REVISITING WILLIAM PALEY

This chapter examines Stokes as an outspoken scientist of faith. It uses Stokes to examine the intellectual threats to conservative Christianity in the second half of the nineteenth century, and highlights his leading role among Victorian Britain’s religious scientists, through bodies such as the Royal Society and the Victoria Institute. It also explains how Stokes’s upbringing and education formed the basis for his own evangelical theology, and highlights his two most significant contributions to that field. First, it explores Stokes’s opposition to the doctrine of eternal punishment, and his promotion of conditional immortality as an alternative. Second, it highlights how Stokes continued to advocate the natural theology and teleological argument of William Paley a century after they were first proposed, as a method of harmonizing faith and scientific practice.

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William Paley

Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant ◽

10.1017/cbo9780511811579.025 ◽

2002 ◽

pp. 446-459

Keyword(s):

William Paley

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Memoirs of the Rev. William Paley

Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century ◽

10.1017/cbo9781139895637.038 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 775-777

Author(s):

John Nichols

Keyword(s):

William Paley

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Charles Bell (1774–1842) and Natural Theology

Journal of Medical Biography ◽

10.1177/0967772018790736 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 28 (2) ◽

pp. 75-82

Author(s):

Sean Hughes ◽

Christopher Gardner-Thorpe

Keyword(s):

19Th Century ◽

Human Body ◽

18Th Century ◽

Natural Theology ◽

Religious Practice ◽

Direct Influence ◽

The World ◽

William Paley

Sir Charles Bell, a 19th century surgeon, anatomist and artist, was heavily influenced by the religious practice of Natural Theology, a belief which implied that the world is created by an Intelligent Designer. In the 18th century, William Paley, later Rector of Bishop Wearmouth, wrote the seminal book about Natural Theology. Charles Bell who practised in London and Edinburgh used his artistic skills to underline his teaching of anatomy and surgery. Later, Bell wrote one of the eight Bridgewater Treatises on the Hand. Bell went on to illustrate the final edition of Paley’s Natural Theology in which he demonstrated that proof of Design were to be found in the animal frame, reflecting his earlier work on art and human structure. It is concluded that Charles Bell and William Paley’s ideals were in harmony with each other, holding the same belief about Creation. This paper argues that Bell’s understanding and devotion to Natural Theology allowed him to accurately explain function, realism and expression in the human body, all revealing the direct influence of the Divine Creator.

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