Francis Bacon #1: (His History)

This week on greatbiblereset.com, they are studying Francis Bacon and his impact on Western civilization. Bacon promoted the scientific method and secular progress, shifting the focus away from the Bible. He believed in knowledge as power and emphasized observation and practical application. Bacon was also associated with the esoteric Rosicrucian society and there are claims that he may have been the true author of Shakespeare's plays. His ideas influenced the formation of Britain's Royal Society and introduced the Enlightenment to the colonies. Bacon's worldview favored knowledge over virtue, and his influence grew after his death. The use of deductive logic and the analysis of Justinian's Roman legal code led to the decline of biblical integration in European universities. Stay tuned for more on Bacon's teachings tomorrow. Welcome everybody, this week on greatbiblereset.com, we are embarking on a study of Francis Bacon, who is one of the most interesting yet disturbing characters in English history. You may recall we are looking at a hundred of the classical authors from the standpoint of their unique contribution to the decline and fall of Western civilization. Hold on a second, you are probably thinking, I thought the classics were the foundation of Western civilization. Well, in a sense they were, but very few are aware of the extent to which they have undermined the Bible. And this will enable us, this study will enable us to reverse engineer the trail of apostasy, identify its nature, and the point at which the train went off the track, so to speak. Now the very subtle nature of this apostasy is becoming more and more obvious as we progress through our study, and that is the substitution of so-called natural law in our legal system, replacing God's specific Bible ordinances in Exodus 20-24, which has led to our current national disaster. Thus the need for a great Bible reset, to stay in the hand of God's judgment, is currently expressed via Klaus Schwab's great economic reset. Francis Bacon was prominent during the latter part of the reign of James I. Francis Bacon is known as the philosopher of modern science. He laid down the method and philosophy of the scientific method, which is an inductive method of arriving at truth by studying individual things or particulars in the world. Bacon gave lip service to the Bible, but he set forth a philosophy of secular progress based on the scientific method, and knowledge as power rather than virtue. Thus science gradually replaced God as the source of truth in the popular mind. Bacon lived from 1561 to 1626. He was a lawyer, an essayist, and Lord Chancellor of England. He was the first to spell out the process and philosophy for the scientific method. Science had floundered for many years until Bacon proposed that knowledge is power, to define a philosophy of secular progress based on the scientific method. He believed, ìWe are much beholden to Machiavelli and others that write what men do and not what they ought to do.î But rather than power, the Bible presents knowledge as the foundation of righteousness and discretion, especially in passages like Proverbs 2, where it says understanding will watch over you to deliver you from the day of evil. Baconís quick wit usually served him well as he rose in the courts of Elizabeth and James I. For example, one time as Lord Chancellor under Elizabeth, he presided over the criminal trial of a man named Hogg. The defendant whimsically asked that he could get off easy, for, he noted, ìHogg must be kin to Bacon.î ìNot until it has been hung,î was Baconís instant reply. The scaffold of modern science had been built in the 16th and 17th centuries on somewhat fragile footings. Prior to Descartes, revelation was the starting point for all philosophy. But after Descartes had deduced his famous dictum, ìI think, therefore I am,î in 1637, the point of reference shifted to reason and the mind of man. Mathematics as a tool of reason became the guide to ultimate meaning. Descartes started with deductive reasoning. At about the same time, Bacon pioneered the inductive approach of modern science, and Newton brought a fusion to both of them. Renewed focus on particulars of the natural world gave birth to Baconís inductive method. It had been conceived by Aquinas, Thomas Aquinasí focus on Aristotle in Summa Theologica decades earlier, between 1266 and 1273. So Baconís scientific method involves careful observation, steady design, looking for patterns and data collected. The final step is applying the data to practical ends, such as elimination of war or poverty. His approach is summarized in one famous passage where he said, ìIf man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.î His New Atlantis is devoid of the communism and earlier utopias, but instead describes a scientific elite above the bureaucrats. Bacon was a leading figure, if not the leading figure, in the esoteric Rosicrucian society of London, whose converse with familiar spirits or demons was cloaked by a biblical veneer to deflect suspicion in a generally Christian culture. Benevolent angels allegedly revealed advanced scientific knowledge to Bacon and his cohorts. The ancient goddess Pallas Athena was said to shake her spear to banish ignorance, hence the pseudonym Shakespeare. Claims related to Rosicrucianism appear in the Shakespeare plays as compelling evidence that Bacon and his studio of writers was their primary or was their true author. This explains the strange mixture of biblical and pagan allusions in the plays. To quote from sacredtext.com, ìWho but a Platonist, a Kabbalist, or a Pythagorean could have written The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Tragedy of Cymbeline?î The evidence at SirBacon.org is overwhelming, virtually irrefutable, and incredibly interesting and informative. However, in Noven Organum, 1620, written in 1620, Bacon wrote that ìNo man can search too far or be too well studied in the book of Godís word or in the book of Godís works.î So Bacon hailed from a Puritan background, and he professed Christianity, but his worldview belied his profession. As noted, he exalted knowledge for technical prowess over the world. Moreover, he suggested neutral zones aloof from the Bible. This was challenged into a theory of secular progress with scienceís Messiah. Thus Bacon has been called the prophet of the scientific revolution. Britainís Royal Society, founded in 1660, was cast in the mold of Baconís New Atlantis, written in 1627, which refers to the ìnew worldî recently discovered. Pastor Cotton Mather, who idolized Isaac Newton, was the first American granted membership in the Royal Society, in part due to his introduction of vaccination against smallpox. His emphasis on science as a proof of God and Christianity inadvertently introduced the Enlightenment to the colonies. This is why there is so much confusion among Christians looking back, for example, at the Constitution era and reading Christian words, not realizing they are laden with Enlightenment meaning. Francis Bacon had unbounded scientific genius and ambition. In his later years, he became the great rival of Sir Edwin Coke. Bacon fawned for the favor of the scandalized James One, whose homosexual tendencies had been reignited by the infamous Earl of Buckingham. Meantime, Coke upheld the common law against Jamesí Church Court, the High Commission. James used the High Commission to enforce rule by divine right, allegedly to correct abuses of the more rigid common law. Bacon was not appreciated by his peers, nor by the object of his pandering, James I. It was only after his death that Bacon was more widely accepted in Great Britain. The social upheaval of the Puritan era and its collapse between 1640 and 1660 left Britain vulnerable to skepticism. Years after his death, the English warmed to Baconís worldview of knowledge as power rather than virtue, knowledge for controlling the world rather than knowing and serving God. Bacon had warned against preconceived prejudice in the popular mind in the use of syllogistic logic, preferring induction or inductive logic, as we have seen. And this problem of Baconís preconceived anticipation of the mind, as he put it, was especially acute in the realm of legal analysis. An historical example was the respect afforded Justinianís Roman legal code, discovered in a Bologna library in 1070, about five years before the eruption of the investiture struggle. And it was largely a collection of cases with very little legal theory or biblical integration. But the antiquity of Justinianís long-lost Roman code endowed it with special reverence in minds that it were already bent on returning to classical roots. So the schoolmen of the newly founded universities set about analyzing, synthesizing, categorizing and glossating the Justinian code with great fervor based on logic. And this was especially the case on the European continent, as the Bible was gradually edged out of favor. Thank you again for being here with us today. Please share, comment, subscribe and patronize our sponsors at greatbiblereset.com. You can pick up a free book at kingswayclassicalacademy.com bookstore, keys to the classics, and free resistance bands at bloomersalive.com. So tomorrow weíre going to be discussing the teaching of Francis Bacon in much more detail.