I appreciate your commentary on this one, Jody. I have found much of Blake's work to be very difficult, but I do love his poems that are somewhat more obvious (_Songs of Innocence and Experience_, for example). This has been one I really appreciate, especially because of its message that man may mock all he wishes, but God has the last Word.
That is how I read Blake's poem. He is not dismissing science, but criticizing the way science is misused (by proponents of what is now called "scientism") to dismiss the transcendent.
Many years ago I was surprised to read a treatise by St. Thomas Aquinas in which he argued that science (natural philosophy) cannot prove that the universe had a beginning. The time of the universe's existence could be infinite (in the linear, boring sense of the word). We know it has a beginning only by revelation, primarily the Book of Genesis. So science and religion did not contradict each other, but the latter addressed questions that science by itself could not answer.
I appreciate your commentary on this one, Jody. I have found much of Blake's work to be very difficult, but I do love his poems that are somewhat more obvious (_Songs of Innocence and Experience_, for example). This has been one I really appreciate, especially because of its message that man may mock all he wishes, but God has the last Word.
Science gives us facts and ways to test them, which once proved, may lead to other facts, ad infinitum.
Poetry presents truths to the soul, the mind, the heart, that need no facts to be believed, such is their resonance.
That is how I read Blake's poem. He is not dismissing science, but criticizing the way science is misused (by proponents of what is now called "scientism") to dismiss the transcendent.
Many years ago I was surprised to read a treatise by St. Thomas Aquinas in which he argued that science (natural philosophy) cannot prove that the universe had a beginning. The time of the universe's existence could be infinite (in the linear, boring sense of the word). We know it has a beginning only by revelation, primarily the Book of Genesis. So science and religion did not contradict each other, but the latter addressed questions that science by itself could not answer.
Revelation, Thomas says, "superadds" science, not contradicts it.