Why was the great philosopher Spinoza expelled from his Portuguese-Jewish community in Amsterdam? Nadler's investigation of this simple question gives fascinating new perspectives on Spinoza's thought and the Jewish religious and philosophical tradition from which it arose.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 130-131 [Access article in PDF] Steven Nadler. Spinoza's Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Mind. New York: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 2001. Pp. xvi + 225. Cloth, $35.00. Steven Nadler's Spinoza's Heresy opens with the following declaration: "It is a splendid mystery" (1). The mystery, of course, is how a gifted son of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, a (...) young man whom one might have expected to grow naturally into the role of a respected rabbi, came to be expelled from that community. What Nadler finds so mysterious is not the simple fact of Spinoza's expulsion—itself a common form of discipline among the Jews of Amsterdam—but the vehemence and finality with which he was expelled. The writ of expulsion accuses Spinoza of "abominable heresies" and "monstrous deeds" and goes on to heap layer after layer of curse upon him. It is, in Nadler's judgment, the harshest writ ever to be pronounced against a member of that community. What, then, were the views so abominable and the deeds so monstrous that account for this? What had Spinoza said and done to raise such ire among his fellow Jews? That is the mystery Nadler's book attempts to solve.Needless to say, Nadler is not the first to take up this challenge. The question of what lay behind Spinoza's expulsion has been of perennial interest to scholars, and what keeps it alive, in part, is its resistance to definitive resolution. Most importantly, Spinoza had not yet begun to write at the time of his expulsion, and his surviving correspondence is silent on the matter. Nevertheless, it is tempting to look to his Ethics and Theological-Political Treatise for clues. But if we are to do so, as Nadler encourages us to, we must not only determine which of the views they contain can be attributed to the young Spinoza, but show how his holding of them explains the events that transpired.Nadler begins with the documentary evidence. Although sparse, the sources point to three views at the root of Spinoza's troubles: that God exists only philosophically; that the Law is not true; and that the soul is not immortal. Acknowledging that each of these may have played a role in the expulsion, Nadler singles out the last for special scrutiny and concludes that it was decisive. His reasons for doing so emerge in the last chapter of the book. Despite broad latitude within the Jewish tradition as a whole, the Jews of Amsterdam were particularly sensitive on the issue of immortality and did not take kindly those who denied it. Indeed, they had a history of confrontation with "heretics" on this issue. This was partly a function of a general concern not to arouse unwanted attention from the politically powerful Calvinists within Dutch society. But it also stemmed from an intense interest in the afterlife among the Sephardim, who, being of Marrano heritage, were naturally concerned about the postmortem fate of Jewish converts to Catholicism. Though the community was divided on what that fate would be, the entire debate on the question was carried out on the shared assumption of personal immortality. This, together with a deep commitment to immortality on the part of each of its leading rabbis, conspired to make Jewish Amsterdam an inhospitable place for anyone holding views like those Spinoza was to express. In Nadler's words, immortality "was simply the wrong issue to pick on in Jewish Amsterdam in the 1650's" (156).Nadler's thesis is intriguing, and the light that he throws on the Spinoza affair in the course of developing it is considerable. However, a question remains. Although Nadler does an impressive job of clarifying why Spinoza's views on the afterlife would have been so volatile within the Amsterdam community, we might still wonder why the other two theses he is reported to have held do not merit equal consideration. This is particularly true of his denial of the authority of the Law. Whatever... (shrink)

Toleration of differing religious ideas exists in parts of the contemporary world, but it is still not clear how this came about. Recent work has uncovered the enormous importance one branch of historiography has had in bringing about such tolerance as we have: histories of heresy. This book brings together experts in this field in order to attempt to map out the contours and features of the influence of these histories on early modern and modern conceptions of toleration. Perhaps by (...) showing heretics and heresies to be more benign than once thought, these histories could tease tolerance from the intolerant. The essays in this book attempt to piece together the intentions and effects of key works from this literature in the promotion or rejection of toleration in theory and practice. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 1, pp 95 - 121 Contemporary study of Jewish secularism in the Modern era has yielded a nuanced picture of Hebrew secularism. This article analyzes the emergence of a rich and diverse cultural infrastructure of Hebrew secularism in the first half of the twentieth century from a philosophical perspective, proposing a typology of models of Hebrew secularism. These models are characterized by their attitudes to what, following Charles Taylor, can be referred to as the (...) “fragmentary character” of religious existence in the secular age. The conclusion reflects on the limitations of the proposed typology and identifies further avenues for the philosophical study of Hebrew secularism. (shrink)

With extraordinary chutzpa and deep philosophical seriousness, Solomon ben Joshua of Lithuania renamed himself after his medieval intellectual hero, Moses Maimonides. Maimon was perhaps the most brilliant and certainly the most controversial figure of the late-eighteenth century Jewish Enlightenment. He scandalized rabbinic authorities, embarrassed Moses Mendelssohn, provoked Kant, charmed Goethe, and inspired Fichte, among others. This is the first study of Maimon to integrate his idiosyncratic philosophical idealism with his popular autobiography, and with his early unpublished exegetical, mystical, and (...) Maimonidean work in Hebrew. In doing so, it illuminates the intellectual and spiritual possibilities open to a European Jew at the turn of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

