Talk:Book of Nature

Where is the phrase used in a single instance of ancient or early modern thought?
Apparently from 500 BC to 1500 AD not a single reference to such a phrase can be adduced, produced or cited. This concept appears to be a retrojection or imposition of modern onto historical thought. It's quite obvious the term was academically en vogue circa 1990, as the convoluted and pompous style shows, in addition to the complete lack of references occurring outside of a recent modern decade.


 * Why pre 1500 CE? [| Galileo] made mileage out of the concept. Good style, too. BAPhilp (talk) 09:42, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
 * That internal link doesn't seem to work. In Section 3, Scienza, teologia e l'eliocentrismo :
 * « [...] nelle dispute di problemi naturali non si dovrebbe cominciare dalla autorità di luoghi delle Scritture, ma dalle sensate esperienze e dalle dimostrazioni necessarie: perché, procedendo di pari dal Verbo divino la Scrittura Sacra e la natura, quella come dettatura dello Spirito Santo, e questa come osservantissima esecutrice de gli ordini di Dio [...]. » BAPhilp (talk) 09:45, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Augustine of Hippo uses the idea of the book of nature as if it is already established in Christian communities. For instance in 430 CE/AD: At si universam creaturam ita prius aspiceres, ut auctori Deo tribueres, quasi legens magnum quendam librum naturae rerum atque ita si quid tibi te offenderet, causam te tamquam hominem latere posse tutius credere quam in operibus Dei quicquam reprehendere auderes, numquam incidisses in sacrilegas nugas et blasphema figmenta, quibus non intellegens, unde sit malum, Deum implere conaris omnibus malis. But had you begun with looking on the book of nature as the production of the Creator of all, and had you believed that your own finite understanding might be at fault wherever anything seemed to be amiss, instead of venturing to find fault with the works of God, you would not have been led into these impious follies and blasphemous fancies with which, in your ignorance of what evil really is, you heap all evils upon God. Contra Faustum, XXXII, 20 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shevock (talk • contribs) 15:25, 3 February 2018 (UTC)