a conciseintroduction to the philosophyoFnicholASoFcusa

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a conciseintroductionto thephilosophy ofnicholas of cusa

By jasper hopkins

univecsity of minnesou ppess, minneApolis

Copyright 1978 by the University of Minnesota.All rights reserved.Printed in the United States of America.Published by the University of Minnesota Press,2037 University Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455,and published in Canada by Burns & MacEachern Limited,Don Mills, Ontario

Library of Congress Cataloging In Publication DataHopkins, Jasper.

A concise introduction to the philosophy of Nicholasof Cusa.

Includes English and Latin versions of Nicholas'Trialogus de possest.

Bibliography: p.Includes index.1. Nicolaus Cusanus, Cardinal, 1401-1464.1. Nico-

laus Cusanus, Cardinal, 1401-1464. Trialogus de possest.Latin & English. II. Title.765.N54H66 189 78-16802ISBN 0-8166-0877-6

The Latin version of Trialogus de possest is reprintedfrom Renate Steiger, ed. and trans., Trialogus depossest. Dreiergesprdch uber das Konnen-Ist (1973);the diagram on p. 83 is from Elisabeth Bohnenstaedt,trans., Vom Konnen-Sein. Vom Gipfel der Betrachtung(1947). Permission for both reprintings was grantedby Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg.

The University of Minnesotais an equal opportunityeducator and employer.

pRe&ce

For a long time I kept wondering how best to introduce mystudents to the thought of Nicholas of Cusa. Like nearlyeveryone else, I supposed that I ought to begin where Nicho-las began: viz., with De Docta Ignorantia, his first and hismost important philosophical work. Yet, I found myselfunable to get a grip on this treatise, given the number ofLatin passages in which the argument seemed to me eitherimplausible or unintelligible. Moreover, the students them-selves were hampered by the necessity ofrelying upon Ger-main Heron's English translation, which does not do justiceto Nicholas's reasoning. For example, in Book II, Chapter 4Heron renders "contracte infinitus" as "relatively infinite."And in I, 24 he takes the sentence "Licet 'unitas' videaturpropinquius nomen maximi, tamen adhuc a vero nominemaximi, quod est ipsum maximum, distat per infinitum" tomean "Though 'unity' seems the more appropriate title forthe Maximum, yet it falls infinitely short of the Maximum'strue name, which is The Maximum."

After much study, I finally came to recognize that thedialogue De Possest provides the easiest access to Nicholas'sbasic ideas. Written in 1460, four years before his death, itpresents in streamlined fashion not only his views about

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vi Preface

docta ignorantia, via negativa, and coincidentia oppositorumbut also his teachings on (1) the universe's relationship tothe absolutely Maximum, (2) the metaphysical role of mathe-matical symbolism, and (3) the attainability of the mysticalvision of God.

I hope that not only my own students of medieval philoso-phy but also the general student of Renaissance history willindeed find in De Possest a helpful guide to Nicholas's specu-lative reasoning. The best approach for the beginning studentwill be to read the dialogue itself before turning to the moreencompassing introduction, which is more suited to advancedstudents and to scholars. In presenting an overview of Nicho-las's thought, I could not bring myself to withhold analysislest by oversimplifying I should mislead, as do so many ofthe summaries found in even the better textbooks on thehistory of philosophy.

The critical edition of the Latin dialogue was edited byRenate Steiger on behalf of the Heidelberg Academy ofLetters, which granted permission for the present reprinting.In the preface to her admirable German translation of theedited text Dr. Steiger remarks: "An manchen Stellen Hesssich jedoch . . . die Interpretation nicht gam zuruckhal-ten."1 I confess that I cannot echo this statement. For itseems to me to be not the exception but the rule that trans-lation and interpretation proceed pari passu, as I illustrateat length (though in another context) in my bookAnselm ofCanterbury: Volume IV: Hermeneutical and Textual Prob-lems in the Complete Treatises of St. Anselm.2 In the spiritof close translation, though, I deemed it advisable to usebrackets as a signal that I added words whose correlates areonly implied in the Latin text. I adopted this procedure main-ly as an aid to those readers who will want to compare theEnglish translation with the text itself. Nevertheless, let noone wrongly suppose that these bracketed words and phrasesare the only places where "interpretation" occurs.

My thoughts on Nicholas of Cusa date from 1973-74,when I was spending a sabbatical year in Paris as a fellow ofthe American Council of Learned Societies, for whose assis-

Preface vii

tance I am grateful. A travel grant from the University ofMinnesota made possible my visit, during the summer of1977, to the Cusanus Institute at the University of Mainzand to the Cusanus Library at Bernkastel-Kues. I express ap-preciation to Rudolf Haubst, Hermann Schnarr, and RektorMoritz all of whom received me cordially.

I also wish to thank the staff of the Wilson Library at theUniversity of Minnesotaespecially Joan Fagerlie, ErikaLinke, Jacqueline Smith, and Douglas White, who helpedsecure many of the works needed for this study. I amobliged to Peter Petzling for calling to my attention severalarticles I might otherwise have failed to read. Finally, I amindebted to Sandra Menssen, who typed the manuscript andwho, with Richard Hogan, Pat Kaluza, and Carol Such, as-sisted in proofreading.

Jasper Hopkins

Philosophy DepartmentUniversity of Minnesota

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contents

CHRONOLOGY OF NICHOLAS'S MAJOR WORKS xi

INTRODUCTION

ABBREVIATIONS 45

BIBLIOGRAPHY 47

TRIALOGUS DE POSSEST 6

ON ACTUALIZED-POSSIBILITY 63

NOTES 157

INDEX 181

3

62

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chRonoloqy ofnicholass major? woRks

[Extracted from Rudolf Haubst, "Nikolaus von Kues,"Lexikon fur Theologie und Kirche, 7 (1962), 989-90]

1432-33 De Concordantia Catholica1440 1442-43 De Coniecturis1444-45 De Deo Abscondito (1444)

De Quaerendo Deum (1445)De Filiatione Dei (1445)

1445-46 De Data Patris Luminum1445-59 (Eleven mathematical writings)1446 Coniectura de Ultimis Diebus1447 De Genesi1449 Apologia Doctae Ignorantiae1450 Idiota de Sapientia

Idiota de MenteIdiota de Staticis Experiment!*

1453 De Pace FideiDe Visione Dei

XI

De Docta Ignorantia

Chronology

1458 De Beryllo1459 De Aequalitate

De Principio1460 De Possest1461 Cribratio Alkorani1461-62 DeLiNonAliud1462-63 De Venatione Sapientiae

De Ludo Globi1463 Compendium1464 De Apice Theoriae

xii

A conciseintroduction to the philosophyofnicholasof CUSA

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intRo6uction

I

Nikolaus Krebs (1401-64) was born in the town of Cues,situated on the Moselle River. Later called Nycolaus Cancerde Coesse, Nicolaus de Cusa, and Nicolaus Cusanus,1 he re-ceived his early education from the Brothers of the CommonLife at Deventer in Holland, where he was exposed to suchpietistic and mystical themes as are expressed in The Imita-tion of Christ, attributed to Thomas a Kempis. In 1416 heentered the University of Heidelberg, thus coming under theinfluence of Scholastic philosophy and theology. After ayear and a half, he left Heidelberg for Padua, where he studiedsome mathematics and physics but mainly canon law, re-ceiving his doctor decretorum in 1423. Following a sojournin Rome, he returned to Germany in 1425 for a year's studyof theology at the University of Cologne. During the nextdecade he was engaged in various pursuits as a canon lawyerand was sent to Constantinople in 143 7 by the minority partyof the Council of Basel.2 The purpose of this mission wasto invite the Greeks to attend, at Ferrara, Italy, a councilwhich would discuss the reunification of the Greek and the

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4 Introduction

Roman churches. Though the council was nominally a suc-cess, no substantive or lasting reunification resulted.

In 1438 Nicholas, fearing a new schism within the WesternChurch, made his break with the Conciliar Movement com-plete by joining in full support of the papal party. Ten yearslaterand partly in appreciation of his supporthe wasnamed, by Pope Nicholas V, cardinal of the titular Churchof St. Peter in Chains. Two years thereafter the same popenamed him bishop of Brixen (i.e., Bressanone) in South Tyrol.His attempts at reform led to clashes with Archduke Sigis-mund, making his last years as bishop not only unpleasantbut even fearful. In 1464, during the month of August, hedied at Todi in Umbria.

Nicholas's life spans the period of the Great Schism, theburnings of John Huss and Joan of Arc, the continuation ofthe Inquisition, and the fall of Constantinople. The finalsuccess of the tumultuous Council of Constance (1414-18) success in ending the strife between three different claimantsto the papacymade a deep impact upon him. In De Con-cordantia Catholica (1432-33) he advocates that the popebe regarded as responsible to such a council. The desire forunitas ecclesiae, as evidenced in his early work, is paralleledby the doctrine of unitas complicans, which is set forth inthe major philosophical effort De Docta Ignorantia (1440).Though in the name of unitas ecclesiae he came to abandonhis conciliar theory, he never saw a need to modify his philo-sophical view about the nature of God as unitas complicans,or Enfolding Oneness. Thus his philosophical position,though differently illustrated from one work to another,does not substantially change.

