Christian Averroism, Fideism and the 'Two-fold Truth'

Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 25:207-223 (1989)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The man generally known as Averroes—Muhammad Ibn Ahmad —was a Muslim scholar from southern Spain who came to be regarded as one of the great authorities on Aristotle's philosophy. Medieval and even later philosophers in the Scholastic tradition referred to him simply as ‘the Commentator’ just as they referred to Aristotle himself as ‘the Philosopher’. Averroes' authority as an expositor was never wholly unchallenged and, in a purely historical context, the term ‘Averroist’ should strictly be reserved for those Aristotelians who followed the interpretations of Averroes rather than those of, say, Avicenna. Some of these interpretations, however, suggested beliefs that were inconsistent with acceptance of a Creator of the material world or with belief in a last judgment at which individual souls would be punished or rewarded for their life on earth. They suggested, rather, that the material world was eternal and that individual souls did not survive bodily death. This raised a general problem about what to say in the face of a conflict between faith and reason, between the teachings of the Church and the teachings of philosophy. Averroism became associated with a particular problem and with what was known as the ‘twofold truth’, according to which it is possible to admit the conflict and continue to profess a religious faith without abandoning or abridging one's commitment to philosophy.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Christian Averroism, Fideism and the ‘Two-fold Truth’.Stuart Brown - 1989 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series 25:207-223.
Faith and Fideism.Michael Wayne Bollenbaugh - 1994 - Dissertation, University of Oregon
Separate Material Intellect in Philosophy of Averroes.علی قربانی - 2016 - Journal of Philosophical Investigations at University of Tabriz 10 (18):171-187.
The Rationality of Christian Faith.Timothy Paul Erdel - 2000 - Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Averroës' Middle commentary on Aristotle's De anima: a critical edition of the Arabic text. Averroës - 2002 - Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press. Edited by Alfred L. Ivry.
Decisive Treatise and Epistle Dedicatory.Charles E. Butterworth (ed.) - 2001 - Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University.
Αριστοτέλης και Χριστιανική Φιλοσοφία.Michael Mantzanas - 2017 - In V. Nikolaidis Apostolos (ed.), Proceedings of the International Conference "Aristotle and Christianity". School of Theology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. pp. 219-232.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-09-15

Downloads
4 (#1,426,245)

6 months
1 (#1,040,386)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations