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Review article

https://doi.org/10.31337/oz.73.2.4

Francisco Suárez’s Influence on Protestant Scholasticism

Josip Talanga ; Faculty of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia


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Abstract

Francisco Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations achieved incredible success, his popularity being especially great in Protestant countries. Though he was influenced by Melanchthon, the influence of the Humanists and Ramus was predominant in his early period; however, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Protestant universities saw a renewal of the Aristotlean tradition. After the first German edition of Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations in 1600, Calvinist and Lutheran philosophers opened themselves up completely to Jesuit metaphysics. Without Suárez’s influence, the Protestant Schulmetaphysic is unthinkable. The main reason for such a reception was the need for metaphyics in theological discussion. Luther’s principle sola scriptura was sufficient for a strength of faith, but theological controversies sought speculative arguments. Suárez’s handbook of metaphysics, with its rationality and clarity, imposed itself upon all Christian confessions as a good starting point for discussion. Under the influence of Suárezian ideas, Calvinists Rudolf Göckel and Clemens Timpler established an epistemologically oriented metaphysics which dealt primarly with the thinkable as thinkable, whereby being is equated to the thinkable. On the other hand, Christoph Scheibler’s influence upon the Lutheran tradition was crucial, for it understood metaphysics as the science of being as being with an epistemologically justified division of being into real, ideal and transcendental. Multiple variations of these two positions have become typical for the German Schulmetaphysik.

Keywords

Protestant scholasticism; Schulmetaphysik; Francisco Suárez; ontology; history of metaphysics; 16th century; 17th century

Hrčak ID:

203906

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/203906

Publication date:

1.8.2018.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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