Abstract: By the second half of the eleventh century, in the Christian
West, the theological doctrine of St. Anslem sought to re‐establish the
place of reason within the domain of faith. Anselm arrived at a
possible re‐enactment of this relation under the condition regulated
by the principle fides quaerens intellectum – faith seeking reason. This
paper is an attempt to explore not only the possible implications of
this principle but to understand the internal logic which constitutes it
and holds…
Read moreAbstract: By the second half of the eleventh century, in the Christian
West, the theological doctrine of St. Anslem sought to re‐establish the
place of reason within the domain of faith. Anselm arrived at a
possible re‐enactment of this relation under the condition regulated
by the principle fides quaerens intellectum – faith seeking reason. This
paper is an attempt to explore not only the possible implications of
this principle but to understand the internal logic which constitutes it
and holds it together. It is the contention of this paper that this
regulative principle (fides quaerens intellectum) could complete such a
process of logically constituting itself through a violent forcing of
thought which gathered and maintained within itself an anomy. This
internal paradox produced a logical excess which at one hand
threatened constantly to expose a crisis, inhabiting the very centre of
the theological system it sought to build, but on the other hand it also
became the very ground on which such a system constituted itself. To
that extent this paper would try to understand the metaphysical
forcing of this moment of crisis back into the theological system it
sought to express and normalize at the same time
