It is rare to find theologians who write well about science. It is even more rare to find scientists who write well about theology. It was a surprise, then, to find that Peter N. Jordan’s Naturalism in the Christian Imagination: Providence and Causality in Early Modern England was conversant in both science and theology, as well as the history of both. Jordan’s knowledge of all three fields makes his work especially rewarding to read. This is a significant piece of scholarship and an important synthesis of the varying understandings of divine providence and causality in early modern England.
The book is divided into four parts. Each part is divided into two chapters, save for the conclusion, which stands alone as the fourth part. Jordan begins the book with a question: “What bearing should religious convictions have on how phenomena in nature are understood and explained?” (3). This question drives the substance of the book, as Jordan examines competing answers to this question throughout early modern England.
In the first part, “Setting the Scene,” Jordan lays out three ways Christians have thought about providence in light of natural causality. The first simply asserts that natural causality can explain everything, and providence is reflected in the laws of nature. The second view is that “nature possesses significant, but not total, orderliness and predictability” (7). This leaves room for some occurrences that natural causality cannot explain. The third view is an attempt to squeeze out providence altogether, and assumes that for the sake of method, natural causality is all that matters in explaining natural phenomena. The first two views are what Jordan calls “providential naturalism,” and different versions of these views are the subjects of his examination.
Providential naturalism figured large in the minds of English Proestant intellectuals in the early modern period. Jordan notes that “early modern authors marshalled a seemingly endless number of verses from both testaments to affirm the reality of providence, and in doing so they generally assumed that the Bible’s teachings on the topic were plain for all to see” (20-1). He then gets more specific in describing what providence meant for these authors—they invoked concepts like “concurrence” (the idea that God upholds the causal agency of created entities) and “government” (the idea that God is actively engaged in ruling the created order) to explain how God guides the world—before focusing on how Protestant intellectuals in early modern England lived in view of providence.
If this seems somewhat abstract, it is. But in the second part of the book, “Expanding the Explanatory Scope of Natural Causality,” Jordan narrows in on more specific questions, including some thorny problems that natural providentialism raises for things like games of chance. Though excessive gambling was generally frowned upon, even games of chance that were permitted were suspect. For instance, Jordan draws from the writing of James Balmford to show that for some, it was thought games of chance (like drawing lots) should be avoided because they are instruments of divine providence and should only be used for serious business (57).
Prodigies, extraordinary natural events, roused lots of conversation. Were these unusual occurrences signs from heaven? Or only yet another event to ascribe to the course of nature? Jordan draws from an array of early modern thinkers to show the various views on offer. For example, John Spencer thought most prodigies were not divine communications and believing in them was “an odious stumbling block to genuine Christian religion” (77).
In the third part of the book, “Curtailing the Explanatory Ambitions of Naturalistic Philosophies, Jordan discusses Epicurean atomism, and the attempts of court physician and natural philosopher Walter Charleton to synthesize this form of atomism with Christian belief. The next chapter examines the role of natural causation in the formation of the earth. He pulls from Thomas Burnet, who places so much emphasis on God’s causal role so as to be an occasionalist, regarding angelic miracles as God’s way of mediating causality (159).
The book’s conclusion is its most helpful chapter, as Jordan gets out of the weeds of historical theology to speak to more overarching questions. Here he touches on the boundary between nature and miracles (which is far easier to distinguish in theory than practice), nature’s communicativity (which, again, can be thought about theoretically, but is not so easy to discern in discreet historical events), and finally how one should live in light of all of this (humbly, as promissory providential naturalists) (97).
This book grew out of Jordan’s dissertation, and sometimes reads a little like a dissertation: some sections are clunky, with lots of jargon and very technical language. While the primary readers of this book are going to be scholars (probably historians of science, religion, England, or some combination thereof), I think it would have been a stronger book if the writing was aimed down just a notch so that it would appeal to a slightly broader readership. Providence and causality are difficult subjects to write about, but Jordan could have made them a little more accessible to the reader by explaining some more technical terms and writing with more fluidity. Nevertheless, this is a valuable book on both a historical and theological level, and one that the right audience will find helpful and rewarding.
Cole William Hartin is an associate rector at Christ Church Episcopal in Tyler, Texas.
Cole Hartin
Date Of Review:
January 20, 2024
