ABSTRACT
In place of a metaphysic rooted in the Greek model of form and matter, Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers developed their conceptions from the model of mechanistic science: particles of matter moving according to fixed laws of motion. Descartes, for instance, conceived of matter as subject to mechanistic laws of motion, and mind as analogously subject to fixed laws of thought which move us from one idea to another and organize the ideas into propositions and arguments and theories. Degrees of continuity and discontinuity seem to vary from one individual to another depending on the values that shape a life before one becomes a believer. One’s conception of the Supreme Good and one’s basic value-structure may not have changed except for clarity and reinforcement, although the realization of those values is another matter.
