Second Nature Home > Short Essays by Dan Bruiger > Continuity of Science and ReligionThe very fact that the Christian view of nature gave way to the secular scientific view intimates a continuity of intent and ethos between the two. There is but a fine line between the Biblical dominion appointed to Man over Creation and the domination of nature through technology; between the quest for godliness and for godlike powers. Is it God or Adam, in Michelangelo’s famous image on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, who reaches out with the power of creation? God is the projection and symbol of the innermost longing for perfection, transcendence, freedom, immortality, omniscience and omnipotence. The divine is the ideal we can conceive ourselves becoming, the human potential, as yet unmanifest in time though already full blown in eternity. Humanism and science were able to steal fire from religion as technology began to realize some of the powers represented in the image of God, as there was less motivation to project them outside the human sphere. RELATED TAGS: [Christian/Biblical/secular view of nature, common ground of science and religion, Christian birth of science, Biblical dominion, domination of nature, Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo]
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