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THE DARK SIDE OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY
familiar, things supernatural and causeless.1 This new perception and world view characterized what has been called the "Age of Enlightenment." Lacking the passionate creativity of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment was inspired by seventeenth century thinkers such as Galileo, Rene Descartes, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, Francis Bacon, Benedict Spinoza, and John Locke. While most still believed that God had originally created the world, they now thought that the universe functioned according to comprehensive laws which required no further intervention on God's part. These new beliefs and attitudes mirrored those of orthodox Christianity. As orthodox Christians believed there to be a division between heaven and earth, so scientists perceived there to be a similar division, coined by Descartes as that between mind and matter. As Christians believed God to be detached from the physical world, so scientists thought that consciousness and physical reality were detached from one another. Although orthodox Christianity and modern thinkers differed in their belief about the devil, both understood the physical world as a realm devoid of divinity and sanctity. The belief that the physical world functioned independently of consciousness found new validation in Newton's laws. His laws of motion and of gravity depicted a universe which operated upon a thoroughly impartial, mechanical and deterministic basis. Newton based all of his work upon experimental evidence as a testimony to the belief that matter was devoid of supernatural influence and consciousness; since the thoughts of the person conducting the experiment would have no impact upon matter, every experiment's result should be able to be duplicated.2 In other words, he believed that it was possible for a person to observe a physical phenomenon without influencing it. Accepting the orthodox Christian idea that God no longer had impact upon the physical world, modern thinkers concurred that human consciousness similarly did not influence physical phenomena.