As a Renaissance man, Nicholas reaches out to investigatemathematics, astronomy, cosmology, and ecclesiasticalpolity, as well as philosophy and theology. In each of theseareas he makes a contribution which, viewed historically, isdistinctiveirrespective of the assessment of its inherentmerits. (E.g., in mathematics he presents a "proof" that anycircle can be squared.) On the philosophical front, his origi-nality is not to be mislabeled as novelty: he is not wholly

Introduction 5

the source of his own ideas; yet he is original in his use ofthese other sources, chief among whom is Pseudo-Dionysius(whom he lauds in De Li Non Aliud 14 [29:22] as "thegreatest of the theologians"). For instance, in The DivineNames Dionysius alludes to the possibility of knowing Godthrough ignorance. (St. Augustine, St. Bonaventure, Algazel,and Pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus also employed comparableexpressions). In Apologia Doctae Ignorantiae Nicholasdenies that he borrowed the idea of acquired ignorancefrom "Dionysium aut quemquam theologorum verorum"and insists that "desuper conceptum recepi." Whether or nothe was initially influenced by Dionysius's version of doctaignorantia, the development of this theme once struck up-onwas certainly carried out in the light of'Dionysius'swritings. One reason for God's being called unknowable is,Nicholas teaches, that He is considered to be beyond all op-position; and He is beyond all opposition because (in onesense) He is not other than anything which can be.5 This lastidea, Nicholas admits, was in fact suggested to him by Diony-sius.6

Because of Nicholas's explicit references in his own textsand because of his comments in the margins of other textsfound in his library, his sources are easy to determine. Van-steenberghe, Lenz, and Hommes all came to roughly thesame conclusions about these sources: viz., that aside fromPseudo-Dionysius, the primary influences derive from Pro-clus, Erigena, and Augustine.7 Thus T. Whittaker leads usastray with his verdict that

neither Cusanus nor Bruno nor Spinoza can have readErigena, whose great work De Divisione Naturae wassentenced to destruction by Pope Honorius III in 1225,and did not come to light again through a single copytill 1681.8

For in the Apologia9 Nicholas urges that Erigena be read.And this exhortation certainly suggests that he himself hadstudied De Divisione Naturae. He is also influenced in vary-ing ways by Plato, Aristotle, Maximus the Confessor, Thierry

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6 Introduction

of Chartres, Anselm of Canterbury, Hugh of St. Victor,Robert Grosseteste,Thomas Callus, Albert the Great, Pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus, Thomas Aquinas, Raymond Lull, andMeister Eckhart, among others. For instance, he accepts theAristotelian-Thomistic distinction between four kinds ofcauses,10 as well as the distinction between the vegetative,the sensitive, and the intellectual soul.11 He also cites withapproval Anselm's statement in De Conceptu Virginali 18:"Decebat, ut eapuritate, qua maior sub Deo intelligi nequit,virgo niteret, cut purissimus Dei aeterni filius pro filio itadan merebatur ut esset communis etDeiet Virginis filius."12And he endorses a portion of Anselm's theory of atonement:

Homo ad vitam creatus non restituitur, si non ad simi-litudinem angelorum, in quibus nullum est peccatum,provehitur. Quod facere non potest nisi praecedenteIntegra satisfactione, quam esse opportet, ut aliquidDeo detur, quod debitum non sit et superet omne,quod Deus non est. Peccare est Deum exhonare, quodfacere homo non deberet, etiam si cuncta, quae Deusnon sunt, perire deberent. Utique ratio exigit etveritas immutabilis, ut, qui peccat, reddat Deo aliquidpro honore ablato maius quam sit hoc, pro quo iliumexhonare non debuit. Quod humana natura sola nonhabebat nee sine satisfactione ad finem et regnum per-venire potuit.13

On the other hand, the importance of some of the in-fluences on Nicholas has been exaggerated. For instance,Pierre Duhem claims that in De Docta Ignorantia Nicholasplagiarizes Thierry of Chartres's De Sex Dierum Operibusthat parts of the former are simply bad summaries of the lat-ter.14 But this judgment needs more focusing. For one thing,Nicholas's writings bear a closer resemblance to Thierry'sCommentary on Boethius than to his De Sex Dierum Operi-bus. But even so, Nicholas's appropriation of such terminolo-gy as "forma essendi," "fieri potest," "entitas omniumrerum," "aequalitas essendi," as well as his pivotal use of

Introduction 7

Exodus 3:14, hardly constitutes plagiarism15 of Thierry'ssystem. (And only such plagiarism would render Nicholasworthy of reproach.) Nicholas does adopt some of Thierry'sideas: But he organizes them in a way that makes the wholeof his position different from Thierry's. For example, herefers to God the Father as unitas, God the Son as aequalitas,and God the Holy Spirit as conexio unitatis et aequalitatisjust as does Thierry in Lectiones in Boethii Librum. Butit would be wrong to maintain that he simply takes overThierry's doctrine of the Trinity.

In De Possest the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius, Proclus,Erigena, and Augustine is both abundant and patent. Nicho-las stands in the history of philosophy as a continuer of someaspects of the rich and variegated Neoplatonic tradition. Yethe is no mere synthesizer of his predecessors, even thoughhe appropriates their terminology and utilizes their motifs.Perhaps there is no better illustration of this fact than in DePossest 73-74. Following the Christian Neoplatonic tradition,Nicholas teaches that God is beyond being and not-being.But at the same time, in the spirit of Meister Eckhart, hequalifies this doctrine by adding that God is Being itself andthat in God "not-being is every thing which is possible to be."So if there is a sense in which not-being is subsequent to God,there is also a sense in which in God not-being is God. Thislatter sense becomes an essential aspect of the broader viewthat God is the union of posse and esse a view spelled outin some detail throughout De Possest.

II

The speculative and highly metaphysical character of Nicho-las's writings render them especially difficult to compre-hend. Much of the trouble arises from the fact that theyveer from the method and the style of medieval Scholasticism.Whereas Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William ofOckham, and the others pay careful attention to articulatingphilosophical and theological arguments, Nicholas advancesconsiderations so sweeping that they can scarcely be called ar-guments. And even the few argument-approximations which

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8 Introduction

he manages to formulate depend upon considerationsoften-times considerations of analogywhich do not successfullysupport his metaphysical conclusions. In particular, he no-where shows himself seriously interested in the question ofwhether God's existence is demonstrable. He neither dis-cusses the issue in detail nor takes an explicit stance towardthe "proofs" given by his predecessors. In the quasi-dialogueDe Pace Fidei, where he aims to show that wisdom is God,he must first establish its independent and singular existence.But his attempt to do so is not philosophically serious.

"If, then," [said the Greek] "you all love wisdom, doyou not presuppose that this wisdom exists?" They allproclaimed at once that no one doubted the existenceof wisdom. The Word added: "There can be only onewisdom. For if it were possible for there to be morethan one wisdom, then these several would have toexist from one wisdom; for prior to all plurality thereis unity."17

Similarly, in De Docta Ignorantia I, 6, which proposes someconsiderations about the existence of the absolutely Maxi-mum, or God, Nicholas does not reason rigorously. In fact,it is difficult even to state his reasoning accurately. Accord-ing to Armand Maurer,

Cusa offered several a priori proofs for the existenceof the absolute maximum, or God. The first arguedthat the finite is inconceivable without the infinite.What is finite and limited has a beginning and an end,so that there must be a being to which it owes its exis-tence and in which it will have its end. This being iseither finite or infinite. If it is finite, then it has itsbeginning and end in another being. This leads eitherto an infinite series of actually existing finite beings,which is impossible, or to an infinite being which is thebeginning and end of all finite beings. Consequently,it is absolutely necessary that there be an infinite be-ing, or absolute maximum.

Introduction 9

The second proof argued that the absolute truthabout the absolute maximum can be stated in threepropositions: It either is or is not. It is and it is not. Itneither is nor is not. These exhaust all the possibilities,so that one of them must be the absolute truth. Hencethere is an absolute truth, and this is what is meantby the absolute maximum.18

But Maurer's articulation of these "proofs" does not corre-spond to Nicholas's text.19 As Maurer represents the firstargument, it proceeds more coherently than it does in thetext; by contrast, his representation of the second argumentintroduces a textually unwarranted imprecision. Specifically,Maurer wrongly incorporates into Nicholas's "first"argumentthe proposition that the finite is inconceivable without the in-finite. For the argument contends that the finite cannot existwithout the infinite not that it cannot be conceived withoutthe infinite.2 Moreover, the argument does not utilize thepremise that an infinite series of actually existing finitebeings is impossible. Rather, Nicholas says simply: "It is notpossible to proceed to infinity in beginnings and causes."21

By comparison, the "second" argument nowhere claimsthat what is meant by the absolute truth is the absoluteMaximum. Maurer is not clear about the sense of "meant"in his statement that "there is an absolute truth, and thisis what is meant by the absolute maximum." Presumably,he is not suggesting that for Nicholas the expression "abso-lute truth" is identical in meaning with the expression "ab-solute maximum." (For this would make nonsense of theargument.) But is he suggesting that, on Nicholas's view,when we refer to the absolute truth we are referring to theabsolutely Maximum? If so, he is on unsafe ground. For al-though Nicholas is claiming that the greatest truth is identi-cal with the absolutely Maximum, he nowhere exhibits thebelief that in referring to the one we necessarily mean to bereferring to the other. (The morning star is identical with theevening star; but in referring to the former we do not neces-sarily mean to be referring to the latter.) But perhaps allMaurer intends by "this is what is meant by the absolute

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10 Introduction

maximum" is "this is identical with the absolute maximum."If so, he is expressing himself misleadingly. Whatever his in-tention, he introduces into Nicholas's reasoning an impreci-sion which in one way or another detracts from its structureand movement.

