Theology and the Scientific Imagination from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century

by Amos Funkenstein

This pioneering work in the history of science, which originated in a series of three Gauss Seminars given at Princeton University in 1984, demonstrated how the roots of the scientific revolution lay in medieval scholasticism. A work of intellectual history addressing the metaphysical foundations of modern science, Theology and the Scientific Imagination raised and transformed the level of discourse on the relations of Christianity and science. Amos Funkenstein was one of the world's most distinguished scholars of Jewish history, medieval intellectual history, and the history of science. Called a genius and Renaissance man by his academic colleagues, Funkenstein was legendary for his ability to recite long literary passages verbatim and from memory in Latin, German, French, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Greek decades after he had last read them. A winner of the coveted Israel Prize for History, Funkenstein was born and raised in Palestine and received his Ph.D. in history and philosophy at the Free University of Berlin in 1965, as one of the first Jewish students to receive a doctorate in Germany after World War II. Author of seven books and more than fifty scholarly articles in four languages, Funkenstein was at the height of his powers in Theology and the Scientific Imagination, which ends with the author's influential discernment of the seventeenth century's "unprecedented fusion" of scientific and religious language. It remains a fundamental text to historians and philosophers of science.

Genres: History, Philosophy, History Of Science, Science, Religion, Theology, Nonfiction

440 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1986

Reviews

[Dr Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amos Funkenstein's book is clearly a masterful work of scholarship. He is often credited as being one of the first modern historians to demonstrate the utility of tracing the evolution of a contemporary idea back through its roots as a means of better understanding. His identification of divine attributes such as omnipotence and omnipresence is insightful and relevant to certain metaphysical developments in modern scientific thought.

That being said a few caveats and comments:
-This is a book that assumes you are very familiar with the history of Christian theology in the Middle Ages, and that you have a solid grounding in the philosophy of the Enlightenment
- a familiarity with the basics of ancient philosophy is also assumed.
-The writing style is extremely dense. Paragraphs are packed with meaningful insights and arguments.
-This is an academic book, meaning that it suffers from needless academic "accretions" such as:
Never settling for 2 or 3 examples when 20 or 30 can be cited.
Following an idea through exhaustively-- especially when it is possible to bury the reader in endless and often irrelevant details.
Always say more when its possible to say less, ... etc.

As I said this is an important book in the modern evolution of historiographic analysis (and I am sure for Professor Funkenstein's standing in his department) but the ideas and arguments are buried under layers of academic pyrotechnics that simply become boring (to me) after a while.

[AskHistorians]

An interesting read detailing the various views of emerging scientific thought and the prevalence of religious faith. The book takes time to work from a sociological as well as historical viewpoint to allow for a broader take.