The “Reverent Agnosticism” of Karl Barth
Denial of the competence of the human mind for exploration of the ultimate meaning of the Universe may be associated with a serene confidence that the secret is otherwise accessible. Athenians of the fifth century, B.C., had a mystical element of which Plato speaks at times with contempt but at othe...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1950
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| In: |
Harvard theological review
Year: 1950, Volume: 43, Issue: 3, Pages: 215-232 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Denial of the competence of the human mind for exploration of the ultimate meaning of the Universe may be associated with a serene confidence that the secret is otherwise accessible. Athenians of the fifth century, B.C., had a mystical element of which Plato speaks at times with contempt but at other times with profound respect. Careless alike of the Protagorean skepticism and of its Socratic refutation, they would withdraw periodically to Eleusis for devotional rites, from which they came back radiant about the manner in which they had been “helped.” Plotinus and his Neo-Platonists found in distrust of reasoning the basis for a surer trust. St. Augustine's Neo-Platonist youth was, as he said, a fitting preliminary for the mood of his mature Christian assurance: Non in dialectica cotnplacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum. More than seven centuries later, St. Bernard was not only distressed but alarmed as he overheard discussions at a Paris street corner among students coming from Abelard's lecture-room, where they had been actually encouraged to subject the Faith to intellectual analysis. The fourteenth century mystics of the Rhineland showed reaction on a great scale from the cut-and-dried “Natural Theology” of Aquinas. It had been too much for even Bonaventura and Duns Scotus. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4517 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0017816000024524 |