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He couldn't say nothing, so he offered some rationalizations for the church. Atheism carried a death penalty, and he was already accused - we only really know t
by Nomentatus 9y ago
He couldn't say nothing, so he offered some rationalizations for the church. Atheism carried a death penalty, and he was already accused - we only really know that he liked to be alive.
- foldr 9y agoI think the issue here is that there is a huge distance between merely believing in God and being an orthodox Christian. It's easy to see why the Church didn't like Descartes' work, because it upended the scholastic metaphysics that much church doctrine rested on. But there is really no evidence that Descartes did not believe God existed. This is especially so given that one of his arguments for God's existence is original. If he was just trotting out some arguments to keep up appearances, why would he bother coming up with a new argument?
- Nomentatus 9y agoSchook's accusations were more profound, Descartes never attacked specific Catholic doctrines to my knowledge. Nor did the Church ban the writings of every person they knew to be Protestant or non-Catholic, as they banned Descartes' works.
- foldr 9y ago>Schook's accusations were more profound, Who is Schook? >Descartes never attacked specific Catholic doctrines to my knowledge https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/52485/why-was-descartes-interpretation-of-the-catholic-transubstantiation-not-approve https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/52485/why-w... >Nor did the Church ban the writings of every person they knew to be Protestant or non-Catholic, as they banned Descartes' works. I'm sure they didn't ban everything, but a book's being at variance with Catholic doctrine was certainly considered a sufficient reason to ban it.