Irenaeus on Natural Knowledge
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Over a century of research has produced little agreement on the question of whether Irenaeus of Lyons recognized a natural knowledge of God. This article raises the question anew by considering the interpretive issues surrounding the passage at the center of the debate, Against Heresies 2.6.1. It challenges past readings and offers one of its own. I contend that an affirmation of natural knowledge plays the leading role in the argument of AH 2.6.1. This being the case, this text does not undermine references to natural knowledge that appear elsewhere in Irenaeus’s corpus, as Th.-André Audet would have us believe, but supports them. Irenaeus, then, does indeed recognize a natural knowledge of God, the product of discursive reasoning about the creation and providence of God.
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Orbe, “San Ireneo y el conocimiento natural de Dios,” Gregorianum 47 (1966), 441–471, 710–747.
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Audet, “Orientations Théologiques” (see above, n. 3), 36–38. Audet acknowledges that creation does reveal God but this revelation is the result of activity of the Word and is part of the supernatural education of human belongs. Much of his argument is guided by Escoula’s declaration that Irenaeus does not emphasize the transparency of God to his creatures but rather the incomparable grandeur of the Creator. The knowledge of God possessed by his creatures, then, always comes through the revelatory activity of his Word (“Le Verbe Sauveur et Illuminateur chez Saint Irénée: Le plan de la connaissance,” Nouvelle Revue Théologique 66.5 [1939], 551–567, there 559–560). The insufficiency of Escoula’s account of Irenaeus will become apparent as this section progresses.
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Irenaeus on Natural Knowledge
In: Church History and Religious CultureSearch for other papers by Anthony Briggman in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Over a century of research has produced little agreement on the question of whether Irenaeus of Lyons recognized a natural knowledge of God. This article raises the question anew by considering the interpretive issues surrounding the passage at the center of the debate, Against Heresies 2.6.1. It challenges past readings and offers one of its own. I contend that an affirmation of natural knowledge plays the leading role in the argument of AH 2.6.1. This being the case, this text does not undermine references to natural knowledge that appear elsewhere in Irenaeus’s corpus, as Th.-André Audet would have us believe, but supports them. Irenaeus, then, does indeed recognize a natural knowledge of God, the product of discursive reasoning about the creation and providence of God.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 257 | 49 | 3 |
| Full Text Views | 183 | 3 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 23 | 5 | 0 |