Coleridge, Philosophy and Religion: Aids to Reflection and the Mirror of the Spirit

✍ Scribed by Douglas Hedley

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 346
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Coleridge's relation to his German contemporaries constitutes the toughest problem in assessing his standing as a thinker. For the last half-century this relationship has been described, ultimately, as parasitic. As a result, Coleridge's contribution to religious thought has been seen primarily in terms of his poetic genius. This book revives and deepens the evaluation of Coleridge as a philosophical theologian in his own right. Coleridge had a critical and creative relation to, and kinship with, German Idealism. Moreover, the principal impulse behind his engagement with that philosophy is traced to the more immediate context of English Unitarian-Trinitarian controversy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book re-establishes Coleridge as a philosopher of religion and as a vital source for contemporary theological reflection.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover......Page 1
Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Contents......Page 9
Acknowledgements......Page 11
Abbreviations......Page 13
Notes on the text......Page 15
Prologue: explaining Coleridge's explanation......Page 17
CHAPTER 1 The true philosopher is the lover of God: Coleridge's spiritual philosophy of religion......Page 34
A SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY......Page 37
THE REVIVAL OF NATURAL THEOLOGY......Page 45
PLATONISM......Page 49
THE PLATONIC TRINITY......Page 52
GERMAN IDEALISM AND THE PLATONIC TRADITION......Page 56
PALEY, LOCKE AND SOCIANIANISM......Page 61
PRIESTLEY, UNITARIANISM AND PLATONIC IDEALISM......Page 65
SUPREME BEING AND SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS......Page 81
'I AM WHO I AM'......Page 91
CHAPTER 2 Inner word: reflection as meditation......Page 104
APHORISM......Page 105
MEDITATION AND AWAKENING: SPIRITUAL EXERCISES......Page 109
REFLECTION, RECOLLECTION AND RESTLESSNESS......Page 118
COMMENT......Page 120
THE SOUL AS THE MIRROR OF THE DIVINE......Page 125
THE ASCENT OF THE MIND AND THE INNER WORD......Page 132
THE COMMUNICATION OF TRUTH AND BIBLICAL SYMBOLS......Page 143
THE PHILOSOPHIC AND THE BELOVED APOSTLE......Page 152
REFLECTION AND RATIONAL DISCRIMINATION......Page 161
3 The image of God: reflection as imitating the divine spirit......Page 169
PRUDENCE......Page 171
SENSIBILITY......Page 174
THE TWO WORLDS......Page 178
'KNOW THYSELF!'......Page 185
SPIRITUAL AIDS......Page 197
AUTONOMY AND THE EUTHYPHRO DILEMMA......Page 205
CHAPTER 4 God is truth: the faculty of reflection or human Understanding in relation to the divine Reason......Page 209
THE FAITH OF SCIENCE......Page 219
REASON AND REFLECTION......Page 231
NOTIONAL SPECULATION......Page 239
5 The great instauration: reflection as the renewal of the soul......Page 245
ROBERT LEIGHTON AND DYING TO SELF......Page 260
ORIGINAL SIN......Page 264
BAPTISM AND SPIRITUAL RENEWAL......Page 279
HUME, GIBBON, AND THE BASIS OF 'ENLIGHTENMENT'......Page 282
COLERIDGE'S PHILOSOPHICAL MYSTICISM......Page 295
COLERIDGE AND ANGLO–SAXON VICTORIAN IDEALISM......Page 302
COLERIDGE AND TWENTIETH CENTURY RELIGIOUS THOUGHT......Page 307
PRIMARY SOURCES......Page 317
SECONDARY SOURCES......Page 324
REFERENCE SOURCES......Page 343
Index......Page 344