Gideon Freudenthal - The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism, Heresy, and Philosophy - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.4 661-663 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Gideon Freudenthal Tel-Aviv University Abraham P. Socher. The Radical Enlightenment of Solomon Maimon: Judaism, Heresy, and Philosophy. Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 248. Cloth $55.00. With few philosophers are life and (...) work so intimately connected as with Salomon Maimon. Born in 1753 in Lithuania and raised in an orthodox Jewish community, Maimon "pilgrimaged" at the age of twenty-five to Berlin, the capital of the Jewish Enlightenment. After some years of education in sciences and languages, Maimon produced, in less than ten years , a series of books and papers that today make up the seven volumes of his collected works. A.. (shrink)

This is a study of the encounter with the problem of heresy in Europe between the World Wars, in Germany and among Jews above all. It is first and foremost an intellectual history, though not exclusively so, and has four related aims. It argues, first, that the advent of a heretical ideal among Jews in the interwar period marked the definitive end of a chapter in German-Jewish history that began with Moses Mendelssohn. Mendelssohn's gambit and the liberal Judaism that (...) arose in its wake proved unworkable by this time, and the arrival of avowedly heretical forms of Jewish return signaled the end of his epoch. But we also find in this period the beginnings of a search for post-liberal modes of Jewish identity in which its predecessor endured in interesting and unexpected ways. Second, the dissertation reconstructs and analyzes the two leading languages of heresy in the interwar period, the gnostic and the pantheist. The first pined for salvation from a sinful world by the grace of a wholly transcendent, extramundane and therefore absent God, or a deus absconditus , and was associated in the interwar period with the Protestant representatives of dialectical theology. The pantheist language of heresy, by contrast, contested the gnostic spirit by divinizing the world, and was associated with the interconfessional revival of Spinoza. On the strength of this contextual reconstruction, the study aims, third, to reinterpret the philosophical careers of three important twentieth-century thinkers, all of them German-Jewish emigres: Hans Jonas, whose philosophical biology made him an unproclaimed "guru" to the German Green movment; Leo Strauss, the philosopher and unwitting father of a neo-conservative revolt in American politics; and Gershom Scholem, the eminent scholar of religion and Jewish culture. The study shows how their diverse projects all had origins in their encounter with the problem of heresy in interwar Europe. Their projects had also a common end: all resurrected the ancient Greek distinction between physis and nomos , and all contested normative Judaism by coming down squarely on the side of the former as the ground for Jewish identity in particular and human being more generally. Fourth and last, the dissertation makes an argument for the abiding salience of a theological dimension to European intellectual life between the wars and beyond. If nothing else, the stories presented here should alert us to the ways in which talk about God could be adapted for talk about nature, or politics, or art, to the ways in which discourses of the divine not only endure in this worldly world of ours, but flourish. (shrink)

This paper was presented at the conference ‘The Marrano Phenomenon: Jewish Hidden Tradition and Modernity’, Warsaw, 16–19 September 2019. It considers the case of Marcus Ehrenpreis, chief rabbi of Stockholm. Ehrenpreis followed in the tradition from Antiquity of Philo of Alexandria, who expressed his Jewish philosophy in Greek, and Moses Mendelssohn, who attempted to bring the principles of the Englightenment to German Jews and to promote an understanding of Judaism among non­Jews. Ehrenpreis sought to follow a similar path (...) among the Swedes, not least in making Swedish his preferred language of writing. Although the Marrano phenomenon relates primarily to the concept of ‘borderline’ Jewishness, of which Ehrenpreis was not an exponent, it nonetheless proves fruitful to consider him from a Marrano perspective in order to extend our understanding of him as an innovative figure who sought to achieve greater understanding across the religious and cultural boundaries between Judaism and non­-Judaism. (shrink)

From its inception to the 4th century CE, Christianity experienced a formative process composite of three catalytic phases characterised by distinctive events (i.e. Jewish-Christian Schism, Hellenism and imperial intervention). From the aforementioned era emerged an orthodoxy fostered by an imperial-ecclesiastical link. There appears to have been a parallel story with regard to certain elements of African Christianity, in particular, Ethiopian Christianity. What can be made of the gap regarding Jewish Christianity combined with the absence of African Christianity from (...) Bauer’s modular theory on heresy and orthodoxy in the development of early Christianity? Despite the dominant story of the development of an imperial religious establishment at the turn of the 4th century, could there be an alternative narrative to Christianity in the African region derivate from Ethiopia? Reviewing the emergence of a religious political Christianity in this era as modular against Ethiopian Christianity in tangent with its links with Christianity in Roman Africa, establishment of the nature and development of Ethiopian Christianity was performed. This was performed through documentary analysis. Bauer’s (1971) theory of orthodoxy and heresy in early Christianity did not exhaustively account for Jewish Christianity and North African distinct intransigent tradition characteristic of Carthage. By extension to African Egyptian, Alexandria is Ethiopian Christianity that was characterised by Judaic tradition in contrast to anti-Judaism. This established a parallel history of Christianity in Africa inclusive of Ethiopia. A review of this perspective contains contemporary momentum in view of the focus on Ethiopian Jews, for example, as religious praxis was as important as ethnicity in determining the Jewishness of whole tribes. (shrink)

