Anselmian Approach to God and Creation
| Author: | Rogers, Katherin | |
| Year: | 1997 | |
| Pages: | 270 | |
| ISBN: | 0-7734-8668-2 978-0-7734-8668-3 | |
| Price: | $199.95 + shipping | |
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Contemporary philosophers of religion frequently cite the medievals with approval. The school of analytic philosophers who aim to unpack the notion of a perfect being even label their method 'Anselmian'. Often, though, contemporary philosophers misunderstand or even ignore key aspects of the medieval system of religious philosophy, the upshot being that contemporary criticisms and even defenses often miss the mark. In this series of essays, the author sets out the traditional views on certain questions in the philosophy of religion, and to defend these views in the contemporary idiom. Some essays deal with doctrines like divine simplicity and eternity which are frequently rejected today, but which were held almost universally by medieval philosophers in the latin west. Many concentrate on the work of St. Anselm (including a long and daring piece on his idealism).
Reviews
". . . Professor Rogers' expository skills are of a high order; she writes clearly and plainly, and is able to relate what seem at first glance to be rather remote philosophical ideas to the reader's patterns of thought. She is helped in this by her considerable knowledge of work in contemporary analytic philosophy of religion. . . . This collection of essays will continue to stimulate attention by contemporary philosophers of religion to the Anselmian tradition, and Professor Rogers' sometimes radical and controversial interpretations of that approach should provoke fresh discussion." - Paul Helm
Table of Contents
Essays include: The Anselmian Approach: The Systematic Nature of Medieval Philosophy of Religion; The Traditional Doctrine of Divine Simplicity; Anselm on Praising a Necessarily Perfect Being; The Medieval Approach to Aardvarks, Escalators and God; The Irrelevance of Original Sin in Augustine's Doctrine of the Will; Anselm's Indeterminism; Anselm and His Platonic Predecessors on the Origin of Evil; Eriugena and Anselm on God's Causal Omniscience; St. Augustine on Time and Eternity; Eternity Has No Duration; Middle Knowledge versus Knowledge of Vision; Omniscience, Eternity, and Freedom; and How a Perfect Being Creates: Anselm's Theistic Idealism.