Faith and Knowledge

From a present-day perspective, alchemy oscillates between magic and mysticism, but in the early modern era, it was categorized as a serious scientific discipline. Although alchemy is regarded as a precursor of modern chemistry, it was anchored in a worldview that was strongly conditioned by religious and philosophical concerns. In the melee of competing voices explaining the world, alchemy was opposed in particular by the mechanistic worldview, and hence by a rational attitude toward cause and effect. While this principle guides the natural sciences today, it has given rise to an extreme objectification and reification of nature, bolstered by the divine injunction in the Book of Genesis to “subdue” and “have dominion” “over every living thing that moveth upon the earth”!