Temporary repository for work-in-progress research project

The early modern period is usually viewed as a time of profound change, including the so-called ‘Scientific Revolution’ and the Protestant/Catholic Reformation. Historians of science have linked these two seemingly disparate transformations in many different ways but one important missing link between them is yet to be uncovered. Our leading hypothesis is that dogmatics as the central branch of theology in the early modern university was much concerned with empirical natural knowledge. University textbooks eagerly and seriously addressed many questions related to empirical knowledge, such as: Can the bodily resurrection be understood from a physiological perspective? Which physics apply for the Eucharist? While much has been written on theology’s impact on the natural sciences, SCIGMA will turn the tables to uncover a deeply entangled relationship through a first systematic examination of how naturalism and empiricism informed scholastic and dogmatic theology, from the Council of Trent to the French Revolution across all Western Christian denominations. Its research agenda will consider theology as a manifestation of ‘scientia’ in the premodern university and therefore include it within the history of science and knowledge.

The first goal of the project is to discover the multiple and changing ways in which natural knowledge informed premodern scholastic theology, which sought a rational reconstruction of faith. Second, it will uncover what effective epistemological frameworks were required by and emerged from this interplay of empiricism and revelation. Third, it will trace how these epistemological frameworks were determined by their embedding within religious and secular institutions of learning. The project aims to demonstrate the significant role of the, as it were, empirico-dogmatic domain for premodern Western societies that fundamentally reshaped scientific inquiry, but were also deeply religious – and ultimately paved the way to secularization and scientism.

Funded by the European Union (ERC, SCIGMA, 101164040). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.