Of Algorithms, Atheism, and Francis Bacon

Using MIT’s OpenCourseWare I was able to find some amazing essays written by Francis Bacon. Reflecting on our class conversation about the New Scientific Method, I felt like there was room to say that people started to replace religion with skepticism and empiricism in their “algorithm” of finding and identifying truth.

I feel, however, that Francis Bacon refutes the notion of replacing God and faith in one’s algorithm of finding truth. In an essay entitled “Of Atheism” he writes,

“It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. For while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them, confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity.”

I thought that was interesting that Bacon recognized that some philosophies could lead man away from God and religion. However, he asserts that when we step look back and see how everything is connected and interconnected, we can see how those connections point towards God.

This reminds me a scripture in Book of Mormon that states, “…yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.” (Alma 30:44)

I feel that we search out new algorithms of learning, we should remember include divine sources of wisdom. As Francis Bacon states eloquently in the same essay,

“So man, when he resteth and assureth himself, upon divine protection and favor, gathered a force and faith, which human nature in itself could not obtain.”