The Calvinist International
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 […]
We have heard quite a bit about various “turns” in the history of philosophy. One of the most significant of these “conversions” (i.e., “turnings”) is Plato’s great philosophical “inward turn.” The turn inward, for Plato and his ancient interpreters, marks the beginning of the soul’s journey away from the multitude of phenomena to the absolute […]
In the third chapter of De Christiana Religione Ficino discusses the topic of educating adolescents in religion. Most, if not all, theological manuals of this period are devoid of any treatment of childhood education. Why, then, does Ficino devote a whole chapter to it? At least three possible solutions stand out. Firstly, the fact that […]
In the second chapter of his De Christiana Religione Ficino continues his argument from the first chapter that religion cannot be vain or useless. In this chapter he argues, among other points, that the soul’s yearning for God must come from God since (a) the divine light cannot be known apart from the divine light […]
Philip Cary explains Augustine’s relationship to Plotinus in terms of an “inward turn” in moral philosophy. The idea of turning inward was prevalent among Platonists of antiquity and stems from the basic distinction between material and immaterial principles. Since man is guided by an immaterial soul his happiness is not to be found in the […]
Thomas Weinandy writes in his magnificent work Does God Suffer? of David Griffin’s process theology: We have obviously returned to the pagan religious and Greek ontological dualisms of the past. In his early works Griffin, as well as other process theologians such as Pittinger and Ogden, criticized the early church Fathers for being unfaithful to biblical […]