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The Sanctity of Reason and Complementarity of Revelation in the Essais de Théodicée

Mattia Geretto    Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia    

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abstract

Aim of this article is to determine to what extent philosophy and ‘revealed message’ can be viewed separately in Leibniz’s Theodicy, in order to demonstrate that Leibniz’s texts seem to try to reconcile ‘reason’ and ‘revelation’, a complementarity justified by what can be called the ‘sanctity’ of reason. Leibniz’s reference to the ‘image of Divinity’ reveals that he refers to both ‘reason’ and ‘intelligence’, thus confirming his position in a well-rooted exegetical tradition that goes directly to the Late Classical concept of synderesis (συντήρησις). Although Leibniz does not explicitly use the term synderesis, he still refers to ‘pure reason’, a reason instilled in man by God and free of corruption. The conclusion in the last section examines some interesting passages in the Theodicy, § 91 and § 397, in which Leibniz deals with reason and original sin, and seems to hold that reason has somehow eluded the corrupting nature of original sin.   

Language
EN
ISBN (PRINT)
978-88-6969-084-6
ISBN (EBOOK)
978-88-6969-083-9

Keywords: Untainted ReasonSynderesisReason

Copyright: © 2016 Mattia Geretto. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.