Descartes: A Biography

c CUNYB/Clarke     December, :

Once More into Battle 

the theologians be required to compensate him for the harm caused to his

reputation. As in his other letters, he explained that anyone with even a

smattering of Latin would be able to decide the factual question, whether

the words complained of by the theologians were or were not in his writings

(v.). Having replied to the university officials, Descartes also wrote to

Jan van Wevelinchoven, the secretary of both the Leiden burgomasters

and the Curators, to request assistance in explaining his position to the

curators.

Descartes must have felt under threat from a number of simultaneous

attacks on his philosophy at the time. The very public falling out with

Regius (discussed in Chapter) was on-going, and it was concluded

onDescartes’ side when he wrote theComments on a Certain Manifestoin

December.InOctober of the same year, Voetius had rejoined the fray

bypublishing the first volume of hisSelected Theological Disputations.

Although many of these disputations had been held years earlier, Voetius

took advantage of publication to update them and to include easily recog-

nizable references to Descartes and his philosophy, especially in the dispu-

tations on atheism. In defence of his own very public row with Descartes,

he justified his reaction to ‘some Papist, living in a reformed Republic,

[who] proceeds to abuse with his libellous writings theologians and min-

isters because of sermons and books in which, if the occasion requires,

they censure Papism for its heretical, idolatrous, magical, atheistic, and

libertine consequences’.Voetius’ criticisms were as sharp as ever, but

they were familiar. Those of Regius were also familiar, and were very

disappointing. The most recent attack by the Leiden theologians, in the

same province in which Descartes hoped to find a peaceful retreat, was

more worrying than any of the others and included threats of unspecified

imminent punishment.

While Descartes was invited by the Leiden curators to do the impos-

sible – to refrain from repeating claims that he denied ever making – the

professors of theology who were forbidden to mention his name found it

almost as difficult to comply with their university’s decisions. Adam Stuart

presided over a disputation onDecember,inwhichone of the

theses for discussion was obviously aimed at Descartes. ‘There are certain

philosophers addicted to novelties who withdraw all reliable trust in the

senses. They contend that philosophers can deny God and that it is pos-

sible to doubt his existence, while at the same time they acknowledge that

there are actual ideas, species, or notions of God that are inserted by nature