THE ROLE OF IMAGINATION IN ATTAINING THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия

关键词: Imagination;    Understanding;    Feeling;    Knowledge;    Salvation;    Plato;    Aristotle;    the Stoics;    Plotinus;    Augustine;    Medieval Techniques of Meditation;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In this article, the author wishes to defend a fundamental point: most ancient and early Christian thinkers (from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas) thought that the human imagination as a cognitive faculty was a hindrance to metaphysical thinking, to theology, and therefore to the beatifi c vision and salvation. Today, on the contrary, this cognitive faculty is considered to be a positive and very valuable one. The turning-point in the process of this re-evaluation is located in the fourteenth century, when a new literary genre of spiritual literature appeared — the meditationes vitae Christi. For the fi rst time, imagination was seen as a most efficient tool for attaining a knowledge of God and the fi nal goal of man’s life.

【 授权许可】

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