The Divine as Inaccessible Object of Knowledge in Ancient Platonism: A Common Philosophical Pattern across Religious Traditions
The divine is an inaccessible object of human knowledge and reasoning according to some philosophers–theologians of the first four centuries ce . They display a refined cognitive approach to religion and a sophisticated treatment of the problem of “theo-logy”: reasoning and speaking about the divine...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2014
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| In: |
Journal of the history of ideas
Year: 2014, Volume: 75, Issue: 2, Pages: 167-188 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The divine is an inaccessible object of human knowledge and reasoning according to some philosophers–theologians of the first four centuries ce . They display a refined cognitive approach to religion and a sophisticated treatment of the problem of “theo-logy”: reasoning and speaking about the divine, which nevertheless is unknowable and ineffable. They belong to the same philosophical tradition, Platonism, but to different religious traditions: Philo to Judaism, Plotinus to “paganism” and Origen and Gregory of Nyssa to Christianity. But their reflections on the divine as an impossible cognitive object for humans are homogeneous, and this, the essay argues, mainly on account of their common philosophical tradition, which provides them with a shared epistemological and ontological pattern. They show a tension between a declared apophaticism and a discourse about the divine that they do not renounce developing. |
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| ISSN: | 1086-3222 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of the history of ideas
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/jhi.2014.0013 |