Theology and Science in the Thought of Francis Bacon

Steven Matthews

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351144704
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: History

This study re-evaluates the religious beliefs of Francis Bacon and the role which his theology played in the development of his program for the reform of learning and the natural sciences, the Great Instauration. Bacon's Instauration writings are saturated with theological statements and Biblical references which inform and explain his program, yet this aspect of his writings has received little attention. Previous considerations of Bacon's religion have been drawn from a fairly short list of his published writings. Consequently, Bacon has been portrayed as everything from an atheist to a Puritan; scholarly consensus is lacking. This book argues that by considering the historical context of Bacon's society, and his conversion from Puritanism to anti-Calvinism as a young man, his own theology can be brought into clearer focus, and his philosophy more properly understood. After leaving his mother's household, Bacon underwent a transformation of belief which led him away from his mother's Calvinism and toward the writings of the ancient Church Fathers, particularly Irenaeus of Lyon. Bacon's theology increasingly came to reflect the theological interests of his friend and editor Lancelot Andrewes. The patristic turn of Bacon's belief in the last two decades of the reign of Elizabeth significantly affected the development of his philosophical program which was produced in the first two decades of the Stuart era. This study then examines the theology present in the Instauration writings themselves and concludes with a consideration of the effect which Bacon's theology had on the subsequent direction of empirical science and natural theology in the English context. In so doing it not only offers a new perspective on Bacon, but will serve as a contribution toward a better understanding of the religious context of, and motivations behind, empirical science in early modern England.

Chapter 1
Breaking with a Puritan Past

A Mother’s Concern

Anne Bacon was a woman of the godly sort. She had been raised to it. Her father, Sir Anthony Cooke, had educated her in Latin as well as in the Greek of the New Testament and the Church Fathers.¹ His own belief was profound. He had been tutor and advisor to the young Edward VI, and when the reign of Mary Tudor began in 1554, he became one of the "Marian exiles" who fled to Geneva. For families such as that of Anthony Cooke, Geneva was more than a place of refuge. In the city of John Calvin all Christians of the Reformed branch of Protestantism could experience the ultimate model of a faithful society. The people of Geneva, by their own account, had not stopped short of a full Reformation as had the Lutherans, who retained many popish ceremonies and doctrines. Neither had the Reformation derailed here as it had among the Anabaptists, who, according to the Reformed, had invented many of their own doctrines, and whose communities could spiral into chaos and anarchy. In Geneva the Law of God as found in the Bible, and only that Law, reigned supreme, resulting in order and genuine piety. For those English men and women who had gone into exile, Geneva was the measure by which their own society was to be judged, and it always fell short. Amie shared the views of her father and the other exiles, but she had stayed behind as she had recently married Sir Nicholas Bacon.

Anne Bacon had two sons whom she had tried to raise the right way. She had seen to much of their education herself, and had hired the very best tutors. The education of her children was of the utmost importance to Anne, for her boys were growing up with unwholesome influences all around. Although England had officially become Protestant once again with the death of Queen Mary and the accession of Elizabeth the Elizabethan Religious Settlement had been a profound disappointment to Anne and many others like her, for the queen had sought peace through compromise and the toleration of a wide variety of opinions rather than completing the Reformation. The roots of the Puritan movement are to be found among the families of the Geneva exiles, and this can certainly be seen in the convictions of Anne Bacon. She rebelled against the guidelines laid down by Elizabeth and her bishops, and she prayed for a purer Church. Anne had done her best with Anthony and his younger brother. Francis, but, once they were grown she had become convinced that something had gone wrong somewhere with Francis.

In 1592 Anthony Bacon, then thirty-four years old, received a letter from his mother, filled with a mother's concern over her son's spiritual well-being. The letter was prompted, at least in part, by the apparent wandering of thirty-one-year-old Francis. The following is an excerpt:

