Prognostication

Use in the book

Its position gives it particular force. The body asks what good God may establish by Khunrath's public confession of the Son of the great World in the present contentious age: perhaps the teaching of God's Son will be confirmed to doubters from Nature as well. The margin enlarges that possibility into a prediction. The repeated “beside” relation is essential. The expected change is an increased public force for natural testimony alongside Scripture, rather than Scripture's displacement.

The prediction gathers threads already developed. At p. 139 the natural book is said to testify of Christ; at p. 151 the two divinely delivered theologies are expressly joined. Thus the Prognosticon is not the sudden introduction of an esoteric future doctrine. It projects into a future controversy the evidential role already claimed for Magnesia in the present treatise.

The same page places the forecast next to the image of the right door. The philosopher is to enter the Art through its pri-material subject under IEHOVAH's blessing. Another gloss changes the familiar operational sequence into future verbs: he will dissolve, coagulate and fix. These two marginal futures are related by confidence in the right ground, but they should not be conflated. One predicts the standing of natural theology; the other describes the work promised to the properly entering philosopher. Neither supplies a calendar or makes the completion historically verifiable from this book alone.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 139Natural Magnesia is said to testify universally of Christ
2. 1599 p. 151 · marginThe conjunction of biblical and macrocosmic theology prepares the prediction
3. 1599 p. 183Public confession may confirm the doctrine of the Son to doubters through Nature
4. 1599 p. 183 · marginPROGNOSTICON predicts the future weight of natural theology beside Scripture

Translation in this edition

“Prognostication” keeps the printed heading's predictive sense without importing a particular divinatory technique. “Ocular proof” or “visible proof” renders Augenscheinlichen Beweiß more exactly than a modern experimental programme. The claim about what will happen remains Khunrath's forecast.