Abstract
How providence correlates with free will and the divine agrees with the natural order have been the foundational issues of Christian teaching. Owing a great deal to ancient discussions on fate and causality, Christian theologians adjusted the notions in hand to meet their needs. In the Renaissance, an alleged connection between a divinely structured universe and the causes of terrestrial events was put into question. There were two main reasons for that. First, the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries witnessed a revival of the philosophical ideas that challenged the Aristotelian teaching on the four causes. On the other hand, contemporary scientific developments shook belief in the harmonious design of the universe.
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Akopyan, O. (2022). Causality, Renaissance. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14169-5_253
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