God's Two Books
Subtitle: Copernican Cosmology and Biblical Interpretation in Early Modern Science
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
Published: January 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 319
ISBN-13: 9780268010454
Subjects: Christian theology; Cosmology & the universe; History of science; c 1600 to c 1700; c 1700 to c 1800; History Of Astronomy; Religion; Science; Northern Europe, Scandinavia; Christian Theology - Cosmology; Cosmology; History; Controversial Knowledge; Religion & Science; Religion And Science
Description: "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.".

"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."--BOOK JACKET.