In last analysis, each of Nicholas's two lines of argument isincomplete. In the one case, he takes no pains to argue for hisidentification of the greatest truth with the absolutely Maxi-mum; nor does he articulate any criteria for determiningwhat is to count as the greatest truth ; nor does he make anyattempt to supply a premise to the effect that a propositioncan be most greatly true only if the greatest truth exists in-dependently of it. In the other case, he assumes without dis-cussion that it is not possible to proceed to infinity in be-ginnings and causes. Unlike Thomas, he makes no effort todistinguish, within his line of consideration, between a seriesin essential subordination and a series in accidental subordina-tion, between an ontological regress and a temporal regress.In short, Nicholas does not take seriously the project ofdemonstrating the existence of God. Yet he could not failto realizegiven his familiarity with the Thomist-Scotist-Ockhamist controversy what would be involved in formu-lating such a demonstration. Accordingly, it is misleading tocall his a priori considerations proofs of the existence of God.For this label implies that he does take the eristic enterpriseseriously that he intends to provide conclusive arguments.In fact, however, he aims only at giving Hinweise, or indi-cators.

For the most part, Nicholas's other argument-approxima-tions are, likewise, either inconclusive or specious. For ex-ample, his considerations in De Docta Ignorantia I, 4 do notsuffice to establish that the absolutely Maximum is identicalwith the absolutely Minimum:

Since the absolutely Maximum is all that which canbe, it is altogether actual. And just as there cannot beanything greater, so for the same reason there cannotbe anything lesser, since it is all that which can be. Butthe Minimum is that than which there cannot be a

Introduction

lesser. And since the Maximum is of this kind, it is evi-dent that the Minimum coincides with the Maximum.

If viewed as eristic, the reasoning here is question-begging.For if the absolutely Maximum exists and is everything whichcan be, then we might well infer that the Minimum is notamong the things which can be or that if the Minimum isamong the things which can be, then the Maximum is notto be identified, unqualifiedly, with everything which canbe. Yet here and elsewhere we must be cautious about speci-fying Nicholas's objectives. Otherwise, we may take him tobe attempting to establish that the absolutely Maximum isidentical with the Minimum. But, in reality, he is endeavor-ing only to render plausible his notion that the absolutelyMaximum is beyond all opposition and all otherness. Thatis, he does not use the preceding passage to prove that Godis beyond all opposition; rather, he uses it as a step towardclaiming that God is beyond all opposition. For he knowsthat the "argument" can be "controverted" by anyone whoinsists upon an unrelenting application of the principle ofnoncontradiction. Nicholas is best understood as proceed-ing much as Spinoza later did when he offered his "proof"that substance is singular and exists per se. Strictly speaking,Spinoza's proof is not a proof, since what is shown is onlywhat is implicit in the disputed assumption. But, then,Spinoza realized this fact about his reasoningas Nicholasrealized the corresponding fact about his. Neither of the twowould be troubled by the accusation of begging the question.For each would regard whoever leveled the charge as havingmisunderstood the intent of the enterprise.

On the other hand, there are passages in which Nicholasdoes make outright mistakes of inference, as judged by theordinary canons of reasoning.2 (Nicholas himself does notreject the application of these canons except where they con-flict with his doctrine of coincidentia oppositorum in Deo.)One such faulty inference occurs in De Possest 27:

Cardinal: Only the Beginningbecause it is Actualized-possibility itselfis not able to be what it is not.

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12 Introduction

Bernard: This is clear. For example if the Beginningwere able not-to-be, it would not-be, since it is whatit is able to be.

John: Therefore, it is Absolute Necessity, since it isnot able not to be.

Cardinal: Your statement is correct. For how wouldthe Beginning be able not to be, seeing that in it not-being is [identical with] it?

But, of course, from "B is not able to be what it is not" and"B is not nonexistent" it does not follow, soundly, that "Bis not able to be nonexistent." For existent is not what B isbut that B is; and nonexistent is not what B is not but thatB is not.

To make matters worse, Nicholas does not always takethe time to clarify fully his cryptic or startling utterances-,and his not doing so conduces to his being misunderstood.Thus the casual reader may have difficulty with the asser-tion, in De Coniecturis II, 14 (143:7-8), that "homo enimdeus est, sed non absolute, quoniam homo; humanus est igi-tur deus": "Man is God, but not in an unrestricted sense, forhe is man; he is therefore a human God." Similarly, unlessone reads closely, it may be difficult to grasp the significanceof De Visione Dei 12, where God is said to be created aswell as creating. Likewise, even Nicholas's expression of hisgrand theme, the coincidence of opposites, fosters confu-sion. For sometimes he asserts that in God all oppositescoincide (in quo coincidunt opposita)24 and sometimes hestates that God is beyond the coincidence of contradictories(ultra coincidentiam contradictoriorum). Moreover, inteaching that all things opposites or notare present inGod,26 that God is all things,27 that God is present in allthings,28 he lays himself open to the charge of pantheism.Indeed, during his lifetime this charge was brought againsthim by John Wenck, professor of theology at the Universityof Heidelberg.29 Although Wenck was undiscerning in takingNicholas to be teaching that omnia cum Deo coincidunt,Nicholas had done little in DeDocta Ignorantia to anticipate

24

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Introduction 13

and forestall this pantheistic construal of his assertion thatDem est omnia, i.e., that Deus est omnia complicative. Hisclarification came nine years later in Apologia Doctae Ig-norantiae, his response to Wenck.

The very phrase "docta ignorantia" suffers from a primafacie ambiguity: does it mean an ignorance that is eruditeor an ignorance that must be acquiredor both? Certainly,Nicholas believes that an individual who possesses this ig-norance is in this respect wiser than an individual who doesnot. Nonetheless, the expressions "scientia ignorantiae"and "doctrina ignorantiae" suggest that "docta ignorantia"which is sometimes also called "sacra ignorantia" is anignorance which one must acquire, or learn.31 Accordingly,the phrase makes best sense when viewed in the light ofNicholas's teaching about the via negativa.

In another vein, a number of Nicholas's statements ap-pear, prima facie, to be unintelligible. The most noteworthyand, ironically, the best knownis his assertion that Godis a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circum-ference is nowhere. This statement, elicited from De LudoGlobi II and De Docta Ignorantia II, 1232 is not original withNicholas but derives from Pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus's"Book of the Twenty-four Philosophers," a compilation ofthe late twelfth or the early thirteenth century. Nicholas,however, seems to have borrowed this formula from MeisterEckhart, who uses it in no less than six places.34 Yet Eck-hart's statementalready bizarre in its attempt to expressthe doctrine of divine omnipresence becomes all the morebizarre in the mouth of Nicholas, who comes to declare thateven the machina mundi has its center everywhere and itscircumference nowhere. Not only is it unclear what sense itwould make to apply this rubric to the mechanism of theworld, but the reason offered in support of so applying therubric is itself unintelligible: viz., that God is the world'scenter and circumference God, who is present everywhereand nowhere. 5 But the sense in which God, an immaterialbeing, could be the world's center and circumference is neversuccessfully elucidated.36

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14 Introduction

What makes Nicholas's ideas still more difficult to grasp,and what sets him still further apart from his Scholastic pre-decessors, is his loose terminology. Vansteenberghe speaksof "les repetitions, le manque d'ordre logique, les variationsdans le vocabulaire." 7 And Jaspers judges: "Er schreibtdurchweg kein einfaches, klares und strenges Latein."3KSometimes Nicholas refers to God as "actus omnis posse"and sometimes as "actualitas omnis potentiae," withoutreally distinguishing between "actus" and "actualitas" or be-tween "posse" and "potential 9 Nor does he hesitate to use"posse" in place of "possibilitas."'*0 Similarly, he feels free

, , I t ' , ' ) 41 4 i to interchange "notitia" and "scientia,"41 "nominamus"and "vocamus," 2 "esse" and "actus." "Entitas" some-times indicates esse generally and sometimes ipsum esse, i.e.,God. Moreover, God is called, indiscriminately, (1) esseomnis esse, (2) entitas omnis esse, and (3) ens entium."Subsistere" does not regularly mean "to exist independentlyrather than in another." Sentences such as "Quare maxi-mum absolute cum sit omne id quod esse potest, est penitusin actu" are inexcusably ambiguous. 7 And sentences suchas "Et dico nunc nobis constare deum ante actualitatem, quaedistinguitur a potentia, et ante possibilitatem, quae distin-guitur ab actu, esse ipsum simplex mundi principium"48 rep-resent the abandonment of the Scholastic quest for precise

i 49terminology.Any number of commentators have erroneously pictured

Nicholas as teaching that the universe is without spatial limi-tation.50 And others have misconceived his relationship tohis predecessors and his successors. Thus Kurt Flasch allegesthat Nicholas's absolutely Maximum is to be identified withthe God of Anselm.51 But this claim is altogether misguided.For the God of Anselm is neither the coincidence of oppo-sites nor the actuality of all possibility. Nor does Anselm'sexpression "es quiddam mains quam cogitari possit" playthe same role in Proslogion 15 as it does in Nicholas's con-text of scientia ignorantiae.52 Finally, it is completely wrongof Flasch to write: "Was in D. ign. 1 6 . . . steht, ist eineoriginelle Wiederaufnahme des Proslogionbeweises, seine

45

47

46

43

44

42

39

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Introduction 15

Transposition indas cusanischeKoinzidenzdenken." Nicho-las's argument may be "'originell" but it is certainly not a"Wiederaufnahme des Proslogionbeweises." For the struc-ture of Anselm's logic though not of Nicholas's is a re-ductio ad absurdum. Where this structure is not preserved,there is not any restatement of the Proslogion proof.

