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University of Pennsylvania Press University of Pennsylvania Press Newtonian Science, Miracles, and the Laws of Nature Author(s): Peter Harrison Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 56, No. 4 (Oct., 1995), pp. 531-553 Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709991 Accessed: 30-10-2015 01:34 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. University of Pennsylvania Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the History of Ideas. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 130.102.42.98 on Fri, 30 Oct 2015 01:34:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NewtonianScience, Miracles, andthe Laws ofNature PeterHarrison Introduction "Newton,"writes Richard Westfall, "both believed in and did not believe in miracles."It can onlybe concluded,Westfall continues, that the greatscientist, unwilling to relinquishhis beliefin a providentialand inter- posingDeity, "abandoned himself to ambiguitiesand inconsistencies,which gave theappearance of divine participation in nature,but not the substance."' Newton'sapparent ambivalence towards miracles highlights what to many commentatorsis one of the most curiousfeatures of seventeenth-century naturalphilosophy. Leading scientists of thisera, almost without exception, had a dual commitmenton the one hand to a science premisedupon a mechanicaluniverse governed by immutablelaws of natureand on theother to a omnipotentGod who intervenedin thenatural order from time to time, breachingthese "laws" of nature.2This puzzle is heightenedby thefact that (in Englandat least)those figures who wereat theforefront of an advancing mechanicalscience were also themost staunch defenders of miracles.3The Christianvirtuosi of the Royal Society-RobertBoyle, ThomasSprat, and JohnWilkins, to takethe most prominent examples-insisted not only that miraclescould takeplace butthat they played a vitalrole in establishingthe truthof Christianreligion.4 1 Richard Westfall,Science and Religion in SeventeenthCentury England (New Haven, 1970), 204. 2 See, e.g., ibid.,5, 89; JamesForce, "The Breakdownof thethe Newtonian Synthesis of Science and Religion,"in Force and RichardPopkin (eds.), Essays on the Context, Nature,and Influenceof Isaac Newton'sTheology (Dordrecht, 1990). 3 R. M. Burns,The Great Debate on Miraclesfrom Joseph Glanvill to David Hume (London, 1981), 12. 4 Boyle, The ChristianVirtuoso in The Works,ed. ThomasBirch (6 vols.; Hildesheim, 1966), V, 531; Thomas Sprat,The Historyof theRoyal Society(London, 1667), 352; John Wilkins,Of thePrinciples and Duties of NaturalReligion (London, 1675), 402. 531 Copyright1995 by Journalof theHistory of Ideas, Inc. This content downloaded from 130.102.42.98 on Fri, 30 Oct 2015 01:34:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 532 PeterHarrison It is now oftenassumed that such devoutseventeenth-century scientists led strangedichotomous mental lives or, more charitably, that their felicitous reconciliationof scientificand religiouspursuits was builtupon a set of assumptionswhich only later, in lightof argumentsproposed by Hume and his successors,proved to be mutuallyconflicting. In thispaper I hopeto shed lightupon one aspectof thispuzzle by showingthat Newton, along with his most prominentdisciples, William Whiston and Samuel Clarke,came to understandmiracles in a way quitedifferent from their seventeenth-century predecessors,and thatin developingthis new conceptionof themiraculous theymanaged to avoid thoseconceptual confusions which are thoughtto afflictthe cognitiveworlds of theirearlier contemporaries. The central featureof theNewtonians' position on thisquestion concerns the definition of "miracle."As we shall see, theNewtonians rejected that standard defini- tionof miracle, according to whicha miraclemust involve a violationof laws of nature.Their alternativeconception, significantly, could still serve the interestsof Christianapologetics but withoutundermining the foundation uponwhich the scientific enterprise was constructedand withoutcommitting itsadherents to theambiguities and inconsistencies of whichthey are so often accused. Defining"Miracle" Moderndiscussions of miraclesgenerally begin by defininga "miracle" as "a violationof thelaws of nature."To thisbasic definitionmay be added the conditionthat the breach of the laws of natureoccur as a resultof the activityof God or someother supernatural agent; occasionally it is specified as a furtherrequirement that the breachoccur in orderto confirmsome religiousdoctrine or to establishthe authorityof some person.5It has frequentlybeen