Victor Vizgin

This article analyzes the connections between the voluntarism inherent in theology at the time and the experimental nature of science during the Scientific Revolution. Both science and religion supported each other on the question of miracles as they struggled with their mutual enemy — the hermetic tradition of the Renaissance. The hermetic impulse undermined the traditional Christianity of Western Europe, but science was nonetheless able to emerge because it avoided a conclusive break with the Western Church and consequently did not succumb to Eastern gnosticism.