Flasch, however, is not the only one who makes mistakesin comparing Anselm and Nicholas. D. J. B. Hawkins com-ments: "Nicholas has already defined God in the Anselmianmanner as that than which there can be nothing greater."54But for two reasons this comment is flagrantly wrong. First,Anselm repeatedly and plainly uses the formula "that thanwhich nothing greater can be thought"; and second, this for-mula does not function for him as a definition of the word"God."55

With regard to his successors, Nicholas has been hailed asin some respects a precursor of Copernicus,5 Bruno,57

Spinoza,58 Leibniz,59 Kant,60 and Hegel.61 Yet most ofthese claims have been exaggerated, as, in general, has beenthe attempt to represent him as "the first modern thinker."Cassirer, for instance, believes that this rubric is fitting be-cause, as he says vaguely, Nicholas's "first step consists inasking not about God, but about the possibility of knowl-edge about God."62 However, the same observation could beaptly made about the first step taken by Moses Maimonidesand by Thomas Aquinas, neither of whom would be mis-taken for modern philosophers.

All in all, the writings of Nicolaus Cusanus display a per-turbing impenetrability which has militated against their be-ing enthusiastically received by the Anglo-Saxon philosophi-cal community. But among Anglo-Saxon philosophers, fewhave made any real effort to rethink the thoughts of thisoriginal and partly bizarre Renaissance mind. Unfortunately,many of the English-speaking translators and commentatorsupon whom the Anglo-Saxon community has depended havegreatly added to our woes. Ironically, the commentators whoheap upon Nicholas the most lavish praise are often the veryones who are the most undiscerning about the significance

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16 Introduction

and the soundness of his main ideas. It behooves us to re-examine, briefly, these major themesdoing so partly in thelight of the dialogue De Possest. This reexamination will notunturn any deep points hitherto unnoticed. But it may helpwith the task of identifying the genuine trouble spots in Nich-olas 's philosophy, as well as with the goal of determining whatthere is of lasting importance.

Ill

Many of Nicholas's central doctrines emerge in conjunctionwith his reading of Scripture. The doctrine of acquired ig-norance is associated with I Corinthians 3:19: "The wisdomof this world is foolishness with God." The doctrine that Godis all things is correlated with I Corinthians 15:28: "that Godmay be all in all." The doctrine of the mystical vision is de-veloped against the backdrop of II Corinthians 12:3-4: "Iknow such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body,I know not: God knoweth): That he was caught up into para-dise and heard secret words which it is not granted to manto utter." And the via negativa is propounded in connectionwith Ephesians 1:21, which teaches that God is "above allprincipality and power and virtue and dominion and everyname that is named, not only in this world, but also in thatwhich is to come." Indeed, Nicholas teaches that insofar asthe existence and the nature of God can be apprehendedthrough symbolisms, they must be grasped by the route indi-cated in Romans 1:20, a verse which he construes as: "The in-visible things of Him, including His eternal power and divinity,are clearly seen from the creation of the world, by means ofunderstanding created things."

Intermingled with considerations of faith, Nicholas's rea-soning in De Possest is no more rigorous than it was in DeDocta Ignorantia, written twenty years earlier. He regardsthe sensible world as finite, and therefore as existing fromanother (ab alio), since it cannot fix its own limits. But thisother-from-which-the-world-exists exists from itself (a se),since it is the Creating Power and since only what is created

Introduction 17

exists from another. Because it exists from itself, it is eternal.And thus it is also invisible; for were it visible, it would betemporal.64

Here a number of questions occur to us. Cannot the sen-sible world be finite in spatial extent without existing ab alio?Can it not be uncreated and everlasting? Instead of dealingwith these issues along philosophical lines, Nicholas simplybegs a number of philosophical issues by invoking the creator/creation distinction. This move manifests that he does notaim to formulate an apologetic on behalf of a theistic meta-physic but intends only to detail, informally, certain featuresof his own version of such a metaphysic. In De Possest hemore or less takes the existence of God as nonproblematicaland seeks to explain how it is that we can mount up to Godon the basis of the visible world. The route he chooses tofollow is based upon the distinction between actuality andpossibility.

We know, he reminds us, that every existing thing is ableto be that which it actually is. From this consideration weare led (he believes) to reflect upon actuality itself, in whoseabsence (he presumes) a thing cannot actually be what it isany more than a white thing can be white in the absenceof whiteness. So if anything actually exists, it must be thecase that actuality exists. But if actuality exists, it is ableto exist; for what is unable to exist does not exist. Moreover,it would not be able, or possible, to exist in the absense ofpossibility; for without possibility nothing is possible. So ifactuality is able, or possible, to exist, then it must be thecase that possibility actually exists. Yet the one cannot beprior or posterior to the other. For how could possibilityexist without actuality or actuality, without possibility?

Nicholas seems to hold that although whiteness does notexist independently of objects which happen to be white,possibility itself does exist independently of everything whichcomes to be actual. For if it did not, then (he supposes) noneof these things would be possible to exist before they actu-ally existed. Indeed, on Nicholas's view, possibility itselfexists eternally; and since it is not prior to actuality itself,

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18 Introduction

the latter also exists eternally. This eternal union of possi-bility and actuality Nicholas calls God. So God is distinctfrom every other being by virtue of the fact that He alone isthe actuality of all possibility; He alone is, actually, every-thing of which "is able to be" can be predicated truly. Thisunderstanding of God gives rise to three additional points.

1. Since God is actually all that is possible to be, He can-not be other than He is. Accordingly, then, He is also actuallyall that He can be, whereas no other existing thing is ever allthat it can be.66 For example, although the sun is able to bewhat it is, it is not actually all that it is able to be. For it ispossible for the sun to be brighter, or hotter, or larger, thanit is. Importantly, Nicholas does not here distinguish potentiaqua potentiality from possibilities qua possibility. In accor-dance with such a distinction, someone might contend: thesun has no potency for a greater brightness, heat, or size;therefore, the sun cannot actually become brighter, hotter,or larger than it now is; still it is (logically) possible for thesun to have these characteristics. By contrast, Nicholas inDe Possest is not operating with an Aristotelian notion ofpotency. Rather, according to his view, anything (other thanGod) can become anything else (other than God), since GodHimself has the power "to turn any created thing into anyother created thing."67 In short, Nicholas's use of "posse,""potentia," and "possibilitas" must usually be construed asindifferent and as invoking no systematic distinction betweenpotentiality (in the metaphysical Aristotelian sense) and pos-sibility (in the logical and empirical senses).

2. Having become clear about the meaning of "poss,"weare now in a position to determine the appropriate transla-tions for the neologism "Possest," which Nicholas comes touse as a name for God. As an abbreviation for "Posse est" andin the context of Nicholas's writings, the word is used withthe literal meaning "Possibility exists," or "Possibility is ac-tual." So God, as Possest, is Existent-possibility, Actualizedpossibility, the Actual-existence-of-possibility. These con-struals are confirmed by De Venatione Sapientiae, Chap. 13("Solus deus est possest, quia est actu quod esse potest":

Introduction 19

"God alone is Possest, because He is actually what is able tobe") and De Quaerendo Deum 46:1 ("O quantum est deusnoster, qui est actus omnis potentiate": "O how great is ourGod, who is the actuality of every possibility!").

3. The awareness that God is Possest provides a rule forconceiving of Him in more detail.

For example, suppose that on the basis of the beautyof created things I say that God is beautiful; and sup-pose I know that God is so beautiful that He is a beautywhich is everything it is able to be. Then, I know thatGod lacks nothing of the beauty of the whole world.And I know that all creatable beauty is only a certaindisproportionate likeness to that Beauty (1) which isactually the possibility of the existence of all beautyand (2) which is not able to be different from what itis, since it is what it is able to be. The case is similarconcerning the good and life and other things. . . .

It is important to emphasize the phrase "disproportionatelikeness," since Nicholas never abandons his earlier state-ment, in De Docta Ignorantia, to the effect that betweenthe finite and the infinte there is no proportionality.69 Thisleads him to view the traditional names for God"Creator,""Justice," "Goodness," etc. as terms whose meanings areelicited from human experience.70 Through employing theseterms, we cannot reach beyond our ignorance to apprehendthe true nature of God. Like Pseudo-Dionysius, Nicholasemphasizes the via negativa, which teaches that God cannotbe known either in this life or in the next.71 Hence the ruleprovided by the consideration that God is Possest is not in-tended to furnish us with statements which adequatelycharacterize the nature of Divine Being. Nicholas does de-clare that the name "Possest" has a "simple significationwhich through a symbolism, and in accordance with yourhuman concept, leads an inquirer to some kind of positiveassertion about God."72 Yet these positive assertions servenot to remove ignorance but to inculcate it, to teach us theextent to which it is necessary.

20 Introduction

This name leads the one-who-is-speculating beyond allthe senses, all reason, and all intellect unto a mysticalvision, where there is an end to the ascent of all cog-nitive power and where there is the beginning of therevelation of the unknown God. For, having left allthings behind, the seeker-after-truth ascends beyondhimself and discerns that he still does not have anygreater access to the invisible God, who remains invi-sible to him. (For God is not seen by means of anylight from the seeker's own reason.) At this point theseeker awaits, with the most devout longing, the omnip-otent Sunexpecting that when darkness is banishedby its rising, he will be illuminated, so that he will seethe invisible [God] to the extent that God will mani-fest Himself.73

So, then, God "remains completely unknown to all who seekHim by way of reason and intellect." Yet, though He sur-passes all understanding, He will be seen by believersseenmysticallyin the next life.