When Jakob Freudenthal published Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas in 1899, it was the first collection of biographical documents on Spinoza, who was then still seen as something of an ascetic and isolated philosopher. This view had been suggested by Jarig Jelles’ preface to Spinoza’s Opera posthuma. Bayle had also used Spinoza’s unique vita when arguing for his claim that an atheist could live a virtuous life. While this had offered a pretext for reading Spinoza since the end of the seventeenth century, (...) once he was “christianized” by German idealism it became increasingly a way to ignore his critique of religion, as well as his Jewish roots. Our knowledge of Spinoza’s life was further extended by the findings of Carl Gebhardt, who, in a series of articles beginning in 1922, pointed to Spinoza’s association with Jewish heresy in Amsterdam. As a result, Spinoza’s turn to modern science and philosophy was seen as due, to some extent, to his association with Jewish heresy in Amsterdam. The next great step in Spinoza historiography was taken in 1932 by Mordechai Vaz Dias and Willem Tak, who published new biographical material showing us the young merchant Spinoza.Although none of the documents found since have changed our picture of Spinoza’s life as dramatically, they have never been collected in one place. Thanks to Walther’s new edition, we now have almost all of these documents in two large volumes with a rich commentary, the first of which includes the documents and. (shrink)

When Jakob Freudenthal published Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas in 1899, it was the first collection of biographical documents on Spinoza, who was then still seen as something of an ascetic and isolated philosopher. This view had been suggested by Jarig Jelles’ preface to Spinoza’s Opera posthuma. Bayle had also used Spinoza’s unique vita when arguing for his claim that an atheist could live a virtuous life. While this had offered a pretext for reading Spinoza since the end of the seventeenth century, (...) once he was “christianized” by German idealism it became increasingly a way to ignore his critique of religion, as well as his Jewish roots. Our knowledge of Spinoza’s life was further extended by the findings of Carl Gebhardt, who, in a series of articles beginning in 1922, pointed to Spinoza’s association with Jewish heresy in Amsterdam. As a result, Spinoza’s turn to modern science and philosophy was seen as due, to some extent, to his association with Jewish heresy in Amsterdam. The next great step in Spinoza historiography was taken in 1932 by Mordechai Vaz Dias and Willem Tak, who published new biographical material showing us the young merchant Spinoza.Although none of the documents found since have changed our picture of Spinoza’s life as dramatically, they have never been collected in one place. Thanks to Walther’s new edition, we now have almost all of these documents in two large volumes with a rich commentary, the first of which includes the documents and. (shrink)

Pioneering biblical critic, theorist of democracy, and legendary conflater of God and nature, Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) was excommunicated by the Sephardic Jews of Amsterdam in 1656 for his "horrible heresies" and "monstrous deeds." Yet, over the past three centuries, Spinoza's rupture with traditional Jewish beliefs and practices has elevated him to a prominent place in genealogies of Jewish modernity. The First Modern Jew provides a riveting look at how Spinoza went from being one of (...) Judaism's most notorious outcasts to one of its most celebrated, if still highly controversial, cultural icons, and a powerful and protean symbol of the first modern secular Jew. Ranging from Amsterdam to Palestine and back again to Europe, the book chronicles Spinoza's posthumous odyssey from marginalized heretic to hero, the exemplar of a whole host of Jewish identities, including cosmopolitan, nationalist, reformist, and rejectionist. Daniel Schwartz shows that in fashioning Spinoza into "the first modern Jew," generations of Jewish intellectuals -German liberals, East European maskilim, secular Zionists, and Yiddishists- have projected their own dilemmas of identity onto him, reshaping the Amsterdam thinker in their own image. The many afterlives of Spinoza are a kind of looking glass into the struggles of Jewish writers over where to draw the boundaries of Jewishness and whether a secular Jewish identity is indeed possible. Cumulatively, these afterlives offer a kaleidoscopic view of modern Jewish culture and a vivid history of an obsession with Spinoza that continues to this day."--Jacket. (shrink)

Jewish and Christian philosophy existed side by side in the Middle Ages. Both sought the same goal: the explanation of God and His universe. Both utilized the same sources; yet each attained different philosophical and theological systems. The Meditation of the Sad Soul illustrates this divergence between Christian and Jewish thought. Furthermore, since it stands midway between Neo-platonic and Aristotelian Judaism, it underlines the development of key philosophical concepts common to both Judaism and Christianity. Abraham Bar Hayya lived (...) in eleventh century Barcelona, an intellectual center for both Jews and Arabs. The major points of his philosophy blend rabbinical, Neo-platonic and Aristotelian ideas, yet maintain a unique independence of their own. For instance, Abraham cut through the rabbinical and Aristotelian proofs of God, demanding instead a primary positive faith in God's existence. Caught up in the theology of light, he rejected the Platonic idea that darkness was merely an absence of light. Rather, darkness had a force equal to light. Most important, darkness and light were opposites, as were good and evil. God created both. Abraham insists that each had an independent existence in the world. Abraham's thought shows a more "rational" strain which appears later in Christian and even Jewish "heresies." Since good and evil exist as positive forces, man can freely choose his path to salvation. Abraham never gets caught in the Augustinian dilemma of will, grace, and predestination. Further examples of Abraham's independent position crop up in his ideas of creation and time. Creation ex nihilo, of course, but creation in time. Time must have a beginning and, consequently, an end. But man does not have to await passively the Messiah's rectification of sin. Man must repent here on earth and actively lead a good life. He cannot repent after death. How influential was Abraham's tract? The editor calls it a "minor classic" yet does not indicate that it formed a basis for later Christian theology. Maimonides knew it and rejected some of its basic tenets. Still, the book is important since it indicates a striking combination of traditional philosophy subjected to a new critical rationalism, an it foreshadows some of the questions raised by deviant Christian and Jewish theologians.--J. K. B. (shrink)

