Religion and Ideology in the Young Agrippa: Notes on the Intellectual Vocation
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Abstract
The reform of culture promoted by Cornelius Agrippa requires a rearrangement of the traditional theological thinking. By recovering the prisca theologia, Cornelius Agrippa intends to free the exegesis of the Scriptures from Scholastic philosophy, guilty of corrupting the meaning of the Word of God through an unruly use of the human reason at the expense of faith. Rethinking the approach to the Bible also means redefining the concept of theology: since it constitutes an investigation into the divine word, theology must abandon dialectical disputes in order to become a way of life characterized by virtue and integrity of faith in Christ. Agrippa’s goal is to show on one hand the ineptitude of the Scholastic theologians on the other to claim for the lay thinker the freedom to interpret the sources of true wisdom.
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