The Calvinist International
The eminent English divine Henry More (1618-1647), like many of his Protestant forebears, believed that piety is an essential part of moral philosophy, that is to say, that moral philosophy is not a secular discipline. The individual who seeks true virtue, More believed, would not be satisfied until he discovers the ultimate source of virtue […]
The Puritan Nathaniel Culverwell (1619-1651), like many of those who graced the walls of the various colleges at Cambridge in the mid-17th century, elegantly defends the rationality of faith. He expounds upon the relationship between faith and reason in his An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature (1652), in which he affirms […]
Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688) is perhaps the most famous and influential of the group of Anglican divines that scholars since the 19th century have dubbed the Cambridge Platonists. These divines were some of the first, if not the first, English philosophers to discuss and critically engage with the new philosophy of René Descartes. They were certainly attracted to […]
John Smith (1616-1652), the Christian Platonist and Anglican theologian who scholars today recognize as one of the members of the Cambridge Platonists, beautifully answers the perennial question of why an infinite and perfect God would create a finite universe. Smith affirms that the traditional answer, “for his own Glory,” requires some explanation. When God seeks […]