Scribd
Upload
31 views2 pages

Religious Epistemology of Agnès Arnauld (1593-1671)

Uploaded by

weham39504
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
31 views2 pages

Religious Epistemology of Agnès Arnauld (1593-1671)

Uploaded by

weham39504
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists

Paderborn University, Germany

Religious Epistemology of Agnès Arnauld


(1593–1671)
John J. Conley
Loyola University of Maryland

An abbess of the Jansenist convent at Port-Royal, Agnès Arnauld developed an apophatic


philosophy of the divine attributes in her writings, especially in her controversial Private
Chaplet. (Apophatic theology stresses the transcendence and unknowability of God.)
Privileged negative attributes of God include inaccessibility, incomprehensibility,
illimitability, and incommunicability. Authentic knowledge of God, recognizing the finitude
of the human mind, underscores the unfathomable chasm between the perfect Creator
and the all too imperfect creature. Even the traditional positive attributes of God are given
an apophatic interpretation by the abbess. God’s holiness, for example, is manifest in a
radical otherness from the sinful humanity that attempts to approach God. The noetic
agent does not arrive at the affirmation of these negative divine attributes through logical
reflection. This illumination emerges as the fruit of contemplative adoration before the
mystery of God, wherein the human self and its inadequate images of God undergo a
spiritual annihilation.

Primary Sources:

Arnauld, Agnès 1718. Avis donnés par la Mère Cathérine Agnès de Saint-Paul, Sur la
conduite que les religieuses doivent garder, au cas qu’ill arrivât du changement
dans le government de sa maison. N.p.

Arnauld, Agnès 1665. L’image d’une religieuse parfaite et d’une imparfaite, avec les
occupations intérieures pour toute la journée. Paris: Charles Savreux.

Arnauld, Agnès 1858. Lettres de la Mère Agnès Arnauld, abbesse de Port-Royal, ed.
Prosper Faugère [and Rachel Gillet], 2 vols. Paris: Benjamin Duprat.

https://hwps.de/ecc/
1/2
Secondary Sources:

Armogathe, Robert 1990. “Le chapelet secret de Mère Agnès Arnauld,” in XVIIe siècle no.
170, 77-86.

Bugnion-Secrétan, Perle 1996. Mère Agnès Arnauld, 1593–1672; Abbesse de Port-Royal.


Paris: Cerf.

Carr Thomas M. 2006. La Voix des abbesses du Grand Siècle: Le prédication au féminin à
Port-Royal. Tübingen: Narr.

Conley, John J. 2009. Adoration and Annihilation: The Convent Philosophy of Port-Royal.
Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 113–174.

Conley, John J. Arnauld, Agnès (1593–1671), in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,


http://www.iep.utm.edu/arnauld/ [23|10|2018].

Mesnard, Jean 1994. Mère Agnès femme d’action, in Chroniques de Port-Royal 43, 57–80.

Key Words:

adoration, annihilation, apophaticism, divine attributes, negative theology

https://hwps.de/ecc/
2/2

You might also like