Freedom by Confinement

His Anglican theology shaped Francis Bacon’s new plan for science. Thrown out of Eden, he believed, Adam had lost all knowledge, even of morals and nature. Out of divine mercy, Adam’s progeny were offered biblical knowledge on conducting and saving ourselves (the Pentateuch), with universal love as our guide (the Gospel.) God did not instruct us how to acquire natural knowledge to regain our lost dominion over things but generously gave us the means to know it. We must find out for ourselves. Francis Bacon thought that the gift of many kinds of errors (Idols or Eidola) allows us to break through appearances to access hidden realities through a new elenchus. His elenchus was the cross-examination of nature. Moreover, Anglicanism allowed for this kind of free thought about nature, unlike the other orthodoxies. Though nominally Protestant, it restricted its teaching to the goal of salvation, laying no claim beyond it to discoveries of nature. Francis Bacon suggested that we pursue knowledge not for itself (which was Adam’s sin) but for the sake of Christian charity, to acquire new powers over nature and harness them to relieve human distress. But we could study nature skeptically only if prudently we kept our method away from faith, which was held safe by its confinement within the Church. Religion was confined to salvation, and skepticism was free to roam in all matters that were not divine.