ExcerptIn 1938, when anti-Jewish Racial Laws were passed in Italy, Pope Pius XI and Mussolini went through a long confrontation on the racial problem: for the Duce of Fascism, anything related to racial policies fell within the competence of the Italian government and had nothing to do with religion, hence the Vatican had no authority to intervene; conversely, for the Pope, racism was a dangerous heresy and, as such, had to be condemned by the Catholic Church. This confrontation was (...) harsh and would continue until the death of Pius XI in February 1939. But did the Italian Church sustain the…. (shrink)

The accusation of Jewish ancestry formulated against Ibn Rushd al-Ḥafīd when he was exiled to Lucena is analyzed taking into account similar accusations made against other Andalusis during the Almoravid and Almohad periods, as well as Muslim representations of the Jews in which these were often depicted as agents of foreign heresies. The influence of the context of suspicion and anxiety created by the forced conversion of the Jews in the early Almohad period in such accusations is also (...) dealt with. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, German writers, philosophers, theologians, and historians turned to Gnosticism to make sense of the modern condition. While some saw this ancient Christian heresy as a way to rethink modernity, most German intellectuals questioned Gnosticism's return in a contemporary setting. In No Spiritual Investment in the World, Willem Styfhals explores the Gnostic worldview's enigmatic place in these discourses on modernity, presenting a comprehensive intellectual history of Gnosticism's role in postwar German thought. Establishing the German-Jewish philosopher Jacob (...) Taubes at the nexus of the debate, Styfhals traces how such figures as Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Eric Voegelin, Odo Marquard, and Gershom Scholem contended with Gnosticism and its tenets on evil and divine absence as metaphorical detours to address issues of cultural crisis, nihilism, and the legitimacy of the modern world. These concerns, he argues, centered on the difficulty of spiritual engagement in a world from which the divine has withdrawn. Reading Gnosticism against the backdrop of postwar German debates about secularization, political theology, and post-secularism, No Spiritual Investment in the World sheds new light on the historical contours of postwar German philosophy. (shrink)

From Pulitzer Prize-finalist Steven Nadler, an engaging guide to what Spinoza can teach us about life’s big questions In 1656, after being excommunicated from Amsterdam’s Portuguese-Jewish community for “abominable heresies” and “monstrous deeds,” the young Baruch Spinoza abandoned his family’s import business to dedicate his life to philosophy. He quickly became notorious across Europe for his views on God, the Bible, and miracles, as well as for his uncompromising defense of free thought. Yet the radicalism of Spinoza’s views (...) has long obscured that his primary reason for turning to philosophy was to answer one of humanity’s most urgent questions: How can we lead a good life and enjoy happiness in a world without a providential God? In Think Least of Death, Pulitzer Prize–finalist Steven Nadler connects Spinoza’s ideas with his life and times to offer a compelling account of how the philosopher can provide a guide to living one’s best life. In the Ethics, Spinoza presents his vision of the ideal human being, the “free person” who, motivated by reason, lives a life of joy devoted to what is most important—improving oneself and others. Untroubled by passions such as hate, greed, and envy, free people treat others with benevolence, justice, and charity. Focusing on the rewards of goodness, they enjoy the pleasures of this world, but in moderation. “The free person thinks least of all of death,” Spinoza writes, “and his wisdom is a meditation not on death but on life." An unmatched introduction to Spinoza’s moral philosophy, Think Least of Death shows how his ideas still provide valuable insights about how to live today. (shrink)

The existence of ‘human-like’ attributes and actions in the Qur’an and Hebrew Bible entails to various interpretations towards anthropomorphic verses among the Muslim and Jewish counterparts. Al-Ghazali and Maimonides in their discourses strongly affirmed the unity of God and refuted anthropomorphism. Therefore, this study expounded al-Ghazali and Maimonides’ methods in affirming the incorporeality of God through outlining the similarities and differences in their interpretation. This study was qualitative in nature which analyses writings of al-Ghazali and Maimonides in encountering anthropomorphism. (...) It can be deduced that both scholars were found to be employing allegorical interpretation with different level of interpretations in their attempts to repudiate the corporeal form of God. Alternatively, they both agree on the literalist’s approach with conditions that one must not perceive God’s essence in a bodily figure. Consequently, believing so will lead one to heresy. In sum, their emphasis on an incorporeal God brought them to similar interpretation despite their different religion and theological or philosophical orientation.Contribution: This article contributed to comparative theological study in understanding anthropomorphic verses through the discourse of al-Ghazali and Maimonides in Islam and Judaism, respectively. (shrink)

This chapter explores the interrelations between Theodor W. Adorno and Gershom Scholem's thought. It argues that despite the overt differences between Adorno's materialist social philosophy and Scholem's scholarship of Jewish mysticism, both intellectuals were motivated by similar concerns and interests. Following a brief historical contextualization of the intellectual exchange between Adorno and Scholem, the chapter focuses on three main thematic intersections between their thought and writings: The concept of myth and the dialectical entanglement of myth and reason; the heretical (...) element in its relation to natural and social life, and to the critique of normativity; and the theological dimension in their work, and the role of negativity, metaphysics, and materialism within it. (shrink)

