Yoshi Kato | Rikkyo University (original) (raw)
Papers by Yoshi Kato
Theology in Scotland, Dec 1, 2009
Church History and Religious Culture
The present paper analyzes Petrus van Maistricht’s (1630–1706) critique of Baruch Spinoza’s Theol... more The present paper analyzes Petrus van Maistricht’s (1630–1706) critique of Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise found in his Novitatum cartesianarum gangraena (1677). The paper shows, first, that Mastricht regarded Spinoza’s atheism as the inevitable outcome of the Cartesians’ denial of philosophy’s subordination to theology. Second, Mastricht, in refuting Spinoza, revised his earlier critique of Cartesianism. In his previous work, Mastricht had already pointed out the atheistic implications of Cartesianism, but in the Gangraena he could now clearly identify Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise as the atheistic consequence of Cartesianism. He was thus able to confirm his distinctive diagnosis of Cartesianism as a gangrene that would gradually worsen and eventually destroy the entire body of theology.
The Seventeenth Century
As a prominent theologian of Dutch Reformed orthodoxy, Samuel Maresius wrote De abusu philosophia... more As a prominent theologian of Dutch Reformed orthodoxy, Samuel Maresius wrote De abusu philosophiae cartesianae (1670) to denounce the dangers of Cartesian theology. Despite its importance in the history of early modern Cartesianism, a crucial question about the work remains to be answered: which aspects of Cartesian theology did Maresius condemn as the most dangerous for Reformed orthodoxy? The present paper answers this question by selecting and analyzing four topics from De abusu: (1) freedom and grace, (2) the Trinity, (3) the world system, and (4) the origins of things. It shows that Maresius identified the danger of Cartesian theology as propagating heresies under the guise of benefiting the Reformed Church. He thus feared that Cartesian theology would destroy orthodoxy from within.
Church History and Religious Culture, 2020
This paper examines two interpretations of a passage in Descartes’s text. Johannes Clauberg and B... more This paper examines two interpretations of a passage in Descartes’s text. Johannes Clauberg and Benedict Spinoza comment on the same paragraph in the Principles of Philosophy (1646). Descartes, in the paragraph, argues that the same amount of motion remains in the universe because of God’s immutable essence and operation. On the one hand, Clauberg embraces Descartes’s physics in general but modifies it to suit the theological tradition of the Reformed church, which held the official confession for where his professional career mattered. Spinoza, on the other hand, gets rid of all traces of the biblical religion from Descartes’s physics. While particular theological (or anti-theological) positions of these thinkers dictate their interpretations of Descartes’s text, their solutions are surprisingly similar.
Intellectual History Review
Theology in Scotland, 2009
Church History and Religious Culture
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Church Hi... more This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Church History and Religious Culture 100 (2020) 133-143 Church History and Religious Culture brill.com/chrc
Intellectual History Review, 2020
The present paper examines the Cartesian theologian Christoph Wittich’s Anti-Spinoza (1690). Scho... more The present paper examines the Cartesian theologian Christoph Wittich’s Anti-Spinoza (1690). Scholars have observed two opposing orientations in the work. Some have argued that Wittich offered a thoroughly Cartesian refutation of Spinoza. Others have found that he sometimes disagreed with Descartes and adopted a Spinozistic position. This paper reconciles these contrasting interpretations by comparing Wittich’s Anti-Spinoza with his earlier work. In general, Wittich tried to refute Spinoza’s monism by mobilizing Cartesian principles, which is particularly perspicuous in his discussion of God’s being. However, once he turned to the issue of the divine will, he openly contradicted Descartes’ teaching and approached Spinoza’s necessitarianism. He chose to do so to remain orthodox, evading the accusation of Socinian heresy, which the conservative theologian Petrus van Mastricht had made against his Theologia pacifica (1671). This paper concludes that the widespread fear concerning Socinianism deeply conditioned the way theologians reacted to the Cartesian philosophy in the Netherlands in the late seventeenth century.
