Casos de Uso del Negocio

The nature of the evidence for God-centred elements of the creation dialectic from this period is markedly different from that presented in chapter 2. Whilst Lawson

114 Barclay, Apology, 165.

115 Fulton, Nature and God, 20.

116 Ibid., 20-22.

117 Lawson’s enthusiasm for the study of the creation in Quaker education is compatible with this position. It could also be interpreted as helping to secure an experience of the outward world that was conducive to a way of life that reflected God’s order and Christian values, if not actually to the immediate revelation of the divine by the individual. The interest shown by Fox and Penn in the role of the creation in education was probably also a function of the latter, rather than evidence for natural theology. Their emphases in education were on the practical benefits of factual knowledge, and, in Penn’s case, on the development of the personality.

affirmed that ‘Such as have pleasure in the Lord, cannot but have pleasure in his Works’¹¹⁸ more focused statements takes the form of reactions to the claims of natural science and natural theology, as opposed to accounts of personal experience of the revelation of creation by God. Thus Friends presented arguments for the necessity of inward spiritual guidance in order to gain a true understanding of the created world and how it should be used, although the nature of the relationship between spiritual experience and knowledge of creation was less straightforward than in the previous period. This sub-section concludes with arguments for the dependence of the claims of natural theology upon the operation of the divine inward light.

The Inward Light and ‘Pseudo-natural’ Theology

Although it was widely accepted that knowledge of particular details of creation could come from the observation of the material world, the discovery of the underlying principles of creation, or the fundamental nature of created things, was a task that human reason and effort could not achieve alone. Quoting the Paracelsian alchemist Oswald Croll,¹¹⁹ Thomas Lawson claimed that true ‘inward’ knowledge came not from books or study or other outward things, but from patience, humility and passive submission to the divine will.¹²⁰ In particular, Friends (other than Penn: see below) argued that it was God alone who could reveal how the creation was to be used and managed by humanity. Only in this way could human dominion over creation, as originally intended by God, be restored. Whilst the creation was generally seen as the embodiment of God’s wisdom and providence, Fox emphasised that the wisdom to manage creation came not from the creation itself or any outward things, but from

118 Thomas Lawson, Dagon’s Fall Before the Ark (1679, reprint, London: T. Sowle, 1703), 87.

119 Coudert, Impact of the Kabbalah, 7.

listening to the will of God. Since the creation was the embodiment of God’s wisdom, those who received their wisdom from God would receive the wisdom to manage creation in accordance with God’s will – the same wisdom in which it was made:

This is the counsel of the Lord to you all, who are brought into the eternal truth of God, whose minds are guided out of the earth up to God, and have received their wisdom from God; which wisdom orders all the creatures; that with it you may come to know how to order in the creation, with the wisdom by which all was made.¹²¹

Isaac Penington, in a letter to the Royal Society in 1668 (3.4.1 & appendix 3), also urged that it was only through the experience of ‘union with God’ that a true understanding of creation could be gained, whereby humanity could re-establish dominion over the rest of creation as God had intended.¹²²

Many leading Friends, although they accepted the teaching that the existence and glory of God were revealed in his creation, were doubtful about the value of the creation to impart knowledge of the divine and the divine will. Fox regarded the changeability of the material world, not as a sign of its journey towards perfection (3.2.2), but as evidence that true knowledge of God could not be found through

120 Lawson, Dagon’s Fall, 54. ‘The Academical Spirit cannot understand the mystery of Intrinsical Teaching, only Humility is capable of Illumination. Osw. Croll.’(ibid).

121 George Fox, ‘To go among Friends every where’, in Works 8: 34. Fox’s expression ‘how to order in the creation’ echoed that of Edward Burrough in his Standard Lifted Up where he writes ‘man comes to order them, and exercise himself in them’: both referred to human beings learning from God how to act in their dealings with the creation.

