Descartes: A Biography

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

Once More into Battle 

. The mysteries of faith are above reason insofar as they cannot be known without

the light of revelation and insofar as, once revealed, they are not comprehended fully,

although they are understood.

The intellectual independence that Heereboord displays in these corollar-

ies was challenged by the arrival of Adam Stuart (–), as professor

of philosophy at Leiden in. Stuart was not only an orthodox Scot,

he was also appointed with responsibility for metaphysics and physics,

and with seniority over Heereboord (even though the latter was promoted

in Juneto a full professorship). The personal rivalries and simmer-

ing antipathies between Heereboord and Stuart came to the surface in

September, when another theologian, Jacob Trigland (–),

objected to the introduction of Cartesian-style doubt as an appropriate

starting point for a nonsceptical philosophy. As had happened in similar

circumstances in Utrecht, the university senate tried to avoid controversy

bydeciding that only Aristotelian philosophy should be taught or dis-

cussed in official disputations in Leiden.

Despite that decision, Revius arranged for a number of disputations

in February and March, which addressed what he suspected were

heterodox theological implications of Descartes’ philosophy. These the-

ses focused particularly on Descartes’ concept of God and his apparent

ambivalence about proofs of God’s existence. Revius objected especially

to the suggestion that a Christian could doubt God’s existence, since this

was something that was taught by the Scriptures. He was equally con-

cerned by the apparent implications of a short passage that Descartes

had written about the scope of the human will. Revius argued: ‘It is false

that we have an idea of free will and that it is formally and specifically

greater than the image or likeness of God, as he [Descartes] claims in the

same context. This exceeds all forms of pelagianism.’The worry about

Pelagianism reflected Calvinist beliefs in the limits of human free will and

the predetermination by God of each individual’s salvation or perdition.

The Cartesian trust in human freedom seemed to imply the redundancy

of divine grace and an arrogant confidence in the natural powers of human

nature. According to Revius, that was equivalent to eliminating God and

enthroning free will in His place.

These concerns within Calvinist theology were confirmed by another

disputation arranged by Trigland in March.Trigland focused on

the brief consideration by Descartes, in theMeditations, that God may

be a deceiver (an idea that had been dismissed almost as soon as it was