pointed out that, given such a definition,the very concept of "miracle"suffers from an inherentlogical instability.Miracles, it seems,are parasiticupon the idea thatthere are laws of nature:without laws of nature, therecan be no miracles;however, if there are miracles,this tends to destroy thevery concept of a law of nature.6For presentpurposes, the more interest- ing questionto arise fromthis definition has to do withthe conceptionof miraclewhich existed before the adventof modemscience with its clearly formulatedlaws of nature.Miracles, in otherwords, have alwayshad some apologeticfunction in Christiantheology, a functionwhich they exercised 5 The classic statementof thisdefinition appears in David Hume's "Of Miracles,"An Enquiryconcerning Human Understanding,ed. L. A. Selby Bigge (Oxford,19753), X.I.90 (1 14f.)For a morerecent discussion of thisdefinition see RichardSwinburne, The Concept of Miracle (London, 1970), ch. 3. 6 See, e.g., AntonyFlew, God and Philosophy(London, 1966), 148f.For a responseto objectionsof thiskind, see Miracles,ed. R. Swinburne(London, 1989), 9f,and Paul Dietl, "On Miracles," in ContemporaryPhilosophy of Religion,ed. Steven Cahn and David Shatz (Oxford,1982), 146-53. This content downloaded from 130.102.42.98 on Fri, 30 Oct 2015 01:34:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions NewtonianScience 533 quitesatisfactorily without recourse to a sciencecommitted to explanationin termsof laws of nature.Augustine, and afterhim Aquinas, helped shape a premodernconception of miracles,a conceptionwhich did not and indeed could notinvolve reference to laws of naturebut which came to be directly relevantto theNewtonian redefinition of "miracle." Augustinewas actually the firstto attempta formaldefinition of "miracle."7A miracle,he wrotein a letterto his Manichaeanfriend Hon- oratus,is "anythingwhich appears arduous or unusual,beyond the expecta- tionor abilityof the one whomarvels at it."8Such marvellousevents, he was to say elsewhere,are not "contraryto nature"but rather"contrary to our knowledgeof nature."9Ignorance of thecauses of an event,however, was a necessarybut insufficientmark of the miraculous.For Augustineall the phenomenaof nature-"the changes of day andnight, the very constant order of heavenlybodies, the fourfoldchange of the seasons"-were in a sense miraculous.But theywere not regarded as suchbecause they are partof our constantexperience.10 In Augustine'srather subjective view of miracles, then,a miraclehad to have an unknowncause and it had to be unusual.Yet therewas no intrinsicdifference between the miraculousand the mun- dane-miracleswere distinguished only by theireffect on observers. Aquinaswas concernedto arriveat a moreprecise definition, one which locatedthe essence of miracle in theevent and not in theobserver. He did this by yokingthe religious sense of miracleto the Aristoteliandoctrine of the intrinsic"qualities" or "powers"of substances.While agreeingwith Au- gustinethat a miracleis notcontrary to nature,Aquinas argued that a miracle was nonetheless"apart from the order implanted in things."11It followsthat miraclesinvoke wonder (Augustine's definition) because theircause defies explanationin termsof the naturalproperties of the objects involved:an eventis a miracleif "we observethe effectbut do not know its cause."12 Aquinas furtherclarified his positionby specifyingthree classes of event whichseem to fitthis description and yetare notgenuine miracles. First are eventsthe causes of whichare knownto some butnot others. An eclipseof the sun, for example,is not miraculousbecause althoughmost men are ignorantof itscause, the astronomer is not.A miraclecan onlybe something thathas "a completelyhidden cause in an unqualifiedway ... notsimply in 7 For a briefhistory of conceptionsof the miraculoussee JohnA. Hardon,"The Conceptof Miracle fromSt. Augustineto ModernApologetics," Theological Studies, 15 (1954), 229-57. Specificallyon Augustine,see R. M. Grant,Miracle and NaturalLaw in Graeco-Romanand Early ChristianThought (Amsterdam, 1952), 215-20. 8 De utilitatecredendi, 16.34, in The Fathersof the Church,IV (New York, 1947), 437. 9 Augustine,De civitatedei, XXI.8; ContraFaustum, XXVI.3 (my emphasis). 10 De civitatedei, XVI.34; cf. Cicero,De divinatione,ii, 49. 11Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles,tr. Vernon Bourke (New York, 1955-57), III, 100.1. 12 Ibid., III, 101.1. This content downloaded from 130.102.42.98 on Fri, 30 Oct 2015 01:34:15 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 534 PeterHarrison relationto
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