‘Ab Uno Disce Omnes’

Abstract

SummaryThe premodern history of the European university can be divided into two triads of three centuries: the medieval university and the ‘medieval’ university of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During these last three centuries Europe's Christian university was a ‘confessional’ university: the catholic, Lutheran, reformed and Anglican university and the dissenter university of New England. The reformed university of these centuries offered a distinctive way of systematic thought. A specific doctrine of God was connected with a distinct ontology and this combination constituted the theoretical framework of its philosophy and theology. What are the main distinctive features of this scholastic way of thought (I) and can a specific traditionhistorical background be identified (II)?I - The key concept of this systematic way of thought is God's free knowledge (scientia libera). This free knowledge is here understood to be God's knowledge of future states of affairs - see section 7 for the...