HIST-308 Lecture Notes - Lecture 46: Marsilio Ficino
4 Apr 2020
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According to cusanus, the affective mystics are right to say we cannot now know the infinite mind of god. We can and must use knowledge to think toward to the infinite. Assimilate ourselves to god"s infinite simplicity: beyond ignorance. For cusanus, we remain ignorant of the infinite simplicity of the divine mind. We can still keep growing in our partial knowledge of it. This is why he wants to push beyond the idea that because we are ignorant, we must not think anymore whatsoever: negative and positive theology. Cusanus uses his humanist training to rethink as an old distinction between positive and negative theology. Between positing claims about god and negating claims about god. Because they fall short of god"s infinity: the negative cusanus. In many texts, such as on the not other, cusanus sounds like an extreme version of a negative theologian.