In De Possest Nicholas at least appears to be more agnos-tic than he was in De Docta Ignorantia, where he maintainedthat some propositions from negative theology are less inade-quate than others. "It is truer," he said there, "that God isnot a stone than that He is not life or intelligence truerthat He is not drunkenness than that He is not virtue."75Yet we cannot know that God is more unlike x than y un-less we also know that He is more like y than x. Once the vianegativa is formulated in terms of "more unlike x and less un-like y," it can no longer be kept distinct from the via positiva.In De Docta Ignorantia Nicholas recognizes this point andthus hastens to add: "The affirmation which says that God isintelligence and life is truer than [the affirmation which saysthat He is] earth or stone or body." But in teaching that theone affirmation is truer than the others, Nicholas appears in-consistent in also teaching that there is no proportion be-tween God and man.76

Over and over again Nicholas has recourse to symbolism.As we move farther and farther in time away from his earlywork De Docta Ignorantia, this symbolism becomes less and

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Introduction 21

less exclusively mathematical. In De Possest he appeals notonly to the mathematical illustration of a top turning withinfinite velocity but equally to linguistic considerations asso-ciated with the Latin words "m" and "possest." Althoughthese symbolisms never enable us to mount up successfullytoward understanding the nature of Divine Being, they dopurport to bring us to the point of discerning how inescap-ably ignorant of God our intellect must be. And, allegedly,this realization can become a stepping stone to the visio dei.For even if we comprehend disproportionately the goodnessof God, our striving to emulate this goodness to the extentthat we do apprehend it opens the door to the possibilityof mystical encounter.77

Nicholas's use of the via negativa can be elaborated onlyin the light of his doctrine of coincidentia oppositorum.Thisdoctrine is expressed in three alternative but equivalent for-mulas: (1) in God all opposites coincide;78 (2) God is above(prior to) all opposition;79 (3) God is beyond the coincidenceof opposites.80 Thus Nicholas can say that (1) in God not-being is everything which is possible to be,81 (2) God is be-yond (prior to) being and not-being,82 and (3) God is beyondthe coincidence of being and not-being. Similarly, in Godthere is no distinction between motion and rest; for maximalmotion (which God is) is indistinguishable from rest. Nicholas illustrates this point by means of the aforementionedmotion of a top. The faster the top spins, the more it seemsto be at rest. If it could spin with infinite velocity, it wouldbe at rest. But since God is both maximal and minimal mo-tion, He may be said to be more movable than any othermovable thing, as well as being said to be immovable andimmutable.85 For neither description informs us positivelyabout the unnameable and unknowable nature of God, whotranscends the distinction between motion and rest.

Likewise, God is beyond the distinction between activityand passivity,86 oneness and plurality,87 time and eternity.88

Though we call Him the "Eternal One,"this name is no moreadequate for signifying His nature than is the name "Being."For He exists so far beyond the opposition between time

22 Introduction

and eternity that the whole of what we call His eternity isat once present at every point of what we regard as time. 89

Because God is beyond all such conceptual and empiricaldistinctions, Nicholas goes beyond saying that we cannotform an adequate concept of Him, Instead, he says tout court:we cannot form a concept of Him. "For, assuredly, God isnot able to be conceived unless all that is able to be conceivedis actually conceived."90 And this conception is impossiblefor us to form. Sometimes Nicholas speaks, paradoxically,of the "inconceivable concept of God."91 But this is simplyhis way of saying that God infinitely exceeds every conceiv-able thing. Hence "the more an intellect understands the de-gree to which the concept of God is unformable, the greaterthis intellect is," states the Abbot in De Possest. And the dia-logue continues:

Cardinal: Your statement is correct, Abbot. And so,whoever supposes that he has apprehended God, knowsthat this [belief] results from the deficiency and meager-ness of his intellect.Bernard: Therefore, the one who knows that he is un-able to know is the more learned.Cardinal: All, even the most brilliant, will have to saythis.Bernard: When I consider that we are unable to con-ceive of any thing as it is able to be conceived, it isclear to me that God is not able to be conceived.92

Because we can have no concept of God, God is ineffable.93

But how is it intelligible for Nicholas to affirm that Godexists, if the concept of God is unformable? If God is incon-ceivable, ineffable, and unapprehendable intellectually, wecannot even know that He is one in nature. Nicholas goesbeyond the traditional Anselmian distinction between ap-prehending and comprehending God's nature. (This distinc-tion underlies Anselm's statement in Proslogion 15 to theeffect that God is something greater than can be conceived,i.e., than can be comprehended.) For Nicholas does not even

Introduction 23

allow that God's nature can be apprehended. Hence, to saythat God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, merciful,etc., is not to signify analogically some truth about God. In-deed, as we have seen, there is noton Nicholas's viewanyanalogy between the finite and the infinite. So the names ofGod's attributes are all names which are infinitely removedfrom the possibility of signifying God's being. The human in-tellect can, therefore, approach God only through likenesses,symbols, riddles, enigmas, mysteries in short, through aglass darkly.

Yet Nicholas does believe that some of these likenessesand symbols are more appropriate than others. And this be-lief suggests that in spite of his extreme language, he doesnot regard God as unqualifiedly inconceivable. For if he did,he would have no basis for distinguishing between appro-priate and inappropriate symbols. Moreover, he does claimthat God is (1) Actualized-possibility, (2) Being itself, (3)that than which a greater cannot be thought,94 (4) thatwhich is greater than can be thought,95 and (5) that in whichopposites coincide. And these claims are intelligible only inconjunction with the further claim that God is in some re-spect conceivable.

Assuredly, then, for Nicholas, there is a qualified sensein which we can form a concept of God, even though thereis also another sense in which we cannot. This latter sensewe have seen to be illustrated by his statement (in DePossest) that since God is actually every possibility, He isnot able to be conceived "unless all that is able to be con-ceived is actually conceived."96 If God is infinite possibility as Nicholas considers Him to be we can no more thinkeach of these infinite possibilities than we can enumeratethe infinite series of natural numbers. In this respect we can-not conceive of God as He is. Accordingly, when Nicholassays that God is ineffable, he means that He is ineffable inHimself.97 And when he says that God is not nameable, hemeans that no name from human discourse can conceivablybefit God's being.9 On the other hand, even though wecannot actually think an infinite number of possibilities, we

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24

can conceive of there being such an infinity (just as we canconceive of there being an infinity of natural numbers). IfGod is taken to be this infinite number of possibilities, thenin some respect we do conceive of Him in conceiving thatthe possibilities are infinite. That is, although we cannot con-struct a concept of God, we can state the rule for how it isto be constructed. There is a sense in which we may be saidto conceive of God by way of understanding the rule forconceiving of Him.

So Nicholas's point is becoming clearer. In saying that wecannot conceive of God because He is the actuality of infi-nite possibility, Nicholas means only that we have no positive(i.e., constructible) conception of God not that we have nonegative (i.e., unconstructible but rule-governed) conceptionof Him. Indeed, how could we conceive of Him positively?if to do so required conceiving of something which existsin a sense not opposed to not-existing, something which isalive in a sense not opposed to not being alive, somethingwhich is one in a sense not opposed to not being one, some-thing which is merciful in a sense not opposed to not beingmerciful, something which is sun in a sense not opposed tonot being sun, and so on. Though we can indeed conceivethat something call it God transcends these distinctions,we cannot conceive, positively, of what it is like for anythingto transcend them, of what it is like for anything to be God.Accordingly, we can conceive of God only in the sense ofconceiving that He is not finite; but we cannot in any fullersense conceive of what it is like for Him to be infinite. Sothis point is part of what Nicholas is expressing when herefers to God as negatively infinite. Finally, although Nicho-las holds that (positively speaking) God is humanly incon-ceivable, he neither says nor believes that God is inconceiv-able to Himself. On the contrary: only Actualized-possibilitycan conceive and comprehend Actualized-possibility."

Nicholas's point about Being itself is similar to his pointabout Actualized-possibility: viz., in calling God Being itselfwe are saying that He is neither a finite being nor like a finitebeingwithout, however, saying positively what He is.1

Introduction

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Introduction 25

Likewise, in saying that God is greater than can be conceived,we mean that He is unlike any known or conceivable finitething. So, according to Nicholas's theory, a negative concep-tion of an infinite being is not really deemed worthy of be-ing called a conception. And this is why he states that theconcept of God is unformable.

Nicholas's confusing statements about the inconceivabilityand unknowability of God have led some commentators toregard his views as incoherent.101 They reason as if alongthe following three lines:

First, if our conception of God is wholly negative asthe doctrine of acquired ignorance teaches then al-though we do have some conception of Him, we can-not veridically conceive of Him as this rather than that.Indeed, God will be conceived as transcending our un-derstanding of every distinction, even the distinctionbetween finitude and infinitude.102 And thus, even tosay that He is not finite will not be tantamount to say-ing "He is this rather than that." As a result, Nicholashas no basis for urging us to love and to worship God.For if we cannot conceive of what God isbut insteadcan conceive only that He is not any such characteris-tic as we can apprehendwe have no basis for eitherloving Him or hating Him, for either worshiping Himor defying Him.103 Second, if our conception of Godis wholly negative, there is no basis for regarding onesymbolism as more appropriate than another, sinceeach of the symbolisms will be "blind." Yet Nicholasteaches, inconsistently, that some symbolisms are bet-ter than others. Third, exclusive adherence to the vianegativa renders unintelligible Nicholas's doctrine that"all . . . names which ascribe infinity to God attemptto show by the method of supereminence His inappre-hensibility."104 The doctrine of supereminence impliesthat when we assert,for example, that God is not merci-ful, we mean that He is more than merciful in any senseof "merciful" which we can understand. But this state-

26 Introduction

ment will be unintelligible, as will the entire via super-eminentiae. For the via supereminentiae makes senseonly in connection with the doctrine of analogia entis.That is, apart from there being some proportionalitybetween God and man, no human being will be ableto conceive, at all accurately, of what it is like for Godto be more than humanly merciful. Thus, for somehuman beinga medieval monk, say to assert thatGod is more than merciful will be for him to assertwhat he cannot conceive at all accurately, i.e., for himto assert either what is unintelligible to him or elsewhat is totally misconceived by him. If for either ofthese reasons his concept of God as this rather thanthat is totally inadequate and is known to be totallyinadequate a knowledge which is possible, accordingto the doctrine of acquired ignorancethen he willknow that he cannot at all adequately conceive ofGod's attributes. This knowledge undermines the sup-posed legitimacy of the via supereminentiae.

