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8 - Reason and the Mind of God:

Platonic Religious Epistemology

from Part III - The Religious Epistemology of the Cambridge Platonists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2024

Samuel M. Kaldas
Affiliation:
The University of Sydney and The University of Notre Dame Australia
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Summary

The Cambridge Platonists’ anti-Calvinism was undergirded by a Platonic epistemology of participation – an epistemology on which the faculty of reason allowed the soul to participate in, and thereby come to know, the nature of God. This epistemology, drawn largely from Plotinus, enabled them to defend and articulate their reasons for rejecting the arbitrary, voluntarist picture of God propagated by their Calvinist contemporaries, and defend their own, rival conception of God as unswervingly committed to communicating his overflowing goodness to all his creatures. The central component of this Platonic epistemology is a high view of human reason as a direct participation in the divine nature, where beauty, goodness and truth are inseparably united. This chapter introduces the Cambridge Platonists’ religious epistemology by highlighting the ways in which they make conformity to God, both through purity of mind and virtuous action, a precondition for knowledge of God, resulting in a distinctive combination of Plotinian epistemology and Puritan spirituality.

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The Cambridge Platonists and Early Modern Philosophy
Inventing the Philosophy of Religion
, pp. 213 - 236
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • Reason and the Mind of God:
  • Samuel M. Kaldas, The University of Sydney and The University of Notre Dame Australia
  • Book: The Cambridge Platonists and Early Modern Philosophy
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009426930.012
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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Reason and the Mind of God:
  • Samuel M. Kaldas, The University of Sydney and The University of Notre Dame Australia
  • Book: The Cambridge Platonists and Early Modern Philosophy
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009426930.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Reason and the Mind of God:
  • Samuel M. Kaldas, The University of Sydney and The University of Notre Dame Australia
  • Book: The Cambridge Platonists and Early Modern Philosophy
  • Online publication: 09 May 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009426930.012
Available formats
×