Nathaniel Culverwell

Nathaniel Culverwell or Culverwel (* 1619 in Middlesex ; † 1651 ) was a British philosopher and theologian. He is often counted among the Cambridge Platonists , but it is disputed whether he actually belonged to this direction, because he only partially shared their convictions.

Life

Culverwell was the son of a pastor. He studied in Cambridge at Emmanuel College , where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1636 . The college was a stronghold of Calvinist (Puritan) thought in Cambridge and was appropriately promoted in the 1640s by the Republicans whose troops had captured Cambridge in the English Civil War . At the same time it was the main center of the Cambridge Platonists, who were critical of the Puritan teachings. Some of them - Benjamin Whichcote , Ralph Cudworth, and John Smith - were colleagues with Culverwell at Emmanuel College. There is no evidence, however, that he was a direct student of Whichcote. Culverwell became a fellow of Emmanuel College in 1642 .

Teaching

Culverwell's work An elegant and learned discourse of the light of nature was not published until after his death in 1652. In it, he represents the compatibility of reason and religion, a position that was up for discussion in the violent religious disputes of the time. He emphasizes freedom of will and reason as a gift from God, which makes it possible to understand the divine will formulated by God in the laws of nature. His leitmotif was Proverbs 20, 27: "The understanding of man is the candle of the Lord" ("The lamp of the Lord is the spirit of man"), which is also indicated by the title of his book. He is primarily concerned with unchangeable moral principles accessible to reason, which makes him an early representative of natural law in England. He is influenced by Thomas Aquinas , Francis Bacon , Hugo Grotius (De jure belli ac pacis) , John Selden (De jure naturali) and Francisco Suárez (De legibus, ac Deo legislatore) . His book arose from lectures and sermons at Emmanuel College in 1645/46. It was edited by William Dillingham, who dedicated it to the Fellows of Emmanuel College and the college's then Masters, Anthony Tuckney.

output

• Nathaniel Culverwell: An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature , ed. by Robert A. Greene, Hugh MacCallum, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis 2001 ( online )

literature

Overview representations

• Frederick Beiser: Culverwell, Nathaniel. In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Vol. 2, Routledge, London / New York 1998, ISBN 0415-18707-9 , pp. 750-752
• Sarah Hutton : Culverwell, Nathaniel. In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , Vol. 14, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861364-4 , pp. 612-613

Investigations

• Stephen L. Darwall: The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought' 1640-1740. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003 (first published 1995), ISBN 0-521-45167-1 , pp. 23-52
• Stefan Weyer: The Cambridge Platonists. Religion and Liberty in England in the 17th Century. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1993, ISBN 3-631-45684-0 , pp. 133-135