New Atlantis

As the father of empiricism, Bacon is often credited with bringing science out of the realm of the spiritual, setting the stage for the more forceful atheism of Enlightenment thinkers like Denis Diderot. Yet while Bacon did keep separate in his mind the so-called “Book of God” and the “Book of Nature,” his views on the spiritual and the secular were complex, as shown in New Atlantis. For example, despite accusations of having co-opted Christian iconography, it is clear that Bensalem is a Christian nation. Indeed, it could be considered the first Christian nation, given that the New Testament was supposedly deposited on its shores only 20 years after the Ascension of Christ. As scholar Judah Bierman argues, “Bacon’s purpose is [...] to show that scientific research properly pursued is not inconsonant with religious propriety and social stability” (Bierman, Judah. “Science and Society in New Atlantis and Other Renaissance Utopias.” PLMA, vol. 78, issue 5. 1963).

Still, there is some discord between the notion of Christian piety and the accumulation of earthly knowledge, which the vaunted Salomon’s House devotes itself to pursuing. The Fall of Man is the direct result of eating from the tree of knowledge, thereby casting academic pursuits in a less-than-holy light.