Abstract:

My dissertation argues that many of Francis Bacon's most characteristic ideas can be strikingly illuminated when read in the context of the Protestant Reformation. In the introduction, I chart out my own goals in examining Bacon's works in relation to established argumentative and interpretative strategies. Chapter 1 discusses Bacon's celebrated equation of knowledge and power. I show how Bacon's advocacy of the unity of knowledge and power derives from his Trinitarianism and his conception of philosophy as a partial recovery of the image of God in humanity. I then show how love is, according to Bacon, the essential third element in this project of recovery. Next, I argue that Bacon sees the Protestant faithful as uniquely infused with love and charity, and are therefore uniquely poised to lead the reform of natural philosophy. Chapter 2 examines the role of nature in Bacon's philosophy. I investigate Bacon's account of the character of the relationship between human beings and nature, arguing that the affliction of nature is only one strategy in a larger project that Bacon sometimes presents as the perfection of creation. Further, I argue that Bacon believes that this perfection of nature must be carried out through strenuous physical and mental labor, which he suggests distinguishes his own program from, among others, the idle attempts at transformation performed in the Roman Catholic Church. In Chapter 3, I discuss Bacon's belief in the necessity of scriptural revelation, as well as guardians and interpreters of this revelation, for the renewal of philosophy. I then discuss how he conceived there to be a single method that applied to both the interpretation of nature and the interpretation of scripture. I proceed to an examination of how his views on interpretation affect his opinions about the contemporaneous Church of England. The dissertation concludes with a brief survey of the influence of Bacon's thoughts on later generations, with particular attention given to the continuation of themes raised in this work.