On closer scrutiny, however, the foregoing charge of inco-herence does an injustice to Nicholas's reasoningif only byfailing to take account of its self-consciously paradoxical anddialectical character. On the one hand, as we have seen,Nicho-las asserts that God's nature cannot be known as it is in it-self.105 To find this assertion we need look no further than DePossest 10, where Bernard says: "Neither the name ["great-ness"] nor the fact [of greatness], nor any of the characteris-tics applicable to created magnitude are fittingly predicatedof God, since these are infinitely different from God. Andpresumably this [point] holds true not only for greatnessbut also for whatever is predicated truly of created things."On the other hand, Nicholas again and again refers to Godas endless, powerful, good, etc.; and he regards this practiceas more fitting than that of referring to Him as ending, power-less, evil, and so on. For example, on the basis of the beautyof created things he sanctions (in De Possest 10) speaking ofGod as beautifuleven though, presumably, he would notfind it appropriate, on the basis of the lack cf beauty of

Introduction 27

some created things, to speak of Him as ugly. Thus it is trueboth that some words whose meanings are drawn from hu-man experience are more fittingly predicated of God andthat no word whose meaning is drawn from human experi-ence is fittingly predicated of God. In short, the particularways in which we ought to conceive of God, if we are to betrue to the Christian tradition, are not ways in which God canbe truly conceived. This fact gives rise to Nicholas's para-doxical language. In De Possest an instance of this languageis found in the statement that God "reveals Himself in everycreature as the triune, most true, and most congruent Ex-emplarand as surpassing infinitely all sensible, imaginable,and intellectual knowledge which inheres in images."10 Buthow can God reveal Himself in every creature if He infinitelysurpasses all knowledge derived from images? How can the in-visible things of God for example, His eternity, power, anddivinitybe clearly seen on the basis of the created world107

if we see them only through a symbolism1 and if this sym-bolism is infinitely removed from signifying the nature ofGod as it is in itself? Or how can God be "understood in-comprehensibly"?as the title of De Docta Ignorantia I, 4indicates regarding Him.

In last analysis, Nicholas's predilection for paradoxicalexpression must not here mislead us, for his view is not, afterall, self-contradictory. Indeed, he consistently teaches thatthough God is unknowable and inconceivable per se, none-theless in relation to us it is fitting that He be conceived inaccordance with the words of Christ and the theological doc-trines derivable from themin short, as if His mercy, jus-tice, eternity, power, and so on, were analogous to our con-cepts of them. In the end, then, he must not be held to theliteralness of his statement in De Docta Ignorantia I, 26,which teaches that some propositions from negative theologyare truer than others. For what he means is that some ofthem are to be regarded as if they were truer than the othersor better, are to be regarded as truer to what the incarnateGod taught us about Himself. Thus, ultimately, Nicholas isleft in the theologically awkward position of maintaining

106

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28 Introduction

that Deus revelatus in no way resembles Deus absconditus.We may now be led to wonder about the justifiability of theword "revelatus." For would it not be more fully consistentto speak of God as presenting Himself, rather than as revealingHimself, to us?

IV

Insofar as God is Actualized-possibility, he is distinct fromevery other being (for these other beings are such that someof their possibilities are never actualized). Yet Nicholas alsodeclares that God is all things and that in God all things areGod.109 By this formula, however, he does not mean thatGod is identical with the sum total of objects which consti-tute the created world. (Indeed, as stated earlier, he managesto avoid pantheism.)110 As enfolded in God (complicata), allthings are God; but as unfolded in the created world (expli-cata), these very things are the world.111 For example, Godmay be said to be sun. But He is not the sensible sun whichwas created by (i.e., unfolded from) Him. He is rather a sunwhich is all that it can be. That is, He is a sun so great thatit cannot be greater, so small that it cannot be smaller, soeverywhere that it cannot be elsewhere in short, a sun whichis "all things, so that it is not able to be anything other thanit is."112 But if God is a sun which is all other things, whatsense does it make to call Him sun? In fact, Nicholas seemsto suggest that it does not matter what we call God as longas what we call Him is conceived to be all that it can be, i.e.,insofar as we remove its limitations. Thus God is not sun inso-far as sun is distinct from moon.113 Rather, He is sun insofaras sun is not distinct from moon, insofar as it is unqualifiedBeing itself.

Similarly, if in God all things are God, it is misleading tocontinue to refer to them plurally as all things; for in Godthere is said to be no composition.114 In God nothing isthought to remain individuated as itself.115 So when Nicho-las states that "in the Eternal God any given being is bothGod and all things,"116 he means that in God there is onlyGodundivided Oneness. And when all created things are

Introduction 29

said to emanate117 or unfold from God, Nicholas is express-ing the doctrine of creation ex nihilo.118 Before their crea-tion, created things exist only in God but in God only quaGod. Nicholas states explicitly that "God's creative power isnot exhausted in His creation."119 This statement means thatthere are possibilities for created things which will never berealized in created things. Nonetheless, in God these very pos-sibilities are actualized, since God is the actualization of allpossibility. However, as actualized in God these possibilitiesare God; for they are indistinguishable from His omnipotence,which is indistinguishable from His essence. So Nicholas'slanguagepresented in the (partly Pseudo-Dionysian) formulathat "in all things He is all things, in nothing He is nothing,and in Him all things and nothing are Himself" is radicallymisleading. For the way in which, in God, all things are Godmakes it almost unintelligible to keep referring to them, inthe plural, as all things; and yet Nicholas retains the pluralreference when he claims that these things exist actually inGod. (To say that they exist actually in God has the soundof suggesting that they exist as their finite selves in God something which Nicholas, in fact, denies.) Moreover, itseems paradoxical to affirm both that in God all things areGod and, at the same time, that all predicates derived fromhuman experience are to be denied of God.120 Is it, indeed,coherent to assert (1) that all possible things are actual inGod, (2) that God is, actually, all possible things, and (3)that God is no one of these things? Well, these statementscan be made coherent provided 3 is construed as meaningthat God is no one of these things without being all theothers as well, so that no one name or predicate expressesHis nature. (And this, after all, is Nicholas's thesis.) Still, weare left with the problem posed by the language of plurality.

A final gloss is perhaps required. When Nicholas maintainsthat God is the actualization of all possibilities, he means thatGod is actually everything which any thing can possibly be.He does not mean that God is everything which is expressibleby completing the proposition "It is possible that. . . ."For example, it would not accord with his theory to assert

30 Introduction

that since it is possible that it will rain tomorrow at 3:00 PM.,God is the possibility that it will rain tomorrow at 3 :00 PM.Nonetheless, he would assent to the statement that God is arain drop, in the sense that He is every thing which a rain dropis able to be. (This claim corresponds to his claim that Godis sun, moon, etc., in the qualified sense indicated earlier inthis section.)

So, at times, Nicholas's theories seem more paradoxicalthan they are, even though at other times they are moreparadoxical than they seem.

VIn terms of the history of science many of Nicholas's viewsabout the earth and the universe have been thought to be ofspecial importance. Some of these views, e.g., that there maywell be life on other planets, are easily graspable. Others,e.g., the view that the universe is privatively infinite, aremore difficult to interpret. Nicholas is one of the first tomaintain that the earth is in motion, though he is not clearabout what kind of motion this is. In De Docta Ignorantia II,12 he calls it circularthough not perfectly circularmotion.In the judgment of Koyre "it is neither the daily rotation[of the earth] around its axis, nor the annual revolutionaround the sun, but a kind of loose orbital gyration arounda vaguely determined and constantly shifting center."121 In-deed, the earth is said to have no center, i.e., no exact center.For since the earth is not a perfect sphere, there cannot befound an exact point equidistant from every point on thecircumference. Likewise, the heavens have no fixed poles;and the sphere of fixed stars moves.122 The universe, or worldwhich comprises everything except Godis itself withouta center. Not even the earth is to be regarded as its center,though it seems to us more central than the other planets.123

It would be an exaggeration to claim, in any serious sense,that Nicholas's theory about the earth's movement antici-pates Copernicus's.124 (For Nicholas's view is stated vaguelyand without detail, rather than systematically and fully;moreover, it is a part of an abstruse metaphysic rather than

Introduction 31

of an empirical scientific theory.) But it would be an outrightmistake to claim that his view of the infinite universe antici-pates Bruno's. (For, in last analysis, Nicholas's universe isfinite.)125 Regarding the universe, Nicholas makes a numberof statements, which, on the surface, appear contradictory:(1) that the universe is (privatively) infinite;126 (2) that theuniverse is neither finite nor infinite;127 (3) that the infinityof the universe is limited by finitude.128 These statementsare reconciled in the following way: God is unlimited in thesense that He is the actualization of all possibility, and thenumber of possibilities is infinite.129 This infinity Nicholascalls negative infinity; and he ascribes it exclusively to God.Accordingly, God is said to be the enfolding not only of allthings which at some time come to exist in the universe butalso of all not-existing-but-possibly-existing things of theuniverse.130 The universe itself cannot be infinite in thissense, for it is never all that it can belet alone all that canpossibly be.

