The Fall of Man and the Foundations of Science - an audio lecture by Peter Harrison; from the Faraday Institute (7/2007)

Peter Harrison has 4 or 5 lectures available (free) at the Faraday site. This is the one I enjoyed most.

Quotes and comments;

1. 'The Rationalists doubt the senses can give us truth, and the Empiricists doubt 'reason' can give us truth.'

2. 'Bacon talked of the mind as a cracked mirror; ie. it receives the impressions but gives a false 'picture.'

3. 'Bacon believed that science could make up for the negative effects of the Fall.'

4. In the Q+A a person says 'the scholars of that time (17th century?) wanted to prove things from scratch' (i.e. by reason.) But this ignores many things; namely the various forms of revelation. Men can't escape the fact they live in a 'revealed' universe; that they have language handed to them from god; that they are made in god's image; and that they live in god's universe. There is therefore no way they can start from scratch.