122 Isaac Penington, Some Things Relating to Religion, Proposed to the Consideration of the Royal Society (so Termed) to Wit, Concerning the Right Ground of Certainty Therein… (London, 1668), preface. Evidence from the Royal Society also suggests that tensions with Quakers might be expected in the Society’s early years. For many years after its foundation in 1660, the Royal Society was largely a kind of gentleman’s club, and although its founders included scientists of the highest order, many early Fellows had few or no scientific credentials (Cantor, ‘How Successful were Quakers?’, 215-6).

Its first historian, the Anglican churchman Thomas Sprat, aligned the Society firmly with the powers of human reason and the Anglican Church: the ‘universal Disposition of this Age is bent upon a rational Religion’ (Thomas Sprat, History of the Royal Society (1667), ed. Jackson I. Cope and Harold

Whitmore Jones (St. Louis, MI: Washington University, 1959), 374). Sprat saw the Royal Society and the Church of England laying ‘equal claim to the word Reformation; the one having compass’d it in Religion, the other purposing it in Philosophy (ibid., 371). He was openly disparaging about religious

‘separatists’, suggesting that the neglect of the worship of God on the part of ‘many Modern Naturalists’ might be attributed to ‘the late extravagant excesses of Enthusiasm, involving ‘infinit pretences to Inspiration, and immediate Communion with God’ (ibid., 375-6).

reliance on ‘any visible thing without you’.¹²³ George Keith insisted that those who believed that ‘to know the secrets and Misteries of Nature’¹²⁴ led to a true

understanding of good and evil were wrong. Whilst Barclay accepted that that evidence for the existence of God could be deduced from the outward creation by human reason alone (3.3.1), real knowledge of the divine will came not from human reason but from the divine inward light:

For the outward creation, though it may beget a persuasion that there is some eternal power or virtue by which the world hath had its beginning; yet it doth not tell me…that which is just, holy, and righteous, how I shall be delivered from my temptations and evil affections and come into righteousness: that must be from some inward manifestation in my heart.¹²⁵

Those whose knowledge of God came only from outward things, ‘whether it be the letter of Scripture, the traditions of churches, or the works of creation and providence, whence they are able to deduce strong and undeniable arguments’ were ‘not to be esteemed Christians’.¹²⁶ Barclay accepted Paul’s injunction that ‘the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made’,¹²⁷ but argued that it was only under the guiding influence of the inward light that people were:

made capable to see and discern the Eternal Power and Godhead in the outward creation; so were it not for this invisible principle we could no more understand the invisible things of God by the outward visible creation than a blind man can see and discern the variety of shapes and colours or judge of the outward beauty of the creation.¹²⁸

123 Endy, William Penn, 79-80.

124 George Keith, Immediate Revelation (or, Jesus Christ the Eternal Son of God, Revealed in Man, Revealing the Knowledge of God, and the Things of his Kingdom Immediately), 2^nd ed. (London, 1675), 68. 125 Ibid.

126 Barclay, Apology, 27-8.

127 Romans 1: 20. Barclay, Apology, 145.

128 Ibid.

Barclay’s position of qualified support for natural theology, being dependent on operation of the divine inward light in human souls, is referred to here as ‘pseudo- natural theology’.

3.4 EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE CREATION

As interest in the education of the children of Quakers grew, several leading Friends expressed strong views on the value of knowledge of the creation, and how this was to be acquired. The first part of this section presents evidence for a three-fold

epistemological ‘scale’ of knowledge of the creation that can be recognized in contemporary Quaker writing, although Friends did not necessarily agree on the boundaries between these categories. Thus, knowledge based only on speculation or scholastic tradition was held to be of least value, or even harmful, whilst ‘natural’ or

‘outward’ knowledge gained from empirical observation, other reliable human

agencies, and human reason was potentially useful. ‘Spiritual’ or ‘inward’ knowledge, that is the unity of knowledge of creation received from communion with the divine, and guided by scripture, was of the highest value. The second part looks at different views on how the ‘book of creation’ was to be read and the relative importance of the divine spirit and of human reason and science. The final part explores in more detail contemporary ideas on the role of the creation in Quaker education.