Philosophy and Theology in early Puritanism: William Ames’ Criticism of Metaphysic

Rodion Valentinovich Savinov PhD in Philosophy, senior lecturer, Saint-Petersburg State Academy of Veterinary Medicine (Ulitsa Chernigovskaya, 5, St. Petersburg, Russia, 196084)
savrodion@yandex.ru

Savinov R. V. Philosophy and Theology in early Puritanism: William Ames’ Criticism of Metaphysic, Religiya. Tserkov’. Obshchestvo. Issledovaniya i publikatsii po teologii i religii [Religion. Church. Society: Research and publications in the field of theology and religious studies], Saint-Petersburg, 2019, vol. 8, pp. 380–404.

doi: 10.24411/2308-0698-2019-00018

Language: Russian

The article discusses the content of the «Theological Disputation against Metaphysics» by William Ames, one of the creators of Puritan theology. It is shown that Ames’ disputation against metaphysics and the line of his argumentation, firstly, goes back to  the scholastic discussions about the content of Corpus Aristotelicum, and secondly, is rooted in the criticism of secular knowledge that was given by the Reformers (Martin Luther, Philipp Melanchthon and others). Besides, it was a moment in the confessional debate with the project of the Catholic «natural theology», presented by Suarez’s treatises. At last, it substantiates a new understanding of human activity, associated primarily with the practical, rather than contemplating meaning of human life that reflects the characteristic of the Post-Reformation culture.

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Key words: Reformation, Metaphysics, Theology, Puritanism, Discussions, Early Modern

URL: http://rcs-almanac.ru/en/savinov-2019-en/

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