Salomon van Til (1643–1713)

In recent decades theologians and intellectual historians have given considerable attention to the dissemination of Cartesianism in the seventeenth century Dutch Republic. Scholars have focused primarily on the initial reception of Descartes’s ideas, the early reactions from his major critics and th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Church history and religious culture
Main Author: Mangold, Matthias (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2014
In: Church history and religious culture
Further subjects:B Reformed Orthodoxy Early Enlightenment Cartesianism Cocceianism
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
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Summary:In recent decades theologians and intellectual historians have given considerable attention to the dissemination of Cartesianism in the seventeenth century Dutch Republic. Scholars have focused primarily on the initial reception of Descartes’s ideas, the early reactions from his major critics and the more radical expressions of Cartesianism later on. Only in recent years have scholars begun to realize the considerable impact that moderate second-generation Cartesian theologians exerted on the intellectual climate in the Netherlands of the eighteenth century. Salomon van Til (1643–1713) ranks high among these thinkers. Yet despite his international reputation at that time, Van Til has been almost completely neglected in current research. This article analyzes Van Til’s appropriation of Cartesian tenets within his Compendium of Natural Theology (1704). Paying close attention to his intellectual context, it argues that the substantial usage of central elements of the Cartesian outlook, clearly manifested both in the method and in the content of the Compendium, should be interpreted in light of Van Til’s apologetic goal: to defend the Christian faith against the perceived onslaught of unbelief.
ISSN:1871-2428
Contains:In: Church history and religious culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/18712428-09403003