Nicholas of Cusa

Abstract

Nicholas of Cusa was born in Kues (Germany) in 1401 and died in 1464 in Todi (Italy); he studied canon law and pursued a career in the Church, eventually becoming Cardinal. In his philosophical work he covered philosophical theology, mathematical theory, mysticism, philosophical anthropology, and philosophy of religion. His philosophical theology shifted the perspective from dogmatic approaches to epistemology so that the quest for knowing God was rephrased as the problem of consciously knowing that the transcendent is unknowable. For this he developed the concept of coincidence of opposites that occurs on the level of the absolute and of the minimal. This insight is exercised in and illustrated by mathematical studies, most prominently the squaring of circles. At this juncture, mathematics meets mysticism, since both address the dependence of the finite from the absolute. Mysticism, however, was for Cusanus always also a pastoral effort communicated to ordinary believers. Mystical experience opens the anthropological idea that aiming for the supernatural is essential to being human and prefigured in the dual nature of Christ. One foundation of Nicholas’ thinking is the mutual implication of oneness and diversity (as implied in the idea of coincidence); applying this to the question of diversity of religions he suggests that all of them, including Islam, compete with one another in worshipping one and the same God so that religious war is a contradiction in terms. Cusanus was received as a model of rational mysticism but also as the first modern philosopher to emphasize the power of the human mind.