In 1241/4 the theology masters at the university at Paris with their chancellor, Odo of Chateauroux, mandated by their bishop, William of Auvergne, met to condemn ten propositions against theological truth. This book represents the first comprehensive examination of what hitherto has been a largely ignored instrument in a crucial period of the university's early maturation. However, the book's ambition goes wider than this. The condemnation provides a window through which to view the wider doctrinal, intellectual, institutional and historical developments (...) within the emerging university. These include the advent of the Dominicans and Franciscans at the university; and the developing focus of Paris theologians on using their learning for preaching at a time of a rapid and sometimes divergent development of doctrine and concerns over the newly-translated Aristotelian and associated Arab and Jewish works, heresy, the Greek Church and the Jews. The book compares the condemnation's ten articles with the major statement of Catholic principles in the first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, and assesses what conclusions can be drawn from their apparent correlation. (shrink)

Norman Rufus Colin Cohn, a Fellow of the British Academy, wrote three major histories around a single theme. The Pursuit of the Millennium related the apocalyptic beliefs of twentieth-century totalitarian movements, whether Nazi or Communist, to their origins in medieval heresy. Warrant for Genocide established that the key document of a Jewish world conspiracy, The Protocol of the Elders of Zion, was a nineteenth-century Tsarist forgery. Europe's Inner Demons argued that the belief in a Satanic pact was at the (...) heart of witch persecution in early modern Europe. Within a year of retiring as Director of the Columbus Centre, Cohn was invited to Concordia University, Montreal, to help launch an Institute for Genocide Studies. He regarded his three books as tied to the Columbus Centre agenda and as such compatible with Lord Dacre's own search for what it was in Germany's myths and history that Adolf Hitler's mind could have been working upon in his lost years in Vienna. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 559-560 [Access article in PDF] Elmar J. Kremer and Michael J. Latzer, editors. The Problem of Evil in Early Modern Philosophy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. Pp. vi + 179. Cloth, $60.00. What can be added to classical defenses of the problem of evil? Did Voltairenotrelieve us from taking seriously the theodicies of early modern thinkers in Candide when Pangloss (...) avers that spectacles exist because noses were made to support them? Do we not rightfully regard Malebranche's ingenious appeal to God's simplicity and uniformity to explain malformed offspring as little more than a curiosity? Yet, the editors of this volume claim that the "theodicy problem was no mere idle puzzle of dogmatics, but a problem of immense social significance, a problem which cut to the heart of the philosophical and theological projects of the very best minds of the age" (5). Several essays in this volume bear out the editors' claim, and to a modern reader, show how the problem of evil was intricately woven into the philosophical ideas of early modern thought.The problem of evil is especially acute for many of the seventeenth-century authors surveyed in this volume who held that God is the total and efficient cause of the universe. God's constant involvement in physical events meant that defects, deformities, and natural disasters fell into the framework of the traditional problem of evil. Hence, physical evil became the preoccupation of natural philosophers and theologians alike. We learn that Leibniz, Malebranche, and Spinoza chose to limit God's will rather than His wisdom, whereas Descartes opted to limit God's wisdom. The odd man out is Bayle who crafted a third position that emphasized God's benevolence at the expense of His wisdom and will.The essays found in this volume are just a sampling of views in the period, but it is more than a good start. Freddoso's essay on Francisco Suarez sets the tone for the problem of explaining the causal origin of human evil. Freddoso shows how Suarez distinguished concurrent from original causes in order to credit God for His supreme causal role yet absolved Him of blame for the existence of moral defectiveness. Latzer, in his essay on Rene Descartes, perhaps overstates the case in attributing to Descartes a theodicy grander than that of Leibniz, but he draws on the Fourth Meditation account of error to provide a plausible and nuanced reconstruction of his views on evil.There are two essays on Baruch Spinoza. Hunter's essay lays out an argument for Spinoza as a radical Christian reformer touching on Spinoza's views on providence. Nadler notes in his essay that Spinoza ought to have rejected the whole question of theodicy as incoherent, but shows how the matter is a good deal more complicated. Nadler then introduces us to the Medieval Jewish tradition, from which Spinoza is said to have drawn his views leading to a denial of personal immortality. [End Page 559]Moreau's essay on Nicholas Malebranche is rich in historical context and philosophical interpretation. Malebranche is shown to be a critical and original thinker on the problem of evil. Moreau lauds Malebranche's philosophical and moral courage in his bold assertion that physical evil is not a negation but rather a real phenomenon requiring explanation.Larivière and Lennon argue that Bayle held a third position rarely seen in the period: that God's benevolence trumps considerations of both His wisdom and will. Bayle develops a "moral solution" to the problem of evil wherein God's benevolence requires that humans possess an autonomy of conscience whose exercise makes error and heresy morally possible and justifiable.The final three essays in the volume rightly focus on aspects of Leibniz's response to the problem of evil. Kremer shows how, in the case of Leibniz's treatment of the fate of infants who die unbaptized, Leibniz abandons the Augustinian approach to the problem of evil and calculates the fate of all creatures on the basis of what produces... (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, German writers, philosophers, theologians, and historians turned to Gnosticism to make