Science and Theology in the Reformation: Studies in Theological Interpretation and Astronomical Observation in Sixteenth-Century

Beginning with an exploration of how the Reformers conceived the relationship between natural and moral philosophy, that is, physics and ethics, the author then investigates the relationship between natural law and the order of nature in the thought of Philip Melanchthon.

These articles set the scene for a discussion of the role of theological arguments, and in particular understandings of God’s Providence, in the interpretation of astronomical phenomena in the late sixteenth century. A similar interaction between theological, astronomical and political arguments shaped Michael Maestlin’s objections to the Gregorian calendar reform. Johannes Kepler’s arguments for the authority of his astronomical theories show a tacit awareness that that novelty was to be equated with heresy also draw on theological motifs. The strong parallel between his use of the theory of accommodation and his understanding of hypothesis suggest that questions of theology and questions of proof were closely related in his mind.

A final chapter considers critically Sachiko Kusukawa’s thesis that Melanchthon established ＂a Lutheran natural philosophy＂.

The Revd Canon Dr Charlotte Methuen is Departmental Lecturer in Ecclesiasistical History in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Oxford, specialising in the history of the Reformation. She was previously Assistentin for Reformation History at the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany) and has taught at the Universities of Hamburg, Heidelberg and Jena. She is the author of Kepler’s Tubingen: Stimulus to a Theological Mathematics (Aldershot 1998) and numerous articles.