This one chiefest counsel your Christian and natural mother doth give you even before the Lord, that above all worldly respects your carry yourself ever at your first coming as one that doth unfeignedly profess the true religion of Christ, and hath the love of the truth now by long continuance fast settled in your heart, and that with judgment, wisdom, and discretion, and are not afraid or ashamed to testify the same by hearing and delighting in those religious exercises of the sincerer sort, be they French or English. In hoc noli adhibere fratrum mum ad consilium ant exemplum. Sed plus dehinc. [In this do not be willing to consult your brother in counsel or example, but more on this to follow.] If you will be wavering (which God forbid, God forbid), you shall have examples and ill encouragers too many in these days, and that αpch Biσσ, since he was Βουλευτής, ἐστὶ ἀπολεία τῆς ἐκκλησίας μεϴ' ἡμῶν φιλεῖ γὰρ τῂν 1༑αυτοῦ δόξαν πλέον τῆς δόξης τοῦ Χριστοῦ [and that arch Bish(op), since he was a councilor, is the destruction of the Church among us, since he is more fond of his own glory than the glory of Christ].²

Anne is alluding to a number of points which would have been common knowledge to Anthony and herself. Those parts of her letter which might cause real scandal, if they were to be casually seen and become a matter for gossip, have been given a greater measure of secrecy by placing them in Latin and Greek. Nevertheless, the message is clear from a historical context. The archbishop mentioned, for example, is Whitgift, who had by this time a well-earned reputation as the scourge of the Puritan movement. Anne's words, "but more to follow," point toward a postscript in the letter in which she tells Anthony that she assumes his entire household is gathering for prayer twice a day. "having been where reformation is" (since Anthony had been to Geneva and the Calvinist lands on the continent). She follows this with the remark, "your brother is too negligent herein" Apparently, the example which Anthony was not to follow was that of his brother who was not observing proper Calvinist patterns of personal devotion At the very least. Francis was too tolerant of those in his household who did not follow these patterns. But there was more to Lady Anne's concern than merely a haphazard prayer life. Anthony is warned against consulting his brother's "counsel." Francis was not only lax, he had opinions which, to Anne's thinking, ran counter to "the true religion of Christ."

Francis Bacon's own writings from this time tell much of the rest of the tale. There is a recognizable trajectory in Bacon's adult life away from his Puritan upbringing, and ultimately away from the dominant Calvinism of his society as well. But this was also a trajectory toward some of the other options available to him in late Tudor England. Bacon's abandonment of his mother's Christianity does not mean that he himself abandoned Christianity. As with so many in the Reformation era, he wanted to get Christianity right. Over the last decade of the sixteenth century Bacon wrestled with the various theological issues and ideas that were current in his society. What resulted was a coherent belief system, unique to him in many points, which suffused his writings pertaining to the reform of learning and the advancement of sciences, or his "Great Instauration." Bacon's entire understanding of what we call "science," and what he called "natural philosophy," was fashioned around the basic tenets of his belief system. Understanding Bacon's early rejection of Calvinism is key to understanding the Instauration writings themselves, particularly those mysterious passages where Bacon suddenly breaks into biblical quotation and theological discourse. So, before we can proceed to Bacon's writings it is important that we take a good look at the intellectual environment of late Tudor England, which could give rise to a godly mother's concern.

Turmoil and Diversity in the English Reformation

The Reformation was an era of intellectual turmoil and a remarkable diversity of thought which too often has been told as a tale of Protestants and Catholics. However, there was always more on the table than such a simple dichotomy would suggest. "Protestantism" never existed as a unified set of beliefs in the sixteenth century. The Lutherans, the Reformed, and the Anabaptists were all technically "Protestant," yet their differences with each other were as great as the differences of each with the Church of Rome. From the Catholic side, the apparent doctrinal unity of the Council of Trent always cloaked tremendous latitude in interpretation and practice. The Reformation on the continent was far from a tidy affair, characterized by debate even within unified movements such as Lutheranism or the Reformed, but the situation in Bacon's England was even more complex.

Much of the turmoil and diversity of England at the time can be understood as what must happen when a Catholic king and "Defender of the Faith" finds it suddenly necessary to break with the Church of Rome for reasons other than religion. In this case the need was for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon, and Henry, for his part, was not particularly interested in doctrinal changes beyond those that would permit the divorce. Compared with the Reformation on the Continent, the English Reformation was effected out in reverse: first came the break with Rome, and the theology necessary to justify that break and establish a new ecclesial order followed.