sense of the modern condition. While some saw this ancient Christian heresy as a way to rethink modernity, most German intellectuals questioned Gnosticism's return in a contemporary setting. In No Spiritual Investment in the World, Willem Styfhals explores the Gnostic worldview's enigmatic place in these discourses on modernity, presenting a comprehensive intellectual history of Gnosticism's role in postwar German thought. Establishing the German-Jewish philosopher Jacob (...) Taubes at the nexus of the debate, Styfhals traces how such figures as Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Eric Voegelin, Odo Marquard, and Gershom Scholem contended with Gnosticism and its tenets on evil and divine absence as metaphorical detours to address issues of cultural crisis, nihilism, and the legitimacy of the modern world. These concerns, he argues, centered on the difficulty of spiritual engagement in a world from which the divine has withdrawn. Reading Gnosticism against the backdrop of postwar German debates about secularization, political theology, and post-secularism, No Spiritual Investment in the World sheds new light on the historical contours of postwar German philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.4 (2001) 611-631 [Access article in PDF] Galileo and Spinoza: Heroes, Heretics, and Hermeneutics T. M. Rudavsky Introduction My purpose in this paper is to explore what happens when a scientific methodology rooted in mathematical geometry is then applied to biblical hermeneutics. Galileo and Spinoza are both thinkers who, in their adoption of the methods of philosophy and science, challenged the limits of (...) their social, intellectual, and theological margins. Both thinkers were regarded by their peers as threats to the institutional life of their respective communities; both espoused doctrines that were regarded as heretical by their governing bodies. What I shall try to demonstrate is that Galileo and Spinoza share a methodological program of natural science which, rooted in a mathematical view of nature, is then applied to Scripture. It is this methodological preoccupation that dooms them both and ultimately subjects them to the charge of heresy.In this paper I shall examine the circumstances, both personal and ideological, surrounding the excommunications of both Galileo and Spinoza. The implications of the ideological impetus for the excommunications I situate in the process of "secularization of theology," a term used by Funkenstein to describe the scientific turn in the seventeenth century. 1 I want to compare the hermeneutic methods which were developed in two controversial works, Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, completed in 1615, and Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise,published anonymously in 1670, but possibly commenced [End Page 611] much earlier, and then to explore the application of these hermeneutic methods to the proof-text adduced by both writers, namely, Joshua 10:12-13. Galileo and Spinoza: The Scientific Quest By suggesting that Galileo and Spinoza represent the tensions inherent between religion and science, I am not simply acquiescing to the adversarial model of the science-religion wars as they have been portrayed by late nineteenth-century historians of science. These scholars would have us believe that science has been persecuted by religion: more specifically, that western science has been persecuted by the Catholic Church. For example, in his enormously influential work History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, John William Draper argued that the Church "became a stumbling block in the intellectual advancement of Europe for more than a thousand years." 2 On this antagonistic model, the history of scientific development was presented as a war against a narrow-minded establishment that feared science; the conflicts between science and religion were seen as a one-sided affair in which the Church sought to suppress truth-seeking scientists. Jewish institutions were not castigated nearly as maliciously on this view (perhaps, the cynic may argue, because by this point in history Jews wielded so little power).But as Brooke, Funkenstein, Feldhay, and others have reminded us, the Draper-White model of conflict between science and religion is overly simplistic. It is important to recognize that, especially in the early modern period, religion, philosophy, and science were mutually influential upon one another. Of course the term "science" is itself anachronistic when used in the early modern period. Were it not for the ubiquity of references to the "science-religion" wars, the term "natural philosophy" would be more appropriate. Funkenstein and Brooke have, for example, articulated many examples in which theological concepts influenced scientific and philosophical modes of discourse in the seventeenth century. 3It must be recognized too, that many of the struggles which occur between religion and science are not merely ideological wars but have a human dimension as well; ultimately, it is people who interact, not theories--personalities loom large and can affect the outcome of a debate. That this is certainly the case with both Spinoza and Galileo should come as no surprise. Rivka Feldhay, for example, argues that most accounts of Galileo are based on "overriding binary [End Page 612] opposition: that of the Church versus science," 4 an opposition which she claims is myopic and narrow. Scientific truths are not simply waiting to be discovered; they are embedded in social constructs. While I agree with Feldhay that social construction... (shrink)

‘Adoptionism’ is an early Christian ‘heresy’ often associated with early strands of Jewish Christian tradition. It figures as such in handbooks of church history and New Testament studies alike. This essay investigates the origins of the concept of ‘adoptionism’ in the historiography of early Christianity, offers a fresh analysis of the relevant ‘adoptionist’ sources, and concludes that the concept is a misleading one. Therefore, the proposal is made to abandon the notion of ‘adoptionism’ as a category and to focus (...) on the authors involved as such and to investigate what their soteriological and christological concerns were, rather than to identify them as ‘adoptionists’ and to study them with that identification as a starting point. (shrink)

