The Cathedral Clock and the Cosmological Clock Metaphor

A new world picture was developed in the seventeenth century around the mechanistic philosophies of leading men of science, particularly those of Galileo, Descartes, Boyle and Newton, but it was a development grounded in religion as well as science. The scientists themselves showed concern with making their picture of the world as a machine harmonize with religion, and some even felt that they were making a contribution to religion by showing the structure of the divine workmanship in the Creation.