Thinking Nature and the Nature of Thinking: From Eriugena to Emerson (Cultural Memory in the Present)
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Books › Philosophy › Religious
ISBN: 1503611671 / Publisher: Stanford University Press, March 2020
Revisiting the history of Western religious thought and the role of nature and creation therein, this book paves the way for a new natural theology by bringing medieval theologian John the Scot Eriugena into conversation with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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A fresh and more capacious reading of the Western religious tradition on nature and creation, Thinking Nature and the Nature of Thinking puts medieval Irish theologian John Scottus Eriugena (810–877) into conversation with American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882). Challenging the biblical stewardship model of nature and histories of nature and religion that pit orthodoxy against the heresy of pantheism, Willemien Otten reveals a line of thought that has long made room for nature's agency as the coworker of God. Embracing in this more elusive idea of nature in a world beset by environmental crisis, she suggests, will allow us to see nature not as a victim but as an ally in a common quest for re-attunement to the divine. Putting its protagonists into further dialogue with such classic authors as Augustine, Maximus the Confessor, Friedrich Schleiermacher, and William James, her study deconstructs the idea of pantheism and paves the way for a new natural theology.
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