When the universe is said to be privatively infinite, or alimited infinity, or neither finite nor infinite, all these expres-sions are intended tobe interchangeable. They all indicate thatthe universe is not limited in space by anything physically out-side its dimensions. (Sometimes Nicholas expresses this point(1) misleadingly, by saying that the universe has no circum-ference, or (2) "nonsensically," by suggesting that God is thecircumference of the universe.)1 1 In this sense, somethingspatial is deemed to be limited only if it is limited by someother spatial thing. But the universe is composed of whateverspatial objects there are. Hence there is not any thing externalto it which fixes its bounds. Accordingly, it is unlimited byanything else. (This kind of unlimitedness is what Nicholashas in mind when he calls the universe infinitum privative.)1 2On the other hand, the universe is not infinite in extent;and so, it is limited with respect to itself. (This limitednessis what he has in mind when he calls the universe infinitascontracta.) In short, the universe is finite but (externally) un-bounded. In being unbounded it is unlike every other finitething, i.e., it is unlike every object within the universe.

32 Introduction

In one respect, then, the universe is a maximum: viz., con-sidered in itself it cannot be greater than it is. Nicholas's ar-gument for this conclusion is bizarre:

The universe cannot be greater than it is. This resultsfrom a lack. For possibility or matter does not extendbeyond itself. For to say that the universe is able al-ways to be actually greater is the same as saying thatpossible being passes over into actually infinite being.But this latter [occurrence] is impossible. For infiniteactualitywhich is absolute eternity and which is theactualized possibility-of-existing of everythingcan-not originate from possibility.133 Therefore, with re-spect to God's infinite power, which isunlimitable, theuniverse is able to be greater; nevertheless, because thepossibility-of-existing or matter, which is not actuallyextendable unto infinity, opposes, the universe is notable to be greater. And so, the universe is unlimited,since it is not the case that something greater thanthe universesomething in relation to which the uni-verse is limitedis actually positable. And hence theuniverse is privatively infinite.1

Here Nicholas should not, tout simplement, identify matterwith possibility. For the universe is not merely matter: it isformed matter. And there is no a priori reason whywherethere is already motionformed matter cannot extend itselffarther and farther, though never actually extending ad in-finitum. Nicholas seems to regard planetary motion and themotion of the sidereal sphere as motion of fixed orbit, eventhough it be imperfectly circular motion. Yet whatever em-pirical reason he might suppose he has for denying that theuniverse expands, the a priori reason he presents is, by itself,insufficient to warrant his inference about a greater greatnessof the universe.135

VI

Nicholas's teaching on universals has long been the sub-ject of controversy. In De Docta Ignorantia II, 6 he writes:

134

Introduction 33

Universals do not exist actually, except in a contractedmanner. Indeed, in this respect the Peripatetics speakthe truth [when they say] that universals have no ac-tual existence apart from things. For only what is par-ticular exists actually. In the particular, universals are in a contracted manner the particular. Nevertheless,in the order of nature universals have a certain universalbeing which can be contracted through a particular.Before their contraction they have actual existence,in the natural order, only as a contractible universalwhich exists not in itself but in that which is actual.(By comparison, a point, a line, and a surface precede in this order of progression the object in whichthey exist only actually.) For because the universeexists actually only in a contracted way, so all univer-sals [exist actually only in a contracted way]. Univer-sals are not merely rational entities, even though theyhave no actual existence apart from particulars. Bycomparison, even though both a line and a surface donot exist apart from a material object, they are notthereby merely rational entities; for they are presentin a material object, just as universals are present inparticulars. Nevertheless, by means of abstracting, theintellect brings it about that universals exist apart fromthings. To be sure, the abstraction is a rational entity,since absolute being cannot befit universals. For thealtogether absolute universal is God.136

Many interpreters137 have taken this passage as endorsingwhat has been called moderate, or Aristotelian, realism. Inthis light, they also tend to construe the following statementfrom De Docta Ignorantia I I I , 1 as advancing the theory thatuniversals have extramental reality even though they do notexist separately from particulars: "Non autem subsistuntgenera nisi contracte in speciebus, neque species nisi in in-dividuis quae solum actu exsistunt": "Genera exist only inspecies and only as contracted; and species exist only in in-dividuals, which alone exist actually." However, Josef Kochappears to believe that in De Coniecturis Nicholas criticizes

34 Introduction

these realistic tendencies and moves closer to a version ofnominalism.138 Yet Koch does not offer us any details aboutthis quasi-nominalism. Moreover, inD^ Coniecturis Nicholashimself does not deal systematically with the question of theontological status of universals. In fact, even Koch must re-sort to an argument from silence: Nicholas, it seems clear toKoch, here criticizes himself "indem er die game Konzeptionstillschweigend aufgibt": "by silently giving up the wholeconception."139 But, of course, such an appeal to silence doesnot really serve to show that Nicholas did indeed abandonhis earlier position.

In the absence of any explicit or implied subsequent re-nunciation, by Nicholas, of his doctrine in De Docta Ignoran-tia, we are justified in believing that he is something of an"Aristotelian realist." Nonetheless, this label will be mislead-ing if it leads us to overlook such non-Aristotelian statementsas: (1) "God is the altogether absolute universal"1 and (2)"Only the particular exists actually; in it, and qua contracted,universals are the particular." Now, God is the AbsoluteUniversal in the sense that He is present in all things. Wehave already seen that (according to Nicholas) "God is notin the sun sun and in the moon moon but is that which issun and moon without plurality and diversity."142 Accord-ingly, God is both universal being and universal form. (Infact, Nicholas calls Him the universal Form-of-being.)143 Inthis respect, God's absolute universality differs from the be-ing of universals. For Nicholas teaches that whereas in thesun God is not the sun, the universals in any particular arethat particular; for example, in Socrates humanity is Socrates,and in Plato it is Plato; yet, in itself, humanity is neitherSocrates nor Plato. But humanity does not actually existin itself but exists only in Socrates, Plato, and all other hu-man beings. In another sense, humanity which is a form exists also in God. For God is the Exemplar of human be-ings, i.e., is human being per se.145 For He is the Form-of-all-forms, in which every form exists more truly than it does

146in matter.

140

141

144

Introduction 35

Finally, Nicholas teaches that the intellect abstracts fromthe individuated universal i.e., from the set of objectivesimilarities which characterize particulars of the same speciesin order to form a universal concept. These concepts arethen said to resemble the individuated universal; and on thebasis of this resemblance we are said to be able to know par-ticular objects.1 7 In the intellect universals are the intel-lect,148 just as in a material object they are that material ob-ject and in God they are God. As Nicholas puts it:

In a stone all is stone, in a vegetative soul all is vege-tative soul, in life all is life, in sensibility all is sensi-bility, in sight all is sight, in hearing all is hearing, inimagination all is imagination, in reason all is reason,in understanding all is understanding, in God all isGod.149

So Nicholas does not mean that one cannot distinguish auniversal concept from the intellect in which it is present.Rather, he means that in the intellect the concept has intel-lectual beingjust as (1) in Socrates humanity has Socraticbeing and (2) in God the form of human beings has divinebeing. However, in the case of God, whom we conceive tobe without composition: to say that an exemplar has divinebeing is tantamount to saying that it is identical with thedivine essence and is "not really" distinguishable therefrom.By contrast, humanity in Socrates is "really" distinguishablefrom Socrates. For Socrates has humanitywithout being hu-manity itself. So when Nicholas says "In Socrates humanityis Socrates," this is not a straightforward statement of iden-tity. For it does not commit him to claiming either thathumanity is Socrates or that Socrates is humanity but com-mits him to claiming only that Socrates is human i.e., hashumanity. It is important to emphasize that Nicholas doesnot say that humanity is Socrates. Rather, he says that inSocrates humanity is Socrates. But for him to say this is notfor him to say very much. For he seems to regard it as a truismthat whatever is in Socrates is, qua in Socrates, Socrates.

36 Introduction

Nicholas's statements about universals are, on the whole,distressingly imprecise. He makes no important contributionto either the articulation or the solution of the philosophicalpuzzle. The same sort of imprecision accompanies his discus-sion of such other topics as the relation between whole andpart. We are told that although the hand is not actually theeye, in the eye the hand is the eye.150 Nicholas supports thisperplexing claim by reasoning that the eye is immediately inthe man (in homine) and that the whole of the man is in eachof his members.Thus the hand-qua-part-of-the-whole is in theeye, even though in the eye it is no longer hand-qua-hand.Ironically, Nicholas thinks of himself as having seen moreclearly than Anaxagoras the depth of the truth that "Every-thing is everything."151

The doctrine of quodlibet in quolibet is, in fact, closelyassociated with the view about the relationship between Godand the universe. According to this view, the universe asunfolded from God is a contracted, or restricted maximum.That is, it is a "finite maximum" in the sense that it is "priva-tively infinite." Nicholas now resorts to a comparison: as Godis in the universe, so the universe is in each given thing.15(Moreover, on the basis of the fact that God is the actualityof all things, the universe is said to be in God; and becauseGod is in the universe, which is in each given thing, God issaid to be in each given thing.)15 The universe is in each indi-vidual thing because each individual thing is a contraction, orparticularization, of the entire universe.154 "Just as humanityis neither Socrates nor Plato but in Socrates is Socrates and inPlato is Plato, so is the universe in relation to all things."155

That is, "although the universe is neither the sun nor themoon," for example, "nevertheless in the sun it is the sun,and in the moon it is the moon."156 The doctrine that theuniverse i.e., every existing thing except for God is in thesun, and in the sun is the sun, is reminiscent of the doctrinethat the hand is in the eye, and in the eye is the eye. Unfor-tunately, Nicholas is unsuccessful in rendering either of thesedoctrines philosophically intelligible.

