Francis Bacon, Original Sin, and the Millennium.

From Austin Cline for About.Com

England and the Enlightenment played important roles in the development of technology as material means to spiritual ends. Soteriology (study of salvation) and eschatology (study of end-times) were common preoccupations in learned circles. Most educated men took very seriously the prophecy of Daniel that "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased" as a sign that The End was close. (Daniel 12:4) Their attempts to increase knowledge about the world and improve human technology was not part of a dispassionate program to simply learn about the world, but instead to be active in millennarian expectations of Apocalypse. Technology played a key role in this as the means by which humans regained mastery over the natural world which was promised in Genesis but which humanity lost in the Fall. As historian Charles Webster observes, "The Puritans genuinely thought that each step in the conquest of nature represented a move towards the millennial condition."

An important figure in the development of modern Western science is Francis Bacon. But for Bacon, science meant primarily technology and mechanical arts - not for any esoteric purpose but for utilitarian goals. One interest of his was that the Antichrist not be in sole possession of technological tools in the coming apocalyptic battles. He wrote that: Antichrist will use these means freely and effectively, in order that he may crush and confound the power of this world... the Church should consider employment of these inventions because of future perils in the times of Antichrist which with the grace of God it would be easy to meet, if prelates and princes promoted study and investigated the secrets of nature.

Bacon also believed, like others, that technological know-how was an original birthright of humanity which had simply been lost in the Fall. Writing in his Opus Majus, he suggested the contemporary gaps in human understanding stem directly from Original Sin: "Owing to original sin and the particular sins of the individual, part of the image has been damaged, for reason is blind, memory is weak, and the will depraved." So for Francis Bacon, one of the early lights of scientific rationalism, the pursuit of knowledge and technology had three reasons: First, so that the benefits of technology would not be the sole province of the Antichrist; second, in order to regain power and knowledge lost after the Fall in Eden; and third, in order to overcome current individual sins and achieve spiritual perfection.

Bacon's successors in English science followed him very closely in these goals. As Margaret Jacob notes: "Almost every important seventeenth century English scientist or promoter of science from Robert Boyle to Isaac Newton believed in the approaching millennium." Accompanying this was the desire to recover the original Adamic perfection and knowledge lost with the Fall. The Royal Society was founded in 1660 for the purpose of improving general knowledge and practical knowledge - its Fellows worked at experimental inquiries and the mechanical arts. Philosophically and scientifically, the founders were strongly influenced by Francis Bacon. John Wilkins, for example, claimed in The Beauty of Providence that the advancement of scientific knowledge would allow humanity to recover from the Fall.

Robert Hooke wrote that the Royal Society existed "to attempt the recovery of such allowable arts and inventions as are lost." Thomas Sprat was certain that science was the prefect way to establish "man's redemption." Robert Boyle thought that scientists had a special relationship with God - that they were "born the priest of nature" and that they would ultimately "have a far greater knowledge of God's wonderful universe than Adam himself could have had." The Freemasons are a direct outgrowth and excellent example of this. In Masonic writings, God is identified very specifically as a practitioner of mechanical arts, most often as the "Great Architect" who had "the Liberal Sciences, particularly Geometry, written on his Heart." Members are encouraged to practice the same scientific arts not only to reclaim lost Adamic knowledge but also to become more God-like. Freemasonry was a means to redemption and perfection through the cultivation of science and technology.

A particular legacy of Freemasonry for the rest of society is the development of engineering as a profession by Freemasons in England. August Comte wrote of the role engineers would play in humanity's reclamation of Eden: "the establishment of the class of engineers... will, without doubt, constitute the direct and necessary instrument of coalition between men of science and industrialists, by which alone the new social order can commence." Comte suggested that they, the new priesthood, imitate priests and monks by renouncing pleasures of the flesh. At this point it is worth noting that in the Genesis account, the Fall occurs when Adam and Eve eat fruit of knowledge - knowledge of good and evil. So it is ironic that we find scientists promoting an increase in knowledge in the pursuit of regaining the lost perfection. It isn't a complete contradiction, but it is a conflict which I have not seen resolved.

[Interesting, I thought. I wonder how science & technology would have developed without the prompting of Christianity?]