003014263

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Henslow was an Anglican curate, the archetypal parson naturalist, and might therefore have expected that the Victoria Institute would be particularly amenable to his views. However, Henslow's paper drew a particularly strong response from the assembled members and he, like Warington and Gladstone, instead turned his efforts to the Christian Evidence Society, a moderate body for Christian apologetics (Johnson 1981; Mathieson 2021, 58–59, 62).…”

Section: Early Points Of Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE, BIBLICAL CRITICISM, ANDTHE FUNDAMENTALS

Mathieson¹

2021

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The Victoria Institute was established in London in 1865. Although billed as an anti‐evolutionary organization, and stridently anti‐Darwinian in its rhetoric, it spent relatively little time debating the theory of natural selection. Instead, it served as a haven for a specific set of intellectual commitments. Most important among these was the Baconian scientific methodology, which prized empiricism and induction, and was suspicious of speculation. Darwin's use of hypotheses meant that the Victoria Institute members were unconvinced that his work was truly scientific, but even more concerning for them was the specter of biblical criticism. This approach to biblical studies incorporated techniques from literary criticism, treating it as any other document. Since it also relied on hypotheses, the Victoria Institute members were similarly skeptical that biblical criticism was scientific, and spent much of their time attempting to refute it. In this way, they functioned as an incubator for the concerns that would animate the fundamentalist–modernist controversies of the early twentieth century.

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Section: Early Points Of Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE, BIBLICAL CRITICISM, ANDTHE FUNDAMENTALS

Mathieson¹

2021

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“…Finally, she shifted focus to her own assessment of three major doctrines in the New Testament showing how each was fraught with error and contradiction (Ward 1998). If there was any immediate obstacle to orthodox belief in Christ's divine nature and the place of miracles, Higher criticism was for many far more of a threat than the advances of modern science (Mathieson 2020). Indeed, by the mid‐eighteenth century, German theologians had adopted highly critical approaches to the Bible.…”

Section: Higher Criticism: From Germany To Britainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Uniformity or “Natural” Divine Action: Shifting the Boundaries of Law in the Nineteenth Century

Bossoh¹

2021

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In October 1862, the Duke of Argyll published an article in the Edinburgh Review entitled “The Supernatural.” In it, Argyll argued that contrary to the prevailing assumption, miracles were “natural” rather than “supernatural” acts of God. This reconceptualization was a response to the controversial publication Essays and Reviews (1860), which challenged orthodox Biblical doctrine. Argyll's characterization of a miracle was not novel; a number of early modern Newtonian thinkers had advanced the same argument for similar reasons. New in this nineteenth‐century reconceptualization, however, were (1) the recent geological, physical, and evolutionary developments and (2) the introduction of German higher criticism. Argyll and the neo‐Newtonians thus attempted to construct a philosophico‐theological alternative, which would constitute a middle‐position between the traditional acceptance and liberal rejection of miracles. I argue finally that 21st‐century debates on divine action in fact exist as part of a longer historical tradition that dates back to Augustine.

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“…107 After an embarrassing public debate against the rationalist philosopher Joseph McCabe and being labelled by the defence in the Scopes trial 'a mountebank and a pretender and not a geologist at all', Price and his beliefs were popularly considered backward and obscurantist. 108 The leading science periodical Nature had produced a special supplement to discuss American creationists, with leading religious figures such as E. W. Barnes, the bishop of Birmingham, decrying 'ignorant fanaticism' alongside commentary by leading biologists.…”

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Religious Controversy in Comparative Context: Ulster, the Netherlands and South Africa in the 1920s

Mathieson

Flipse

2021

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This article introduces a comparative element to the study of the fundamentalist–modernist controversies of the late 1920s, demonstrating that similar ideas are manifested differently in different spatial contexts. Although fundamentalism is primarily considered an American phenomenon, the article argues that the concerns animating fundamentalists in the United States also caused fierce debates elsewhere. It uses three heresy trials – in Belfast, Amsterdam and Stellenbosch – as case studies. In each case, the participants were part of an international Calvinist network, sharing the vast majority of their intellectual commitments and ecclesiastical structure. Yet these shared intellectual commitments did not result in the same outcomes when each group attempted to confront the idea of ‘modernism’ using their church disciplinary procedures. This study demonstrates that social and historical factors played a decisive role in the outcome of each trial. In Belfast, the violent legacy of the recent Irish War of Independence and partition of Ireland lent extra weight to calls for restraint and Protestant unity. In Amsterdam, the social structure of ‘pillarisation’ meant that debates were largely confined within one denomination, and so could be contested more fiercely. In Stellenbosch, meanwhile, the question of how the church should approach the fraught issue of race was the key factor.

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Evangelicals and the Philosophy of Science

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE, BIBLICAL CRITICISM, ANDTHE FUNDAMENTALS

THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE, BIBLICAL CRITICISM, ANDTHE FUNDAMENTALS

Scientific Uniformity or “Natural” Divine Action: Shifting the Boundaries of Law in the Nineteenth Century

Religious Controversy in Comparative Context: Ulster, the Netherlands and South Africa in the 1920s

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