De Possest improves upon De Docta Ignorantia by omit-

152

153

Introduction 37

ting such topics as the immediately foregoing. In a sense, DePossest is a more pedagogical work. For in developing thesingle theme that God is Possest, it thereby also unfolds theother major philosophical themes of De Docta Ignorantia without, however, digressing to those philosophical issueswith which De Docta Ignorantia does not deal adequately.

A final clarification is now necessary. Nicholas is some-times interpreted as teaching that just as each thing in theuniverse is a contraction of the universe, so the universe isthe contraction of God. Frederick Copleston, for instance,tells us that "in phrases which recall to mind the doctrine ofJohn Scotus Erigena Nicholas explains that the world is atheophany;a 'contraction'of the divine being."157 Coplestonbases this interpretation upon De Docta Ignorantia II, 4(116:17-19): "Est enim dens quiditas absoluta mundi seuuniversi. Universum vero est ipsa quiditas contracta" a pas-sage which he understands to mean "that God is the absoluteessence of the world or universe, and that the universe is thatvery essence in a state of 'contraction.' "158 But, in fact, theexpression "absolute essence in a state of contraction" wouldbe self-contradictory, as Nicholas uses these terms: absoluteessence is never in a state of contraction; and a contractedessence can neither be, nor become, absolute. When we lookat the entire Latin text of II, 4 we see that "ipsa quiditas"in the foregoing passage is not a substitute for "absolutaquiditas" i.e., Nicholas is not saying "absoluta quiditascontracta."

In the context of II, 4 a more accurate translation wouldbe: "For God is the Absolute Quiddity of the world, oruniverse. But the universe is contracted quiddity."159 No-where does Nicholas teach that the universe is the contrac-tion of God. Although God is maximum absolutum and theuniverse is a maximum contractum, nevertheless maximumcontractum is not maximum absolutum contractum. Simi-larly, although God is the quidditas absoluta of the worldand although omne actu exsistens in deo est, quia ipse actusomnium,160 the world is not deus contractus, notcontractio

38 Introduction

del. As we saw earlier, however, Nicholas does sometimesrefer to man as "a human God," just as he also refers to Godas created.161 But in last analysis, even though the universeis unfolded from God, it is not God unfolded; it is the image(or appearance) of God, not the contracted essence of God(even though God is the absolute essence of the universe).In still other words: the universe is not the contracted beingof God but is the contracted reflection (resplendentia) ofGod's being. This distinction is crucial. For the reflection ofGod's being is not God's beingwhether contractedly orotherwise. Thus the problem Nicholas is left with is not theproblem of pantheism; rather, it is that of rendering com-patible the claim that the universe is imago, apparitio, resplen-dentia dei and the claim that nulla proportio inter infinitumet finitum cadit. His attempted solution, we have seen, reliesheavily upon the notion of videre aenigmatice et symbolice.

VIISince every individual thing is to a greater or a lesser degreea contraction of the universe: the question arises, Is some in-dividual thing the most perfect contraction of the universe?Nicholas regards human nature as elevated above all the worksof God and as slightly lower than the angels.1 2 If elevatedinto a union with the Absolute Maximum, human naturewill become the fullness-of-perfection for each and everything.163 This union of the human and the divine constitutesthe God-man, who is both absolute and contracted,1 with-out being a contraction of the Absolute. Since the God-man,viz., Christ, is complete fullness: if we possess Him throughfaith, we possess all things.165 Thus we are justified notthrough ourselves but through faith in Christ. Nicholas con-joins with his notion of justification by faith a modifiedAnselmian theory of atonement,1 in accordance with whichthe God-man is said to make satisfaction for man's sin.

Since human nature is a microcosm of creation: in anyhuman being's turning toward God creation itself can be saidto return to God, from whom it emanated. Yet this return is

164

166

Introduction 39

most complete with regard to that human being who is theperfectio universi. For in Christ the finite and the infinitecome together in the same person, so that in this person Godand the perfection of the universe are one. As Cassirer notes,this idea has at times "been so little understood that the at-tempt has been made to sever it from the whole of Cusanus'philosophy, considering it an arbitrary 'theological' appendixrooted in a purely dogmatic interest. But excisions of this sort. . . cannot be made in Cusanus' doctrine without tearingapart its whole inner constitution, without destroying itscharacteristic intellectual structure."1 7

Similarly, the philosophical ramifications of the thesisthat God is Possest cannot be separated from the theologicaldoctrine of the Trinity. For, according to Nicholas, the Fatheris Possibility, the Son is Actuality, and the Holy Spirit is theUnion of both. And just as there cannot be Absolute Possi-bility without Absolute Actuality, so there is always theUnion of the two. In speaking of God as both trine and one,however, Nicholas does not mean to imply that He is numeri-cally one or numerically three:

The First Beginning is triune-prior-to-all-number. Andif you cannot conceive of the fact that it is prior tonumber, the reason is that your intellect conceives ofnothing without a number. Nevertheless, your intellectsees that that-which-it-cannot-conceive cannot be de-nied beyond conception; and it believes [what it can-not conceive].Therefore, just as [it believes] that Godis great without a combination of quantities, so [itbelieves] that He is three without number or discretequantity. And just as it believes that God is great andascribes magnitude to Him, so it believes that He isthree and ascribes number to Him.168

In De Li Non Aliud 5 Nicholas speaks of the threeness of Godin still other terms: viz., Unity, Equality, and Union. He evengoes so far as to intimate that these names are "more pre-cise" than the Scriptural names "Father," "Son," and "HolySpirit."169 Still, none of them disclose to us, as He is, theUnnameable God.

40 Introduction

So in spite of all his interest in mathematics and metaphys-ics, Nicholas can still consider philosophy to be the hand-maiden of theology, as the conclusion of De Possest testifies:

Unless by His own light He expels the darkness and re-veals Himself, He remains completely unknown to allwho seek Him by way of reason and intellect. But Hedoes not abandon those who seek Him in deepest faith,surest hope, and the most fervent possible desirei.e.,[those who seek Him] by that way which we weretaught by our only master, Christ, the Son of God, theliving way, the sole revealer of His own father (who isour omnipotent Creator). Therefore, all the statementswe have made aim only at [making] us understandthat our Creator surpasses all understanding. The visionof His countenance (a vision which alone brings hap-piness) is promised to us believers by the Son of God,who is Truth itselfprovided that by following Himwe hold to the way which has been disclosed to us byword and deed.

In the Cusanian scheme, our acquaintance with God comesnot through intellectualizing and philosophizing but throughthe revelation of Christ. Nicholas is persuaded that this reve-lation will occur in the future vision-of-Christ, which ispromised to all believers. But he is equally persuaded that,in part, it has already occurred in the event of incarnation an event recorded in Scripture so that, like the disciples, wetoo might behold the viam nobis verbo et facto patefactam.Now, theology rather than philosophy draws its doctrinesfrom what it regards as revelation. In the name of theologyNicholas feels the need to make plausible these doctrines,e.g., the doctrine of the Trinity, by providing mathematicaland linguistic illustrations. In turn, some of the same illustra-tions serve to elucidate, philosophically, the relation betweenactual being and possible being, motion and rest, time andeternity, abstract form and form-in-matter. Thus the exampleof the top enlightens us not only regarding the statementsof the theologians (to wit, that "God is more movable than

Introduction 41

any other movable thing," etc.)170 but also regarding thestatements of the cosmologists (e.g., that "the heavens aremoved by a forward motion from east to west and at thesame time by a reverse motion from west to east").171 Simi-larly, the symbolism of possest instructs us not only aboutthe all-powerful Beginning (viz., God)172 but also about thenature of physical motion.173

ConclusionWe now see that Nicholas's distinctive contribution to thehistory of western philosophy arises from the inimitable wayin which he blends the theological, ontological, cosmological,and mathematical all in the service of devotio Christi. Hav-ing rejected the disciplined method of the Scholastics, hegives himself over to the spirit of speculation. His via specu-lativa is not always a via intelligibilis. But believing, as hedoes, that there is no proportion between the finite and theinfinite, he is intent upon maintaining that the nature of In-finite Being is philosophically unknowable. This position canbest be appreciated, if at all, by contrasting it with Spinoza'sopposing verdict that God is knowable only philosophically.

In breaking away from William of Ockham and the viamoderna generally, Nicholas becomes a forerunner of thedialectical tendencies in later German philosophy. His pen-chant for paradoxical expression parallels his insistence up-on the religious need for mystical vision, in which the prin-ciple of noncontradiction becomes transcended. Those por-tions of his philosophy which border upon metaphor oftenaim to excite the imagination, so that it may more readilysoar beyond the confines of mere sensory reproduction. Todivorce his philosophy from its religious context is necessarilyto distort it. Fo