The objective of this article is to present research results on the Gnosticism, motivated by Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Gaudate et Exsultate. Gnosticism appears characterized as a knowledge system that aims to attain true gnosis, that is, true knowledge. The origins of the gnostic movement are not easy to be identified, but their vestiges can be already found in the philosophy of Plato, in the Jewish literature and in the apocryphal writings of the primitive Christianity. Fought as heresy, especially (...) by Irenaeus of Lion, the gnostic concepts have not been totally overcoming, being somehow rescued today and that has influenced the Christian way of life of many Catholics. Called by Pope Francis as an enemy of Christian holiness, we point out, in the development of the text, the main Gnostic concepts, its formation as a movement, diffusion in the Christian communities, and its concerns in the evangelist life of the Catholic Church, in the present times. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Versuch über die TranszendentalphilosophieYitzhak Y. MelamedSalomon Maimon. Versuch über die Transzendentalphilosophie. Edited by Florian Ehrensperger. Hamburg: Meiner, 2004. Pp. lii + 324. € 19,80."I had now resolved to study Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, of which I had often heard but which I had never seen. The method, in which I studied this work, was quite peculiar. On the first perusal I obtained a vague idea of each (...) section. This I endeavored afterwards to make distinct by my own reflection, and thus to penetrate into the author's meaning. Such is properly the process which is called thinking oneself into a system [sich in ein System hineindenken]. But as I had already mastered in this way the systems of Spinoza, Hume and Leibniz, I was naturally led to think of a coalition-system [Koalitionssystem]. This in fact I found, and put it gradually in writing in the form of explanatory observations on the Critique of Pure Reason, just as this system unfolded itself to my mind. Such was the origin of my Transcendental Philosophy." The peculiar method of "thinking oneself into a system" might remind the reader of the works of the great French historian of philosophy, Martial Gueroult. However, these lines are taken from the autobiography of Salomon Maimon (1753–1800), one of the most brilliant as well as eccentric figures of modern philosophy (Solomon Maimon – An Autobiography, trans. J. Clark Murray (Urbana, 2001 [1792–93]), 279–80). The reader who still wonders about the similarity between Gueroult's and Maimon's methods is invited to consult the former's mostly neglected dissertation (1929).Maimon's life story is as fascinating as it is hard to believe. Having grown up in traditional Jewish surroundings in Lithuania, Maimon developed a deep interest in medieval Jewish philosophy in his early teens. Presumably, the uncompromising and iconoclastic spirit of this corpus struck a deep chord in his psyche and launched a life-long obsessive search after the truth. Upon hearing about the supposed appearance of "Lady Truth" in the emerging Hassidic movement, Maimon rushed to the house of the leader of the movement, but was disappointed to find out that the Lady had just left the place (or at least so the rumor said). Then, came the idea that perhaps Berlin, the city of the Aufklärer, was the new place of residence of the Lady (alas, had he only known...), and in 1777 Maimon packed a small bag of food and some manuscripts, said goodbye to his wife and young children and departed for Berlin. Then, began an odyssey of ten or twelve years in which he succeeded, among other things, in being kicked out from the shelter of Jewish community in Berlin due to his suspected heresy, learning and pursuing the delicate art of beggary, returning to Berlin and becoming a protégé of Mendelssohn, getting into a quarrel with Mendelssohn (on account of Maimon's unhidden Spinozism, and his frequent visits to certain not-so-respected houses), leaving Berlin to go to Amsterdam (for it was said that Lady T. was fond of a certain local Benedict), being stoned in the open street by the children of the Jewish community in Amsterdam, attending a Gymnasium at Altona at the age of thirty, and finally landing back in Berlin shortly after Mendelssohn's death. Then, the Lady was glimpsed again between the lines of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Well, the story just begins, and the reader should consult other books—such as the aforementioned Autobiography—if she wishes to find out the end of this obsessive affair.Published in 1790, Maimon's Essay on Transcendental Philosophy was originally conceived as a commentary on Kant's first critique. The main part of the book consists of ten chapters [End Page 366] in which Maimon presents his criticism of Kant, and suggests several crucial improvements of Kant's system. To this Maimon added a (rather lengthy) "Brief Survey of the Book," a commentary on Baumgarten's Metaphysica (entitled: "My Ontology"), and an appendix "On Symbolic Cognition and Philosophical Language." Presumably, Maimon circulated the book's manuscript and in response to criticisms he added another section... (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Over the past four decades, Buddhists in Burma, mainly monks, have been brought before Sangha courts charged with heresy, adhamma, and malpractice, avinaya, under the jurisdiction of the State Sanghamahanayaka Committee. This body, established under General Ne Win in 1980, oversees the regulation and conduct of the Sangha. The religious courts that try these cases have the backing of state law enforcement agencies: failure to comply with their judgements is punishable by imprisonment. A guilty verdict has been passed in all (...) seventeen cases to date. There is no opportunity of appeal. The system not only protects Burmese Buddhism against corruption, but also stifles innovation and dissent. These cases, not previously discussed in scholarship outside of Burma, are significant for understanding the power of the State over the Sangha as well as the conservatism and antisecularism of Burmese Buddhism, which have set it at odds with the relativist approaches of modern, global Buddhism. (shrink)

