Addressing ancient authority: Thomas Bradwardine and Prisca Sapientia

Summary

Thomas Bradwardine's theological treatise De Causa Dei provides a valuable source for late medieval views on the relationship between science and religion. Bradwardine, who can be seen as belonging in a tradition deriving from Roger Bacon, was strongly impressed by the impotence of human reason in dealing with an apparent infinitude of facts, and accordingly stressed both ancient authority and prophetic revelation as appropriate sources of scientific knowledge. Two particularly important ancient works for him were the pseudo-Aristotelian Secretum Secretorum and De Mundo. The latter led him to an arresting image of the universe as a magnetically driven clock.