Aliens and atheists: The Plurality of Worlds and Natural Theology in Seventeenth-Century England. Page: 14
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CHAPTER II
PLURALITY OF WORLDS IN ENGLAND, pre-c.1680
The Newtonians' belief in the plurality of worlds was by no means the first such
expression in seventeenth-century England. In fact, an English tradition can be
identified that stretches further back, even beyond the Henrician Reformation into the
medieval period. These versions of plurality, largely derived from those of the ancient
Greek philosophers, were rarely presented in the most remotely natural theological
terms, and even on those rare occasions in which they were, such as in John Wilkins's
The Discovery of a World in the Moone (1638), the concept did not carry the force of
empirically provable mechanical laws that the Newtonians would be able to employ.
Before the union of the Copernican heliocentric universe with Newtonian, or for that
matter even Cartestian, cosmology, proponents of pluralism relied primarily upon
metaphysical and religious reasoning for the foundations of their support, with the
specter of Scriptural rigidity looming over any who dared propose belief in what
orthodox Christianity widely viewed as an ancient heresy.
Yet condemnation of the plurality of worlds was neither universal nor established,
either by the Catholic Church before or after the Reformation, or by the various
Protestant churches that developed throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Some of the Church Fathers and medieval scholars either regarded plurality
as a heresy or expressed their strong opposition (not unlike how they viewed belief in
Antipodeans), yet an open avowal in pluralism did not prevent Nicholas of Cusa from
being named a cardinal in the fifteenth century.14
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Oliver, Ryan. Aliens and atheists: The Plurality of Worlds and Natural Theology in Seventeenth-Century England., thesis, December 2007; Denton, Texas. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc5134/m1/18/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .