Cambridge Platonism

« detailed demonstrations of the existence of God, providence and immortality.

True to the tradition of Florentine Platonism ( Platonism, Renaissance §4 ), and contrary to Bacon and orthodox Protestantism, the Cambridge men sometimes completely identified the realms of reason and faith, as if nature and revelation were only different hypostases or degrees of manifestation of the divine goodness.

They held that the truths of revelation are only a more spiritual form of reason, and the truths of reason only a more natural form of revelation.

But they did not always adhere to this equation and sometimes abandoned it in the face of the more recalcitrant Christian mysteries, such as the Trinity and Incarnation, which were conceded to be above, although never contrary to, reason. Cambridge Platonism began as a reaction to the more severe tenets of Calvinist theology, especially its doctrine of predestination.

In their early years Whichcote, Cudworth and More were repelled by Calvin 's deus absconditus , which by some 'dark and inscrutable decrees' predestined people, regardless of their merits, to either salvation or damnation ( Calvin, J.

§4 ).

This undermined not only certainty regarding salvation, but also moral responsibility.

The great attraction of Platonism was that it made the ways of God accountable to man, so that he could be sure of his eternal election.

Platonism meant that there are eternal forms of good and evil, which God never violates, and which are discernible by reason. In the seventeenth-century dispute concerning 'the rule of faith' or the ultimate criterion of religious knowledge, the Cambridge Platonists stood firmly in the camp of reason.

They opposed enthusiasm, which appealed to inspiration, no less than Roman Catholic 'dogmatism' , which referred to apostolic tradition.

It is important to recognize, however, that the Cambridge men defended reason only because they had a Platonic conception of it. They saw reason as a mystical faculty, a power of vision, which is guided by divine grace.

They opposed the formal concept of reason prevalent in the nominalist tradition, according to which it is merely a power of inference.

They also rejected Socinianism because of its critical attitude toward traditional Christian doctrine (see Socinianism ). During the seventeenth-century controversy regarding ecclesiastical polity, the Cambridge Platonists attempted to walk a middle path between Laudianism and Puritanism, High-Church Anglicanism and Presbyterianism.

They denied a common premise to these extreme positions: that church government and discipline is jure divino , prescribed by divine decree and determinable by Scripture.

They argued that all such matters are indifferent, and should be determined by the civil sovereign alone.

Anticipating the latitudinarians, they stressed the need for a comprehensive church whose creed was broad enough to accommodate all Christians ( Latitudinarianism ). 2 Epistemology The epistemology of the Cambridge school was chiefly a defence of essentialism and rationalism against the conventionalism and empiricism of the nominalist tradition ( Conventionalism ; Empiricism ; Essentialism ; Rationalism ).

In his A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality , the main epistemological work of the. »