Church History and Religious Culture, 2020
Introduction to Yoshi Kato and Han van Ruler, Confessional Clamour and Intellectual Indifference:... more Introduction to Yoshi Kato and Han van Ruler, Confessional Clamour and Intellectual Indifference: Religion and Philosophy in the Wake of Descartes’s New Method
『宗教研究』, 2019
Since René Descartes (1596–1650) closely connected the laws of nature with God’s volition, the co... more Since René Descartes (1596–1650) closely connected the laws of nature with God’s volition, the contradiction between “evils in nature” and “good God” who even wills them emerged. While the French philosopher himself disregarded this contradiction, many early modern thinkers saw this as the problem of evil and offered various solutions. The seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) is one of them. However, no study consistently has dealt with Spinoza’s discussion of the problem of evil. In order to understand Spinoza’s position more clearly and comprehensively, the present paper first analyzes his epistolary encounters with the armature philosopher-theologian Willem van Blijenbergh (1632–1696) between the years 1664–1665. Then the paper focuses on Spinoza’s Ethics (1677) and its pertinent sections on evil to clarify the difference between the respective positions of Jewish philosopher and the traditional philosophical schools. Finally, the paper deals with his _Tractatus theologico-politicus_ (1670) to locate Spinoza’s solution to the problem in his theory of politics.
Theology in Scotland XVI.2, 2009
Talks by Yoshi Kato
The recent scholarship on early modern philosophy recognizes the importance of the Dutch contribu... more The recent scholarship on early modern philosophy recognizes the importance of the Dutch contribution to the development of seventeenth century philosophy. But it is less frequent to encounter a thorough examination of the role of theology in the development. The Cartesian-Reformed theologian, Christoph Wittichus (1625-1687), played a significant role both to incorporate Cartesian philosophy into Reformed theology and to reject Spinoza’s anti-Christian philosophy. The paper examines Wittichus’ concept of God found in Anti-Spinoza as well as Commentarius de Deo (both are published posthumously in 1690) to elucidate a Reformed theological response to the developing current of the New Science of both Descartes and Spinoza. Wittichus’ notion of God is examined in the context of the conservative reaction to Descartes (Samuel Maresius), the fellow Cartesian theologian (Lambertus van Velthuysen), and Spinoza himself.
Theology in Scotland, Dec 1, 2009
Church History and Religious Culture
The present paper analyzes Petrus van Maistricht’s (1630–1706) critique of Baruch Spinoza’s Theol... more The present paper analyzes Petrus van Maistricht’s (1630–1706) critique of Baruch Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise found in his Novitatum cartesianarum gangraena (1677). The paper shows, first, that Mastricht regarded Spinoza’s atheism as the inevitable outcome of the Cartesians’ denial of philosophy’s subordination to theology. Second, Mastricht, in refuting Spinoza, revised his earlier critique of Cartesianism. In his previous work, Mastricht had already pointed out the atheistic implications of Cartesianism, but in the Gangraena he could now clearly identify Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise as the atheistic consequence of Cartesianism. He was thus able to confirm his distinctive diagnosis of Cartesianism as a gangrene that would gradually worsen and eventually destroy the entire body of theology.
The Seventeenth Century
As a prominent theologian of Dutch Reformed orthodoxy, Samuel Maresius wrote De abusu philosophia... more As a prominent theologian of Dutch Reformed orthodoxy, Samuel Maresius wrote De abusu philosophiae cartesianae (1670) to denounce the dangers of Cartesian theology. Despite its importance in the history of early modern Cartesianism, a crucial question about the work remains to be answered: which aspects of Cartesian theology did Maresius condemn as the most dangerous for Reformed orthodoxy? The present paper answers this question by selecting and analyzing four topics from De abusu: (1) freedom and grace, (2) the Trinity, (3) the world system, and (4) the origins of things. It shows that Maresius identified the danger of Cartesian theology as propagating heresies under the guise of benefiting the Reformed Church. He thus feared that Cartesian theology would destroy orthodoxy from within.
Church History and Religious Culture, 2020
This paper examines two interpretations of a passage in Descartes’s text. Johannes Clauberg and B... more This paper examines two interpretations of a passage in Descartes’s text. Johannes Clauberg and Benedict Spinoza comment on the same paragraph in the Principles of Philosophy (1646). Descartes, in the paragraph, argues that the same amount of motion remains in the universe because of God’s immutable essence and operation. On the one hand, Clauberg embraces Descartes’s physics in general but modifies it to suit the theological tradition of the Reformed church, which held the official confession for where his professional career mattered. Spinoza, on the other hand, gets rid of all traces of the biblical religion from Descartes’s physics. While particular theological (or anti-theological) positions of these thinkers dictate their interpretations of Descartes’s text, their solutions are surprisingly similar.
