Wisdom as rational and meta-rational dialectic: Examining transcendental knowledge in the teachings of Johannes Scottus Eriugena

Subject Areas : Christianity

قربان علمی ¹ , Mojtaba Zurvani ² , shahbazi zahra ^{3 *}

1 - استاد دانشکده الهیات و معارف اسلامی دانشگاه تهران
2 - Faculty of Theology and Islamic Studies, University of Tehran
3 -

Received: 2024-11-15 Accepted : 2024-12-28 Published : 2025-09-27

Keywords: Human nature, divinity, rational dialectic, meta-rational dialectic,

Abstract :

By crossing the borders of Latin dogmatism, Eriugena leads the audience to a level of perception in which partial reason is placed in a transcendental state. Achieving such a humble and growing rationality is the characteristic of the knowledge of the human being, which does not stay in the stagnation of vision focused on sensations and goes beyond it. Eriugena while explaining the divine nature and the nature of the manifested world in the Periphyseon, explains the levels of knowledge of existence to the ignorance of non-existence, with the steps of rational and meta-rational dialectic of wisdom. Eriugena considers "existence" to be the subject of human perception, and therefore the categories of existence and non-existence are subject to the radius of the human mind.  this does not mean the reduction of reality to the partial intellect of man, but the law of creation or dialectic, the inherent science of the soul and the divine intellect, which is reflected in the supreme wisdom of man. At the same time, Eriugena's apophatic anthropology assigns the highest level of knowledge to the unknowability of the divine head, which requires transcending human nature with the supernatural grace of wisdom.

 

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