Erasmus and Calvin on the foolishness of God : reason and emotion in the Christian philosophy / Kirk Essary.

Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, [2017]

©2017

xx, 278 pages ; 24 cm.

"What did Paul mean when he wrote that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom? Through close analysis of the sixteenth-century reception of Paul's discourses of folly, this book examines the role of the New Testament in the development of what Erasmus and John Calvin refer to as the "Christian philosophy." Erasmus and Calvin on the Foolishness of God reveals the importance of Pauline rhetoric in the development of humanist critiques of scholasticism while charting the formation of a specifically affective approach to religious epistemology and theological method. As the first book-length examination of Calvin's indebtedness to Erasmus, which also considers the participation of Bullinger, Pellikan, and Melanchthon in an Erasmian exegetical milieu, it is a case-study in the complicated cross-confessional exchange of ideas in the sixteenth century. Kirk Essary examines assumptions about the very nature of theology in the sixteenth century, how it was understood by leading humanist reformers, and how ideas about philosophy and rhetoric were received, appropriated, and shared in a complex intellectual and religious context."-- Provided by publisher.

Reason and emotion in the Christian philosophy

English

July 20, 2017

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-272) and index.

University of Toronto Press, publisher.