On the miracles in Bacon’s New Atlantis

Francis Bacon's New Atlantis depicts the world to be produced by his famous project for modern science and technology and the consequent mastery of nature and 'relief of man's estate'. As depicted in the New Atlantis, the modern project is crucially dependent on two fundamental miracles: the miracle of creation and the miracle of divine revelation. Divine providence assumes that the good for man is a selfish good and that even self-sacrifice is ultimately selfish. In Bensalem, what could well be a noble lie told by scientists lends scientific credence to a miracle that could have been fabricated by the scientists themselves. As Bacon says, 'God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.' In The Advancement of Learning, Bacon says that natural theology is the 'knowledge of God that can be had by contemplating God's creatures'.