Se a hit, se a nevelés : Christian Francken a morálteológiai istenérvek ellen

Abstract

The paper analyzes some passages from Christian Francken's (1552-1611?) Disputatio inter Theologum et Philosophum de incertitudine religion's Christianae (Kolozsvár ca. 1590). Handed down to us in a single manuscript copy, this work — expressing strong religious criticism and even atheism — makes an attempt to refute the various arguments for God's existence common in early modern rational theology. The paper examines .a group of the moral theological arguments. The main question is whether the atheist's critique of the moral certainty of the knowledge of God in positive religion, based on the notions of faith and grace, was satisfactory if he argues that, when interpreting such certainty, we cannot disregard the notion of education, which presupposes a human nature as defined in ancient anthropology. Francken has a negative answer to this aporia of early modern religious philosophy: the fact that the moral teaching of the Sermon on the Mount is not reconcilable with that of Aristotle and Plato does not mean that the latter are lacking theistic presuppositions. Similarly: even if we could uphold the exclusivity of any positive religion's claim for certainty, the moral metaphysics of pagan Antiquity could not be reduced to such a common denominator that could be sufficiently connected to the alleged certainty of positive religion.