Descartes: A Biography

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Once More into Battle 

intuitions to their logical conclusion, and then looks for a way to make

them compatible with Christianity. If necessary, he was willing to adjust

the ways in which theologians had understood the Christian faith when

they combined it with elements of scholastic philosophy. Even if his argu-

ments were generally unwelcome to theologians, his contention was well

founded that scholastic philosophy was not an essential part of the Chris-

tian faith and that it should not have been protected as unchallengeable

byvarious churches.

The kind of difficulty mooted from afar by Queen Christina, about

the possible implications of Cartesian philosophy for school theology, was

raised more forcefully, and much more dangerously, closer to home at

Leiden University.

Theological Objections at Leiden

The objections of two Calvinist theologians at Leiden University to what

they presented as Cartesian metaphysics gradually developed, during

, into a very public controversy. It was not as bitter or as lengthy

as the earlier row in Utrecht, but it seemed to be potentially more dan-

gerous from the perspective of Descartes. While the French philosopher

was as defensive as ever before, there was a new dimension in this contro-

versybecause the contestants could not agree about the reason for their

disagreement. The theologians certainly gave everyone the impression

that they were objecting to Cartesian philosophy, whereas the target of

their hostility claimed consistently that the theses to which they objected

could not in fact be found among his writings. As had happened on other

occasions, the controversy was marked by personal antagonisms between

members of the teaching faculty at Leiden, by claims of misquotation or

misrepresentation, by appeals to public officials and politicians to resolve

what was essentially an intellectual dispute that they probably understood

poorly, and by an underlying threat of civil penalties for those convicted

of serious theological unorthodoxy.

Adriaan Heereboord (–) was appointed Professor Extraordi-

nary of Logic at Leiden inand subsequently became assistant regent

to theStatencollegethat had been founded in the same city by the states

of Holland.Heereboord began to show signs of sympathy for Cartesian

ideas as early as, when Descartes commented favourably on his sup-

port in contrast with the ebbing loyalty of Regius.The regent of the