Bøger i Brill's Studies in Intellectua serien

The ancient problem of fatalism, more particularly theological fatalism, has resurfaced with surprising vigour in the second half of the twentieth century. Two questions predominate in the debate: (1) Is divine foreknowledge compatible with human freedom and (2) How can God foreknow future free acts?Having surveyed the historical background of this debate in "The Problem of Divine Foreknowledge and "Future Contingents from Aristotle to Suarez (Brill: 1988), William Lane Craig now attempts to address these issues critically. His wide-ranging discussion brings together a thought- provoking array of related topics such as logical fatalism, multivalent logic, backward causation, precognition, time travel, counterfactual logic, temporal necessity, Newcomb's Problem, middle knowledge, and relativity theory.The present work serves both as a useful survey of the extensive literature on theological fatalism and related fields and as a stimulating assessment of the possibility of divine foreknowledge of future free acts.

The work of Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153) consists of mystical highlights, moments of stylistic beauty and traditional exegetical discourse. In contrast to previous studies this book does not limit itself to the historical and devotional side of Bernard, but brings to the fore his stylistic originality. Bernard emerges as a flexible thinker, a great dramatist and an adroit master of language who combines the fixed pattern of monastic life with the vicissitudes of extra-mural events.On the one hand, Bernard's writings are composed according to the rhythm of the uninterrupted ritual of prayer and singing inside the walls of the monastery. On the other hand, that ritual is interspersed with notions of love and death. The present study describes the literary devices through which Bernard shapes the monastic existence as a subtle blend of liturgical routine and uncontrollable events and emotions.

This major investigation of the theory and practice of interpretation is unparalleled in design. Concentrating on interpretive allegory, its interdisciplinary approach simultaneously opens and organizes new perspectives on historic developments - from pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Islamic commentaries to postmodern critiques. "Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period" is the recipient of The Polonsky Foundation 2001 Award for Contributions to Interdisciplinary Study in the Humanities. This publication has also been published in paperback, please click here for details.

This book deals with reactions to geological discoveries in early nineteenth-century England. How did theologians cope with new scientific evidence of the antiquity of the world which was contrary to accepted biblical chronology? And what repercussions did this picture have on philosophers, poets and novelists?The first part of the book concentrates on Charles Lyell's religious and scientific views. This is followed by a study of William Buckland, Adam Segdwick and William Whewell, three clergymen who were also geologists. The last section explores the literary reception of the revolutionary discoveries of Lyell and his contemporaries.

This book contains 15 essays by philosophers, theologians and historians from the Netherlands, France, Italy, England and the United States on Pierre Bayle (1647-1706), the French Protestant who found refuge in Rotterdam just before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685). From the early 1680s onward, Bayle published a series of seminal works, culminating in his "Dictionaire historique et critique" (1697), that is generally regarded to have served as the "arsenal" of the Enlightenment. Over the last few decades, Bayle has been rediscovered as one of the key authors of the early Enlightenment, but experts have found it extremely difficult to come to any agreement concerning his ultimate position, most notably concerning the relationship between faith and philosophy. In this volume both Bayle's philosophy and his theological views are assessed as well as his impact on the Enlightenment and beyond. Contributors include: Hubert Bost, Hans Bots, Wiep van Bunge, Justin Champion, Jonathan Israel, Eric Jorink, Lenie van Lieshout, Antony McKenna, Gianni Paganini, Marie-HA(c)lA]ne QuA(c)val, Todd Ryan, Adam Sutcliffe, Rob van der Schoor, Theo Verbeek, and Jan de Vet.

In 1632, the Amsterdam regents founded an Athenaeum or 'Illustrious School'. This kind of institution provided academic teaching, although it could not grant degrees and had no compulsory four-faculty system. Athenaeums proliferated in the first century after the Dutch Revolt, but few of them survived long. They have been interpreted as the manifestation of an evolving vision of the role of a higher education; this book, by contrast, argues that education at the Amsterdam Athenaeum was staunchly traditional both in methods and in substance. While religious, philosophical and scientific disputes rocked contemporary Dutch learned society, this analysis of letters, orations and disputations reveals that a traditional and Aristotelian humanism thrived at the Athenaeum until well into the seventeenth century.

A novel and female empowering interpretive approach to these artistic archetypes in her analysis of Imaging Women of Consequence in the Dutch Golden Age.

A survey into Rembrandt's references to Italian art and contemporary attitudes toward the artist.