Amos Funkenstein (1937–1995)

THEOLOGY AND THE SCIENTIFIC

PREFACE

For many years, I have been occupied in trying to find a way of
defining, as precisely as possible, the different points of transition
from medieval to early modern modes of reasoning in different
fields of knowledge. At first I pursued the themes of this book in
dependently of one another. In the course of study, I became aware
not only of the ties between theology and science-these have been
recognized and studied before-but also of the peculiar circumstance
that, to many seventeenth-century thinkers, theology and
science merged into one idiom, part of a veritable secular theology
such as never existed before or after. The best way to capture both
my original aims and the added insight was, I thought, to trace the
change in connotations of three divine attributes from the Middle
Ages to the seventeenth century. As an interpretative essay only
this book is not based on new texts or other materials. At times I
had to venture into fields remote from my expertise, where I tried
to follow reliable guides, and I hope that I found them. The fifth
chapter is the most speculative; I hope to elaborate on the themes it
touches upon in the future. Chapters two through four, the main
part of the book, originate, in their present form, in three Gauss
Seminars given at Princeton University in 1984.

Friends, students, and colleagues have encouraged me through
out the years. I owe special thanks to Yehuda Elkana, Richard Popkin,
and Robert Westman: discussions with them throughout the
various stages were invaluable, and even more so their emotional
support. They also read the manuscript with a friendly yet critical
eye. I thank Susannah Heschel for her constructive and critical suport:
without it, the God spoken of in this book would have remained
a contented male, and "man" would have stood for both
genders. Marilyn and Robert Adams, Jürgen Miethke, Katherine
Tachau, Mary Terrall, and Norton Wise also read the manuscript
and helped me to remove many ambiguities and embarrassing
mistakes.

Many of my present and former students will find how much I
have learned from our discussions and their works: from Susan...… (altro)