The situation after the 13th century, however, badly needs to be clarified by additional detailed research. Bruno Nardi and Anneliese Maier have exhibited a nice understanding of the extraordinary complexities surrounding the question of what "Averroism" might be during this later period, but they stand nearly alone in this knowledge; even Gilson is content to dismiss, with a few strokes of the pen, the entire "Averroist" tradition as authority-bound, sterile, and doomed to early extinction through sheer stagnation. But the very (...) history of philosophy attests to the vitality of the tradition, whatever it may consist of, or at least to the vitality of the designation, for Cremonini in the 17th century was still preferring the commentaries of Averroes to all others, and late in the 16th century Marcantonio Zimara was commonly known as an "Averroist"--to name but two obvious cases. From before the time of Siger of Brabant through to the 17th century Averroes was read as the Commentator on Aristotle, and every generation throughout this period reveals its quota of philosophers who are, or who could easily be, dubbed "Averroists." It is here being asked: what do all these thinkers share, if anything? A common attitude toward the nature of the intellective soul? A common sympathy toward Averroes' Neo-Platonic rendering of Aristotle? A common blind reproduction of the Commentator's interpretation of the Stagirite? An unwarranted trust in the capacities of unaided reason, as manifested in a constant opposition of the conclusions of natural reason to the doctrines of the Christian Revelation? A common tendency in the direction of doubt, insincerity, heresy, and even atheism? It is here suggested that, far from taking "Averroism" as an obsolescent and disappearing species of subversive thinkers, it would be more enlightening to consider the tradition as symptomatic of the essential inability of Christian thinkers to assimilate Greek philosophy without modifications which would profoundly alter the fundamental character of that philosophy. Or, to phrase it somewhat differently, throughout the mediaeval period, when the domain of natural reason was being radically separated from the domain of faith, the rigorous rendering of Aristotle that Averroes presented maintained a steady appeal, which waned only when new translations from the Greek pointed up the Neo-Platonic predispositions of the Commentator, and revealed that the original spirit of the Stagirite was rather different than the flavor that Averroes introduces to the texts. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes's 'Historia Ecclesiastica' presents his views on religion and aims to divert the attention of the public from charges against his being a heretic to placing heresy in pagan history, claiming that Greek philosophers were responsible for introducing heresy in the Christian Church. His book reveals his interest in religious history and the growth of hermeticism and Cabalism in England in his age.

In this paper, Graham Priest’s understanding of dialetheism, the view that there exist true contradictions, is discussed, and various kinds of metaphysical dialetheism are distinguished between. An alternative to dialetheism is presented, namely a thesis called ‘dimathematism’. It is pointed out that dimathematism enables one to escape a slippery slope argument for dialetheism that has been put forward by Priest. Moreover, dimathematism is presented as a thesis that is helpful in rejecting the claim that logic is a normative discipline.

The Jewish Philosophy Reader is the first comprehensive anthology of classic writings on Jewish philosophy from the Bible to postmodernism. The Reader is clearly divided into four separate parts: Foundations and First Principles, Medieval and Renaissance Jewish Philosophy, Modern Jewish Thought, and Contemporary Jewish Philosophy. Each part is clearly introduced by the editors. The readings featured are representative writings of each era listed above and are from the following major thinkers: Abrabanel, Baeck, Bergman, Borowitz, Buber, (...) Cohen, Crescas, Fackenheim, Geiger, Gersonides, Goodman, Graetz, Halevi, Hartman, Heschel, Hess, Hirsch, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Gabirol, Ibn Paquda, Kellner, Kook, Krochmal, Leibowitz, Levinas, Maimonides, Maybaum, Mendelssohn, Novak, Philo, Plaskow, Rosenzweig, Saadia, Scholem, Seeskin, Soloveitchik, Spinoza, Strauss, Wolf, Zunz. (shrink)

This paper contends that African-centered models of psychopathology represent a heretical challenge to orthodox North American Mental Health. Heresy is the defiant rejection of ideology from a smaller community within the orthodoxy. African-centered models of psychopathology use much of the same language and ideas about the diagnostic process as Western psychiatry and clinical psychology but explicitly reject the ideological foundations of illness definition. The nature of the heretical critique is discussed, and implications for the future of this school of thought (...) are offered. (shrink)

Patristics is a lively scholarly domain in which theologians and historians contribute to the study of Christian antiquity. But modern trends in patristic study (especially the application of contemporary critical theory to ancient sources) are not always conducive to theological research. This paper identifies the preoccupation in modern patristic study with heresy as a major source of problems. The modern study of Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345–99) provides an exemplary case in which some of these problems can be identified and explored. (...) The initial presentation of modern scholarship will bring into focus the way that Evagrius' relationship to the sixth-century condemnations of Origenism is interpreted by most scholars. Next, the paper identifies and evaluates recent indications that Evagrius is prized precisely because he is considered a heretic. In the final section of the paper, attention is paid to the problem of presuming that subsequent events disclose the theological meaning of earlier writings and to the problem of foreclosing independent theological assessment in order to preserve ancient condemnations. The conclusions suggest that preoccupations with alleged heresy can be every bit as detrimental to understanding of theological writings as preoccupations with orthodoxy. (shrink)

The papers in this volume fall into four sections. The first part deals more generally with heresy, religious movements and the Church, while the second focuses on Wyclif, covering his path to dissent, his religious doctrines, and a doctrinal comparison with Hus. Philosophical themes come to the fore in the third section, which has papers on the decline of scholasticism in the 14th century and on the trivium, and also includes hitherto unpublished essays on the theology of Augustine's two cities (...) and on Ockham and nominalism. The final part, with another two papers published here for the first time, discusses Christian, Augustinian and Franciscan concepts of man, and the concepts of natural rights according to Ockham and the Franciscans. (shrink)