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Indlæser... Miracles in Enlightenment Englandaf Dr. Jane Shaw
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The Enlightenment, considered an age of rationalism, is not normally associated with miracles. In this intriguing book, however, Jane Shaw presents accounts of inscrutable miracles that occurred to ordinary worshippers in early modern England. She considers the reactions of intellectuals, scientists, and physicians to these miraculous events and through them explores the relations between popular and elite culture of the time. Miraculous events in England between the 1650s and the 1750s were experienced mainly not by Catholics, but by Protestants. The book looks at the political and social context of these events as well as interpretations and explanations of them by scientists, the Court, and the Church, as well as by preachers, pamphleteers, friends, and neighbors. Shaw links the lived religion of the time to intellectual history and amends the hitherto received view. The religious practice of ordinary people was as crucial to the development of Enlightenment thought as the philosophical and theological writings of the elite. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)231.7Religions Christian doctrinal theology God; Unity; Trinity Relation to the world - divine law and miraclesLC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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Shaw discusses three different streams of thought which arose regarding miracles: first, the doctrine of the cessation of miracles, which argued that miracles as such did not happen after the first few years of the Christian church, and that unexplained occurrences of contemporary times could be explained instead by the imposition of divine "providence" (in effect replacing the miraculous with the providential); second, the re-emergence of miracles or similar events among various Protestant sects (i.e. the Quakers, the Baptists) and in the monarch's "healing touch"; and thirdly the development of a "middle way," as early scientists and clerics sought a way to explain or prove the existence of miracles in some empirical way based on evidence and probability.
These three developments came under fire from the deists in the late seventeenth century, an attack which culminated in Hume's 1748 essay On Miracles (in which he declares them impossible). This debate between deists and what Shaw terms apologists is examined closely, and what Shaw finds is that in the end, even in the middle of the eighteenth century, a huge range of opinions regarding the plausibility of miracles continued to exist.
Shaw offers an excellent scholarly treatment of the works of Valentine Greatrakes, who was the subject of A Small Moment of Great Illumination (review) which I read recently. Her commentary on the role of the Royal Society (Boyle, Oldenburg, &c.) as important arbiters of the miraculous as well as the discussion of some of the leading divines of the day (Stillingfleet, Burnet) is most interesting and well done.
This book is well researched (witness the copious notes and excellent bibliography), well written, and clearly argued. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in the beginnings of the Enlightenment and/or English social-religious-political culture in the Restoration period.
http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2007/01/book-review-miracles-in-enlightenment.ht... ( )