Intellectual History Review
Theology in Scotland, 2009
Church History and Religious Culture
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Church Hi... more This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Church History and Religious Culture 100 (2020) 133-143 Church History and Religious Culture brill.com/chrc
Intellectual History Review, 2020
The present paper examines the Cartesian theologian Christoph Wittich’s Anti-Spinoza (1690). Scho... more The present paper examines the Cartesian theologian Christoph Wittich’s Anti-Spinoza (1690). Scholars have observed two opposing orientations in the work. Some have argued that Wittich offered a thoroughly Cartesian refutation of Spinoza. Others have found that he sometimes disagreed with Descartes and adopted a Spinozistic position. This paper reconciles these contrasting interpretations by comparing Wittich’s Anti-Spinoza with his earlier work. In general, Wittich tried to refute Spinoza’s monism by mobilizing Cartesian principles, which is particularly perspicuous in his discussion of God’s being. However, once he turned to the issue of the divine will, he openly contradicted Descartes’ teaching and approached Spinoza’s necessitarianism. He chose to do so to remain orthodox, evading the accusation of Socinian heresy, which the conservative theologian Petrus van Mastricht had made against his Theologia pacifica (1671). This paper concludes that the widespread fear concerning Socinianism deeply conditioned the way theologians reacted to the Cartesian philosophy in the Netherlands in the late seventeenth century.
Church History and Religious Culture, 2020
Introduction to Yoshi Kato and Han van Ruler, Confessional Clamour and Intellectual Indifference:... more Introduction to Yoshi Kato and Han van Ruler, Confessional Clamour and Intellectual Indifference: Religion and Philosophy in the Wake of Descartes’s New Method
『宗教研究』, 2019
Since René Descartes (1596–1650) closely connected the laws of nature with God’s volition, the co... more Since René Descartes (1596–1650) closely connected the laws of nature with God’s volition, the contradiction between “evils in nature” and “good God” who even wills them emerged. While the French philosopher himself disregarded this contradiction, many early modern thinkers saw this as the problem of evil and offered various solutions. The seventeenth-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) is one of them. However, no study consistently has dealt with Spinoza’s discussion of the problem of evil. In order to understand Spinoza’s position more clearly and comprehensively, the present paper first analyzes his epistolary encounters with the armature philosopher-theologian Willem van Blijenbergh (1632–1696) between the years 1664–1665. Then the paper focuses on Spinoza’s Ethics (1677) and its pertinent sections on evil to clarify the difference between the respective positions of Jewish philosopher and the traditional philosophical schools. Finally, the paper deals with his _Tractatus theologico-politicus_ (1670) to locate Spinoza’s solution to the problem in his theory of politics.
Theology in Scotland XVI.2, 2009
The recent scholarship on early modern philosophy recognizes the importance of the Dutch contribu... more The recent scholarship on early modern philosophy recognizes the importance of the Dutch contribution to the development of seventeenth century philosophy. But it is less frequent to encounter a thorough examination of the role of theology in the development. The Cartesian-Reformed theologian, Christoph Wittichus (1625-1687), played a significant role both to incorporate Cartesian philosophy into Reformed theology and to reject Spinoza’s anti-Christian philosophy. The paper examines Wittichus’ concept of God found in Anti-Spinoza as well as Commentarius de Deo (both are published posthumously in 1690) to elucidate a Reformed theological response to the developing current of the New Science of both Descartes and Spinoza. Wittichus’ notion of God is examined in the context of the conservative reaction to Descartes (Samuel Maresius), the fellow Cartesian theologian (Lambertus van Velthuysen), and Spinoza himself.
The goal of the conference is to examine the interaction between religion and early modern Wester... more The goal of the conference is to examine the interaction between religion and early modern Western philosophy. While the seventeenth century is known for the intellectual revolution that gradually pushed religious authority aside, philosophers such as Descartes, Spinoza and Locke (and others) were still very much aware of the presence of the Christian Church and its orthodoxy, regardless of the confessional status of their country of residence. At the same time, early modern publishing culture allowed philosophical ideas to spread rapidly, and even if philosophers were convinced that their ideas were perfectly orthodox, they still had to write in such a way not to stir up theological controversy, or be deemed a threat to the health of the body of Christ. Some did this with a certain degree of success, others tried, but were still deemed highly unorthodox – or even condemned as a heretic. It is in this period, too, that philosophers found new ways for arguing their findings were to be seen as religiously neutral forms of knowledge.