It is important to note that what set the English Reformation apart was not that it was an act of state rather than Church.³ At some point, the Reformation was always an act of state, as the decree of the ruler was necessary to safeguard the existence of non-Roman Christianity everywhere. The principle of the Peace of Augsburg that the ruler should determine the religion of a province (cuius regio ejus religio) was. in many respects, not an innovative idea, but an acknowledgment of the way in which the Reformation had developed ever since Elector Frederick of Saxony gave Luther his protection. In Scandinavia, as in England, the Reformation occurred through specific decrees of kings. Throughout Scandinavia the Reformation occurred from above, and for reasons which were far from purely religious.⁴ But in these countries, unlike England, the doctrinal choice was clear: Roman doctrine was being rejected in favor of the doctrine of Lutheranism, as clearly stated in the Augsburg Confession and the mass of writings streaming northward from Wittenberg. Subscription of the Augsburg Confession meant adoption of the Lutheran package in toto.

In the Palatinate and in those cantons of Switzerland which adopted the Reformed faith the theological formulations were also clear, although initially a single normative statement such as the Augsburg Confession was often lacking. The distinction between Lutheran and Reformed was established along specific doctrinal lines by the reformers themselves, and although the idea of confessional subscription did not function so rigidly in the Reformed lands, conformity to Reformed doctrine was expected. After some early disputes Geneva adhered to the doctrine of Calvin and those who did not adhere were welcome to leave (with some exceptions, of which Servetus is the most notable). Henry VIII had no such doctrinal agenda however, when he broke with Rome.

In some measure, the king himself had blocked the possibility of confessional unity in England. Until 1536 Henry's actions were designed to transfer decisionmaking power from the Roman Catholic authorities to himself. The Ten Articles which were forwarded in 1536 as a doctrinal statement were ambiguous by design. They left room for both Catholic and Lutheran interpretations, though between a Lutheran and a Catholic, the Catholic probably would have been more comfortable with them, given their interpretation of sacraments and tradition. Rather than a positive doctrinal statement, A.G. Dickens observed that the Ten Articles might "be used to exemplify our English talent for concocting ambiguous and flexible documents."⁵ In the Bishops' Book of the following year, the doctrinal position is still more Catholic, but subscription was never enforced, and Henry "used it instead to test the theological appetite of the nation."⁶ Catholic doctrine was not particularly discouraged, beyond the question of allegiance to Rome. At the same time, the break with Rome encouraged the development of nascent Protestant movements in England, and these movements were fueled by the appearance of Protestantism which came with the dissolution of monasteries and the seizure of Church properly. The replacement of Catholic bishops With Lutheran superintendents and the enforced subscription of the Augsburg Confession, which made it possible for Scandinavian kings to obtain rapid uniformity, had no parallel in England. The wholesale adoption of Wittenbeig's pattern of doctrine and liturgy which occurred under the kings of Sweden and Denmark was not possible for Henry, not the least because he had distinguished himself early on as an enemy of Luther. Alec Ryrie has aptly summarized Henry's problem with a Lutheran solution which would have brought swift uniformity:

As [Basil] Hall has argued, the king's suspicion of Lutheranism in general, his loathing of Luther in particular, and his heartfelt attachment to his own authority guaranteed that the English Church would remain beyond Wittenberg's sphere of influence. Henry's reformation was, as Richard Rex has recently emphasized, 'its own thing, folly to Catholics and a stumbling block to protestants.'⁷

Throughout Henry's reign, the Church of England remained a Church without a doctrinal identity. The long-term effect was to allow a tremendous doctrinal diversity to develop.

The Thirty-Nine Articles, when they came about did provide genuine stability and unity for the Church of England, but this stability and unity should not be confused with any great degree of doctrinal uniformity. Rather, they should be recognized as allowing and establishing tremendous doctrinal latitude within the official Church during this era. The accession of Elizabeth and the actions of queen and parliament up through the Act of Uniformity of 1559 established the Church of England as genuinely Protestant and the official adoption of the Thirty-Nine Articles at this time (in 1562 by Convocation and by parliament in 1571) was the part of that stabilizing chain of events which addressed doctrine directly. Yet it has often been noted that the most remarkable featu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Breaking with a Puritan Past
• 2 Bacon's Turn toward the Ancient Faith
• 3 In the Beginning: The Creation of Nature and the Nature of the Fall
• 4 On the Way of Salvation: Bacon's Twofold Via Salutis
• 5 In the Autumn of the World: Features of the Age of Instauration
• 6 Bacon's Circle and his Legacy
• Bibliography
• Index