Nathaniel Culverwell: An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature. Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics.

Greene, Robert A., Hugh MacCallum (eds.) and Nathanael Culverwel:

ISBN 10: 086597327X / ISBN 13: 9780865973275

Published by Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2001

About this Item

XXI, 252 p. Lediglich der Schutzumschlag weist leichte Gebrauchsspuren auf, sonst sehr sauber und ohne Anstreichungen / only the dust jacket shows slight signs of usage, otherwise very clean and without markings. - Composed over a period of religious and political upheaval, Culverwell s Discourse played an important part in the controversies of the day and sheds light on the evolution of English rationalism in the seventeenth century. In the Discourse, Culverwell offers a critique of reason that attempts to preserve the attitudes of Calvinism while giving reason more authority than that tradition allowed. Culverwell s work offers a background against which John Locke s early Essays on the Law of Nature can be understood. Nathaniel Culverwell was born in 1619 in London and died in 1651. He was a student and later a fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where in 1646 he delivered the Discourse as a series of sermonlike lectures on the biblical text from Proverbs 20:27: "The understanding of a man is the Candle of the Lord." That metaphor embraces the theme of the Discourse, namely, that reason and faith are distinct lights, yet they are not opposed; they are complementary and harmonious. Culverwell expands on that theme by examining the teachi ngs of Christian humanism that concern the nature and limits of human reason and the related concepts of natural and divine law / CONTENTS Preface Foreword An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature Notes Textual Notes Index. ISBN 9780865973275 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 591.

Seller Inventory # 1219359

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Nathaniel Culverwell: An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature. Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics.
• Publisher: Indianapolis: Liberty Fund
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 086597327X
• ISBN 13: 9780865973275
• Binding: Hardcover with dust jacket.
• Condition: Sehr gut
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
• Weight: 591 grams
• Seller catalogs:
  • Religion / Theologie

About this title

Synopsis

Nathaniel Culverwell is considered one of the principal scholars of the seventeenth century. This collection of sermons he delivered in 1645-46, examines the relationship between reason and faith, and forms one of the first attempts in English Protestantism to stress the role of reason in ethics and to develop a doctrine of natural law. Culverwell represents a crucial intersection in the discussion of reason and faith. While providing a link between the Calvinist dependence on faith and grace and the Enlightenment dependence on reason and humanism, Culverwell's Discourse is a picture of the world on the brink of the Enlightenment. The seventeenth century was an era that included the Puritan migration from England to America and the English Civil War. During this period, an understanding of the divine, and the interrelationship between reason and revelation, was often a matter of violent debate. An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature spans several centuries, during which the very nature of knowledge as a product of reason, not the means of revelation, gained ascendancy in Western civilization. This discourse was crucial to the development of a theoretical grounding for individual challenges to established authorities, both political and ecclesiastical, and thus to the development of modern theories of liberty and responsibility.

About the Author

Nathaniel Culverwell; Edited by Greene and MacCallum